Internet Memetics and Chubby Cheeks

It never seizes to amaze me how the Internet has helped snowball strange quirky incidents into larger and far-reaching events.

On the news today there was a report about a kid in China. His name is Qian. He’s a 19 year old gas station attendant…who happens to be chubby…with really chubby cheeks. One day, his picture made it to the Internet.


Ahhh...Look at those cheeks!

However, soon after his picture was posted to the net, people started to use his picture to parody famous posters of movies and pieces of art. Nicknaming him “Little Fatty”

At first he was hurt and offended, but this quickly made him an internet-cult hero. The media chased him down, and made him famous. He said,

"Now my feeling has changed. If you always feel depressed, then you feel uncomfortable. Now I can view this event with a calm mind, and I feel released"

He even started a website to discuss weight issues and share health tips. On the website he hosts a gallery of the pictures he’s been used in.

Star Wars Kid
Qian's story is similar to the Star Wars kid, who was taped imitating a Star Wars character.

The owner of the video posted it on the Internet. People picked it up and added visual and sound effects, cloned the kid, and put him in the Matrix.

It is estimated that the videos have been viewed 900 million times!

However, unlike “Little Fatty,” Star Wars kid (Ghyslain Raza) wasn’t happy due to the embarrassment it caused. His family sued his school-friends for $250,000 dollars! The case was then settled out of court.

Which raises interesting copyright and privacy issues, but that's another discussion.

Memes
Back in 1976, the evolutionist Richard Dawkins coined the term meme, to describe a unit of cultural information that transfers from one mind to another. He gave examples of memes such as music, phrases, fashion trends, etc.

Similar to genes, these memes evolve by natural selection as they transfer from one mind to another. These memes get chosen, dropped, modified, specialised, or enhanced. Eventually these memes survive through mutations and transfers.

Some call these Internet events, Internet memes. Units of cultural information that survive and get transmitted from one mind to another. Through viral emails, blogs, etc. As they transfer, these units get altered, making them mutate into a form that reaches even more minds and survive in their new mutated state.

Similar to this year’s نبيها 5 campaign. The grass-roots movement that the Kuwaiti bloggers started was sparked as meme. On the blogs, the meme transferred from one person to another. Each suggestion was an evolution of the original. The choices for the colour were debated. The orange survived. The meme grew and was transferred. It was able to jump further from the limited blog population through SMSs, emails, and word of mouth. Till it snowballed into a political campaign that brought down the government and forced a political change.

Commerical Success
As always, some have found commercial benefit from this. The Internet enabled a very low-cost idea grow into something that would've been impossible to achieve a few years ago.


OK Go
OK Go is a band that had an OK career. However, they released a low-budget video on the internet for “A Million Ways,” in which they dance to the song. They then invited fans to audition the dance online for a chance to get on stage and dance live with them on tour.

That sparked a wave of entries. Including this one from Turkey, this great one about a day in the life of some fans, an on ice interpretation, and even a LEGO version.

The band then continued and did this video of "Here it Goes Again" with them dancing on treadmills. The video has been viewed 8.9 millon times, and was just nominated for a Grammy. They also got more replies, and the LEGO is back.


One Red Paperclip
Kyle MacDonald is a Canadian blogger who decided to go on a quest to trade-up one red paper clip for a house!

His first trade-up in 2005 was to swap his red paperclip for a pen. He then traded that pen for a doorknob. With the help of promotion and attention, he was able to trade-up to an actual house within 1 year.

Million Dollar Homepage
Alex Tew had a ridiculously simple idea. He decided to sell pixels of a web page to customers wanting to promote their own webpages. So, he started to sell bits of his 1000 x 1000 pixel page for $1 per pixel. Through word of mouth, it reached the attention of some well-known blogs, and then eventually the media. After just a month, Alex reportedly made $152,900.

He auctioned his last 1000 pixels on eBay, the winning bid was $38,100. He has now started a new page to sell more pixels. This time, to attract visitors to visit and click, he is offering a million dollar prize to a randomly chosen visitor.

Crazy stuff.

I’m not sure if the above was new to you or not, but I hope you enjoyed the cyberspace journey.

Now, you are carrying those memes.

I wonder if they will survive through you, mutate, or end.