Memes and Mashups

Anandam Kavoori is a Professor of Entertainment and Media Studies at the University of Georgia specializing in “narrative non-fiction and environmental journalism with a focus on Georgia and the South East” (Advertising and Public Relations). He has also written one of the fist analytical texts scrutinizing and attempting to “make sense of Youtube” (Kavoori, 2011). Reading Yotube and Kavoori are pioneers in the study of the complex web of video interactions that comprise YouTube. Kavoori states that his initial research cannot answer questions such as, “who does YouTube serve,” and his book takes on the much narrower scope of attempting to “get one’s hands around the texts of YouTube” (Kavoori, 2011). Getting one’s hands around these texts involves mainly defining categoriesh that these texts fall into. Kavoori identifies seven broad “genres” of content, and labels them as, “the phenom, the short, the mirror, the morph, the witness, the word, and the experiment.” Examples of each genre are included in the “Kavoori’s Genres“ tab.

 

The phenom (short for phenomenon) is an exemplification of the viral video (Kavoori, 2011). These are the videos in the “most watched” list, and, essentially the backbone of YouTube’s participatory culture in that these are the videos that are likely to be remixed, re-posted, and remixed again (Kavoori, 2011). These remixes generally involve direct imitation, interpretation, or satirical elements. (Kavoori, 2011).

 

The short is fairly straightforward. As decribed by Kavoori, these focus on “character development rather than complex events, on the personal rather than the historical or sociological” (Kavoori, 2011). In essense, the short is a culmination of creative storytelling and personal, relatable, or humorous character development.

 

The mirror is a “posing, placement, and recording of the self over time, with the central idea of keeping a public memory of personal change (and continuity) available online” (Kavoori, 2011). This idea of perpetuating or preserving an identity is nothing new. Individuals have been keeping written and video journals before YouTube existed. However, a public space for sharing of this material exists in a content of relative anonymity.

 

The morph exists in opposition to the mirror. The morph seeks to manipulate, whereas the mirror seeks to preserve. The morph utilizes editing software to manipulate photo, video, or audio content as a rhetorical or humorous action (Kavoori, 2011).

 

The witness relies on mobile recording technology to more empirically capture events (Kavoori, 2011). Although the intent is to capture an event, subjectivity still pervades videos in this genre (Kavoori, 2011). This genre also bears linkages to journalism (Kavoori, 2011).

 

Only traces of commonality exists between videos in the word genre (Kavoori, 2011). Here, videos instead circulate phrases to develop their “semantic coherence that works within the realms of power and subjectivity” (Kavoori, 2011).

 

Finally, the experiment offers a fairly straightforward category, and consists of experiments from a range of contexts, including sociological, scientific, performative, and many others (Kavoori, 2011). Kavoori notes that a key element here includes the “fun” of the experiment, leading to the mass consumption of the material (Kavoori, 2011).