Metonymy Video

Look at how great we look online! We wore our nice clothes today, so we thought we'd share them with you.

Rhetorical Figures - Mark + Michael + Jeremy

Chiasmus - A rhetorical figure that signals a repetition and a subsequent reversal of structure or meaning.

Here is structural Chiasmus. The lines try to mirror one another in structure and content, with F and F1 serving as the climax.

A Remember
  B Jesus Christ
    C raised from the dead
      D descended from David. This is my gospel
        E for which I am suffering
          F even to the point of being chained like a criminal
          F¹ But God's word is not chained
        E¹ Therefore I endure everything
      D¹ for the sake of the elect, that they too
    C¹ may obtain the salvation that is in
  B¹ Christ Jesus
A¹ with eternal glory.
(Bible: 2 Timothy 2:8-10)

Anaphora - A rhetorical figure that signals a repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of a sentence.

Notice the repetition of the words "It was." By using this phrase at the beginning of each sentence, this series exhibits anaphora.
It was Monday morning. It was cold. It was winter. It was English class. It was real.


Metonymy - A rhetorical figure in which a word can be replaced with another with which it is closely related. A strategy of describing something indirectly.

SEE VIDEO FOR METONYMY!!!

Meme Essay

I've analyzed Epic Fails for everyone's viewing. In the essay I identify a whole array of Epic Fail types, including the meme's most likely origins. It is still a growing and mutating meme, and it can be found in all sorts of places online. I have included some of my favorites, so if you like what you see, check out my meme analysis and maybe sites like Failblog.org and Epicfail.com. News Anchor Fail Compilations on Youtube are pretty incredible too!

Keep bloggin'
Jeremy

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Jeremy Lerner

Digital Rhetoric

Meme Analysis

Rough Draft

February 13, 2012

Epic Fails Online

            The meme I am examining is the phrase “Epic Fail” as it appears on standard websites, blogs, Youtube channels, and through social sharing. This includes photos, galleries, postings, videos, GIFs, compilations, and others that incorporate the phrase into their tags, titles, or descriptions. The content of this meme is expansive and varied, with the common theme of humorous human error. The part of the audience is to enjoy the humor at the failures’ expense. This meme is successful in its many forms because, like many memes, it does not depend strictly on nuances of language, and the substance of its content is virtually limitless, making it more or less universal in its appeal to a huge internet audience.

The origins of Epic Fail are not impossible to trace, though they are difficult to pinpoint exactly. Slate has found message boards saying, “You fail it,” with eventually shortened “FAIL” and “EPIC FAIL” comments, tracing their roots to a poor Japanese to English video game translation that ultimately achieved cult status online. Similar references date to 2003 on Urban Dictionary and the Doomworld website, where the message boards also refer to subtitles in early Japanese/American console games. These original incarnations communicated directly to an English speaking audience familiar with the foreign game title. More specifically, it catered directly to those who also frequented message boards as well.

The meme has since undergone countless mutations and permutations. Knowyourmeme.com has identified 2006 as the start of the Epic Fail Guy, a stick figure series of images from the image site 4chan, a “character who is bound to fail at everything” (Know Your Meme). The Fail Guy meme can be consumed by reading the texts, captions, titles or subtitles, and speech bubbles, and by quickly analyzing the crudely drawn figures to find the humorous failure. This communicates to a bigger audience because the content is less specialized; it is mostly image based, and the forum is image sharing as opposed to more obscure message boarding. As such, the Fail meme succeeded in incorporating more people into the growing joke.

Another mutation can be found by looking at Fail specific websites. A boost of wide public awareness of the meme spread it into less self-contained groups, and spawned the creation of sites like Failblog.org, Epicfail.com, Todaysbigfail.com, and others. These sites feature regularly updated content, much user submitted, of any kind of humorous error in photo or short video form, such as car crashes, bad tattoos, poorly answered trivia questions, injury as a result of hubris, and others. The content is essentially limitless, as long as the photo or short video clip obviously refers to the error within it. What has changed is the incorporation into the meme’s content of live action shots, photos from peoples’ personal collections, and real injuries documented. Again, the audience can grow and include more people with these changing formats. Before long, these sorts of videos were easy to find and upload on video streaming sites like Youtube, and the output of photos not just on Fail specific sites, but all over the internet, became bigger and faster.

Since Fails achieved meme status online, one mutation that exists on much of these sites includes the creation of Wins. Essentially the opposite of Fail, a Win can be a close call, an impressive ability, or something else with a similarly positive result. Wins can be featured on sites dedicated to Fails, dedicated to Wins, on Youtube, Imgur, or through other forums on which one can share information. Like Fails, they too can be photos, GIFs, or videos, and they communicate a similar message to a similarly web based audience.

Another way the Epic Fail has mutated online includes the creation of genre-specific Fail compilations. News Anchor Fails, Sports Fails, Cute Animal Fails, Car Fails, and more all exist. They also exist in huge, regularly updated numbers. Many are codified by date, making them easy to search for and find. They can be edited into complete compilation shows with music and effects as well, making them easily consumable and highly entertaining. These are catered towards people who, like those who frequent Fail specific websites, are dedicated to enjoying the Fail meme in large numbers, not necessarily as a one-off find in passing. Since they can last more than ten minutes of constant Fail in video form, they have proven to be captivating and popular to the online user, racking millions of hits.

It can be seen that since its original inception in the early 2000s, the Epic Fail meme has grown and changed in many ways effecting its terminology, form, audience, and subsequent memes. For my remix segment, I will post an original photo gallery of Fails I have found separate and isolated online. By compiling them in my own format and reposting the collection on my own blog, I will be working within the parameters of the meme while still changing it slightly. As such, I will be contributing to the growth of the meme in a unique and original way.

