It's been an interesting experience, posting on 4chan with the mindset that we have to get responses. Not only that, but our aim of the game's been to get responses to memes, to explore how they grow and evolve. Thing is, that we've made a bit of a discovery - that it really is a matter of luck whether or not a meme becomes popular and grow.
So.
The nature of this little experiment has kind of evolved in itself into something something different. And just a side note, I'm almost thinking I should have chosen something different to analyse to hell and back - I'm hoping it'll go back to normal, but I've found that lately my 4chan-ing experience has changed somewhat due to this project. I guess I can put it down to the way it seems that the more I want a response from something i post, the less likely it is to get one. Then when I think, "screw it" and just start posting for myself, I get replies. Of course, when I do that, what I post has nothing to do with this project, and is therefore unusable. My my, has this ever been frustrating.
I think we gave up on the over ambitious idea of "starting" our own memes (as in, image macros) fairly early on in the piece. And while our bear video has certainly had many more views than we were ever expecting (2702!!), I don't think there's much chance of it becoming a meme sensation along the lines of "Don't tase me, bro!". Like we said much earlier, it's always something completely absurdly funny, or through some unbelievable stroke of luck that one video from the millions on youtube that becomes a phenomenon.
A few nights ago I was on 4chan, lurking and laughing and being grossed out - the usual, really. I tried posted a few replies to random threads, and posted the link to our bear video as detailed in our last post. Like Selwyn had found earlier, most of the threads that become popular are about existing memes, porn, are made by trolls, or are completely absurd and for some reason just become popular for the hell of it. So on a whim, I decided to post this:
Reponse?
Huge.
Like, megahuge.
Not only about a million courage wolf image macros and variations, but also responses of users exclaiming about how much they love courage wolf. Great success.
THEN.
We got a few responses of a mutation of courage wolf...a rather more extreme version. This wolf yells, and yells things that are far more extreme than courage wolf.
Instead of things like, "when you reach the gates of heaven KICK THE GATES OPEN", you get "RAPE HER BOYFRIEND TO SHOW DOMINANCE!"
Oh my. But I guess that's just another example of 4chan bringing memes into existence, then changing them, mutating them, allowing them to evolve through the structure of the community - the very simple formula of anonymous posters submitting images (and text).
So I guess that proves that while it's near impossible to force a new meme onto the interwebbing public, and a chance in a million to leave it up to luck, it's easy beyond belief to thrash something that already exists and is already popular and is already funny into the ground.
One only has to look at how hilariously unfunny LOLcats have become to see how that happens. After a dedicated LOLcat websites appeared, once there were news stories on the phenomenon, once it had truly become part of popular culture, the jokes became terribly unfunny. There's even a "make your own" section for DIY LOLcats. Once it goes mainstream and into RL, there's really no hope for it...
What I've found interesting has been analysing 4chan and /b/ to hell and back. Despite the perverted stuff that often goes on there, it really is the source of a lot of lols late at night when I have nothing better to do. So going into the site WANTING to get a reaction, and for a uni assignment no less, has made me feel as if I'm almost betraying the /b/tards.
Of course, we're breaking rules 1 & 2 : Never talk about /b/ ... whoops.
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