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When Artwork becomes a meme

Meme culture has made media content increasingly spreadable. Now, this would be great for Content Creators if there wasn’t one glaring issue.

That being that the original creators of this “memeable” content often go unnoticed.

One example of artwork becoming a meme is the piece called “Master’s Blessing” by a Deviant Artist named MorkarDFC

This piece was originally made in 2016. In 2018 it suddenly became a massive hit in the meme community. The only problem was that the internet didn’t credit and therefore appropriated his artwork.

In the current state of world, quarantining is mandatory. So what does this mean for activism?

Slacktivism or Activism?

Ever since COVID reared its ugly head, it has made most forms of traditional activism ( example: protesting or organizing)

too dangerous to take part in. So instead this leaves many being forced to use online activism or Slacktivism instead.

What is Slacktivism/Online Activism?

Slacktivism is an online form of activism that engages in symbolic displays of support for a movement or cause. One example of Slacktivism could be social media users turning their profile pictures red for Kashmir. Online activism is often looked down upon because it doesn’t result in much change. However, it also has the ability to bring more attention to a cause. So, it has its own cons and pros.

Examples of Online Activism during the Corona Virus out break

Recently, it has been revealed that the true creator of the popular  Renegade dance is Jalaiah Harmon, a 14 year old dance artist from Atlanta. The Renegade first became popular through the famous Tick Tock artist, Charli D’Amelio. However, Jalaiah was didn’t gain any social capital from this until recently. So the question is, why was Charli D’Amelio able to reap all of the success from the Renegade but Jalaiah Harmon wasn’t?

So what is Social Capital?

According to Lecture 4 of our Going Viral class, Social Capital is the popularity a person gets when sharing information that is either useful or entertaining to a viewer. However, those who get the most social capital are people who are already influential. The perfect example of someone who is very influential in online dance culture is Charli D’Amelio. Before D’Amelio made the renegade dance popular she was an incredibly popular Tik Tok artist with over 22 million subscribers. In comparison, Jalaiah Harmon only had 20,000 followers on Instagram and 1,700 followers on Funimate. Jalaiah’s social influence at the time couldn’t compete with D’Amelio’s, so she had no way to get everyone’s attention and tell them that this was HER dance.

Another important note, is the fact that Jalaiah Harmon originally posted the Renegade on an app called Funimate. According to the New York Time’s article, Meet the Original Renegade Dance Creator: Jalaiah Harmon, Dubsmash is a dancing app that many smaller creators like Jalaiah use in order choreograph songs they love. However, Dubsmash isn’t as popular as Tik Tok even though many popular dances originate there.

According to The Participatory Culture reading, Participatory Culture can be defined as; a culture that is very easy for novice artists to get into and is very encouraging to those said artists.

However, Participatory Culture isn’t always beneficial.

With Jalaiah’s she has suffered from what is known as the Participation Gap. According to Lecture 5, the Participation gap occurs when one doesn’t have equal access to opportunities, skills, experiences or knowledge.

However, Jalaiah has enough experience, knowledge and skills since she was the one who created that incredibly complicated dance. What Jalaiah lacks was the opportunities that D’Amelio had. Even though D’Amelio’s skills don’t come close to Jalaiah’s (she made a less complicated version of the Renegade that she could do) she still managed to attain a mass following while smaller creators struggle.