Fail Photos

Fail Photos are here! Here are some of my favorite Epic Fails I've found online. While some them are just photos, others are in text form and I found them at different places, like image sharing sites, Fail sites, and Yahoo message boards. I hope you enjoy!

Note to all: Post your own below if you have seen any good ones. Nothing is funnier than some Epic Fails.

Audio Clip

Dig Rhet Assignment Fin

Credit due to Mark Buckner for gracing Grossman with the power of speech. Here we have Grossman and I in conversation over drinks, talking about the internet, constantly evolving browsing habits, and his article in 2006.

Short Script

Cafe - day

Grossman is already seated, finishing an espresso. Jeremy arrives.

Jeremy

Hey, I hope you haven't been waiting.

Grossman

Not at all. Please, sit, sit.

JEREMY

So I read your piece for Time on the way over here. Helluva piece, really top notch work.

GROSSMAN

Why thank you. And congratulations on all your success, by the way. You, one of Time's Persons of the Year. No small feat.

Jeremy

Thanks, bud. Yeah, like the rest of us I pretty much just spent a lot of time online in 2006. Didn't go out much.

Grossman

But it paid off, ultimately.

Jeremy

Naturally, naturally. Yeah.

GROSSMAN

So where did you start? Where did the bulk of your success stem from?

Jeremy

Realizing we were in an increasingly stagnant, analog world really got me depressed, you know? I could only have one conversation at a time, could only watch one television program. Then I realized it didn't really have to be this way.

GROSSMAN

How so?

Jeremy

I'm sure you know where I'm coming from.

Grossman

I do, I wrote the article, Jeremy. But it would be really helpful if you explained it in your own words.

Jeremy

Yeah, word, I hear ya dude. Um. So, yeah. What was the question?

Grossman

You were spending a lot of time online...

Jeremy

Right. Yeah. I don't know. It just kind of happened. I got bored watching just one TV show, so I went online and opened a few tabs. I got bored just talking to my friends one at a time, so I went to my computer and talked to a few of them at once. It was a pretty natural progression.

Grossman

So it was an organic happening?

Jeremy

Probably the most organic thing I've done since, yeah.

GROSSMAN

So when you -

Jeremy

Excuse me. I really want to take a break, can we take a break?

Grossman

We've only just started.

Jeremy

I know, I know, but this is like, the opposite of immediately gratifying.

Grossman

Excuse me?

Jeremy

Sorry, go on. I'll get through it.

Sounds of seats stirring.

Grossman

Thank you for bearing with me. So, have you used the internet in a different way now than when you and those like you broke ground back in 2006?

Jeremy

I've never been personally at the forefront of social media. Wasn't the first kid to get a Facebook, never had a Myspace, but ignoring it all has also become less of an option. Twitters, Tumblrs, there are so many people and so many options for connecting with them online.

Grossman

And now?

JEREMY

What about it?

Grossman

How do you interact with the internet now?

Jeremy

I don't know, it still just happens. I will sit down at my computer at 12 and I get up around 1:30 or 2. I have about 12 more songs, two more posts, a few more pictures, and I've seen two videos I'll forget and one I'll send to my dad. It can happen like that 2, 3, 4 times a day.

Grossman

So your relationship with the internet has been a passive one?

Jeremy

Actively passive, yeah.

Grossman

How so?

Jeremy

Not so sure.

GROSSMan

Contrary to my article, then, it seems like the internet is happening to you more than you are happening to the internet, no?

Jeremy

It certainly seems that way.

Grossman

Do you feel like you are losing control of, or have already lost control of, how you interact with the internet?

Jeremy

Not til I sat down with you, no. Can we take a break?

Grossman

Can you sit still for a moment?

Jeremy

Hey listen, would it be too much to ask if I could do this from home? From my computer. Can we do this online? Do you have Vchat, or maybe you could just email me your questions?

Grossman

No, I do not have VChat. There's probably something to be said about having this conversation in the analog world, Jeremy.

Jeremy

Probably. But it's really totally easy to download. I brought my laptop, let me show you.

Grossman

Can it wait, Jeremy? We're almost done.

Jeremy

Yeah, we can wait. But do you mind if I just open it up and put it right here though?

Sound of computer opening, being put on table, and whirring to life. Mac OS's start up sounds.

Grossman

Are you going to be using it for anything?

Jeremy

Just having it here soothes me.

Grossman

And why is that?

Jeremy

The sounds. The light glow. The connection to those around me. The millions at my fingertips. Knowing I am at the fingertips of millions. It's really quite empowering.

Grossman

And crippling, it seems.

Jeremy

Yes. And crippling, it seems.

Microbloggin'

The internet certainly provides for the kind of pop culture enthusiast Jenkins identifies in his article, and I see nothing incorrect with identifying it as an environment where fans can interact with one another, gain exposure and engage not just new fans but also creators, artists, and writers they are fans of. To qualify the internet as fandom in and of itself seems a bit simplified though - a passive user may only go online to retrieve emails at work, wholly forgoing message boards, forums, and fan sites. The internet is no longer an elite place for coders, hackers, and forums, it has been commercialized in a more utilitarian way. Although Jenkins identifies something important, that even passive email checkers can become seen as grouped into a community of, say, fans of Convenience, it seems doubtful that the group would self-identify in that way. Another media, like cell phones, even those with internet access, resists qualifying its users as Fans, so it seems an arbitrary word for the whole internet too. What, then, makes a fan? Can any group sharing sentiments be considered a fandom, or are they required to share more than coincidental media preferences? Must they identify as being fans of something in particular, or is trolling the internet enough to unify all of these people?