#State property 2 meme Offline#

It isВ conceptually linked to the French mГЄme, which can be used to mean вЂњsame.вЂќ Recent meme history keeps the concept aliveВ through the ongoing presence of such formats and language tropes such as вЂњit meвЂќ and вЂњthat feeling whenвЂќ (TFW).

#State property 2 meme Offline#

When we say that the internet extends and exacerbates the same old offline relations, we mean itД«eyond the obvious, meme has taken on a more difficult and speculativeВ connotation: that of #relatability, an ability to provoke a feeling of identification in the viewer. While these forms overlap in their mode of transmission and their involvement of black bodies, suchВ violent clips are no longer thought of asВ вЂњmemes.вЂќ The termВ has evolved: once used to describe ideas or behaviors that are passed from person to person, вЂњmemeвЂќ now refers metonymically to internet memes, which are as trope-filled and easy-madeВ as stock imagery, but are unprofessional and intentionally funny, with often-absurdist text floating on or above a low-res image. Further, black death and black joy are pinned to each other by the white gaze, and if we see their intersection anywhere, itвЂ™s in the neo-mandingo fights of WorldstarHipHop.

These videos proliferate alongside memes, brushing up against each other onВ the same platforms. While I want to argue for an entwinement of blackness and memes, I would be remiss - irresponsible, even - to go any further without noting another way thatВ blackness continues to circulate, with perhaps less frequency but with just as much, if not more, reach: through the aggressive circulation of videos that document black death or violence in general against black people. But given how formations like Black Twitter now foster connections and offer opportunities for intense moments of identification, we might say that, at this point in time, the most concrete location we can find for this collective being of blackness is the digital, on social media platforms in the form of viral content - perhaps most importantly, memes. Historically, ourВ collective being has alwaysВ beenВ scattered, stretched across continents and bodies of water. It is the necessity to вЂњcome correct,вЂќ for you are never simply yourself. It is the media treating the Dallas shooter as a representative for all black Americans, forcing the Black Lives Matter organization to either claim or condemn him (ultimately condemn) and the rest of us to temper our public disdain for law enforcement.

It is your parents telling you to behave in public, not just for the sake of the familyвЂ™s image but implicitly because you represent the whole race. Most - if not all - black Americans are familiar with the feeling. This collective being goes beyond вЂњcollective consciousness.вЂќ ItВ relates toВ and potentially exceeds the inability of a black subject to act on their own. In Black Marxism, Cedric Robinson wrote of the вЂњontological totalityвЂќ or collective being of blackness - the preservation of which, he argued, is the primary charge of the Black Radical tradition. The diaspora is вЂњa precursor to the post-industrial drive toward fluxes and deterritorialization,вЂќ as British Afrofuturists claim, meaning that blackness was always ahead of its time, always already a networked culture and always already dematerialized, thanks to the Middle Passage. We have much experience with mass surveillance, a condition that the white avant-garde would have us believe is a recent development in state control. We, as black people, are no strangers to the alienation of a mediated selfhood. What makes for this condition? Some, like Kodwo Eshun and John Akomfrah, say that the African diaspora prefigures digital networks in its effects on bodies and subjectivities.

Not only is blackness broadly attracted to the internet, technology, and the future at large - exemplified by the rich traditions of Afrofuturist literature, house music, hip-hop videos, and more - but the internet is a prime condition for black culture to thrive. Twitter is more evenly distributed but still mostly minority-driven.В Alongside the rise of the meme in internet culture, we have witnessed black-user-produced content drift toward center stage. According to a 2015 Pew survey, nearly half of black internet users useВ Instagram, as opposed to less than a quarter of white users. вЂњThere is no other meaning than the meaning of circulationвЂќ - Jean-Luc NancyД«lack people love social media, and social media love black people.