The Memes of Production: A cultural studies weblog

Last week I visited one of the local bush care groups around here. They were an amazing group of people; ordinary people who have taught themselves specialist knowledge so that they can rehabilitate green space. They know what to remove, what to leave, and can tell the difference between native versions of things and very similar looking varieties that are weeds. Once a month they get out of bed in the cold in the early morning and put in a couple of hours of unpaid labour for the benefit of the environment and local wildlife. Some of them work with several groups. And they are cheery and friendly at that hour of the morning, which is well beyond me.

The thing is, when I think about it, there are lots of amazing people around here. . .

A friend on facebook today said: “What is it with cretins raping or stabbing women, and setting them on fire?! It’s making me so frickin’ angry. Those who think violence against women is a passe issue? Take copious notes.”

I suspect she was referring to this story and this one.

While I certainly agree with her sentiment, I’m inclined to think that the underlying problem is broader than one of gender-related violence, although gender certainly comes into it in many instances.

What I’m about to say is personal opinion formed through thinking about the issues and observing patterns and connections. I don’t have any academic or research backing for this other than the interpretative and analytic skills that I’ve developed over years. Nor am I a lawyer, so I’m using terms with commonly understood meanings, not legal or philosophical definitions.

It seems to me that a lot of violence and injustice (and sometimes just plain rudeness) is born out of a sense of entitlement, and sometimes ownership, on the part of the perpetrator and that this is mostly subconscious on their part. . .

Here is the ill-informed speculation I promised about what I see as the narrow and
unadventurous entries in this year’s Eurovision Song Contest.

Let me first assure you that I do not actually think that Eurovision is the place to find interesting and innovative music. But within the context of the competition there have been—especially in recent years—entries that stretch the boundaries of what is acceptable.

While Dana International (Sharon Cohen) may have been the first transgendered person to win Eurovision (Israel, 1998), much to the consternation of conservatives in Israel at the time, her performance had nothing of the flamboyance of more recent cross-dressing acts such as Verka Serduchka (Ukraine, 2007), which came second (watch it here), or Denmark’s 2007 entry, Drama Queen which failed to inspire the voters (19th). Watch it here.

For a few years there was a preference for chains, leather, and ethnic music, started perhaps by Ruslana’s winning entry for Ukraine in 2004 (still a personal favourite), and including Bulgaria 2007, the camp, gothic stylings of Switzerland’s Vampires are Alive (2007), and Azerbaijan’s 2008 entry, Day after day. The move possibly
culminated in Ukraine’s (again! gotta love those Ukranians) entry last year that included the “hell machine” and dancing centurions! Relive the magic.

And of course, that isn’t to mention the entries that were novelty at best: Dustin the Turkey for Ireland in 2008, or the sadly incorrect We are the Winners of Eurovision entry for Lithuania in 2006. And another personal favourite, “Pokušaj” by Laka for Bosnia & Herzegovina in 2008. Watch it here in all its glory, but don’t let the knitting brides freak you out. And I haven’t even started on Lordi!

Last year I wrote a post on Food and Sociality in which I talked about the social and cultural aspects of food and how these encourage us to eat more than perhaps we should. I also expressed an intention to remain “social” despite of some difficulties with certain foods. Has that ever come back to bite me!

What, at the time, seemed like the ill effects of a couple of days of careless eating was actually the start of a rapid increase in allergy and intolerance severity. Consequently, my diet is now quite restricted. I am perfectly healthy, and indeed have a ream of test result to prove same, but my intentions to remain social in my eating habits and not to create a fuss have gone out the window.

It has been a steep learning curve, with much time spent on the internet learning which foods contain what and trying to find reliable articles from medically qualified people that I can actually understand. Here are a few of the things that I have learnt:

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We went to Supernova yesterday. Mainly it was a chance to let my inner geek out for a bit, but we were also keen to hear James Marsters speak. As it happened we were late for his talk, but managed to catch up with Gareth David-Lloyd (Torchwood) and Karl Urban (Star Trek, Lord of the Rings). All good fun.

But the main attraction was of course the cosplayers. While I didn’t recognise most of the Anime players (or maybe they were all Dark Lolitas, I couldn’t tell), spotting the SF players was fun. I saw at least five Doctors, one of whom might have been the 11th Doctor (David Tennent’s costume, but with holes all through it), two Dr Horribles, many, many stormtroopers, and a Cyberman and an Alien that were so good, the costumes had to have been professionally made (or possibly stolen from the set). It is also the only place I’ve been where the following conversation (reproduced verbatim) could sound normal:

Me: Look, there’s Edward Scissorhands.
Teenaged Daughter: Where?
Me: On the steps, behind Batman.

It became very clear that the whole show was a performance: the celebrities of course were playing themselves, and the cosplayers were simply walking around waiting for people to ask to photograph them. But the rest of us were performing in our own ways as well, as we enacted our fandom by recognising the different characters, and demonstrating our credibility by acknowledging the more obscure ones.

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Following on from the Labour Photo of the Year, is the inaugural Labour Video of the Year.

Interestingly, the winning video is from Australia, and was one of the viral elements in the “Your Rights at Work” campaign that started before the 2007 federal election. A shameless rip-off from Monty Python’s Life of Brian (original here), the ACTU’s “What Have The Unions Ever Done For Us?” wins the Labourstart video of the year.

Watch it here, if you haven’t seen it already.

Within hours of Tourism Australia announcing their new tourism campaign, There’s Nothing Like Australia, to be launched on 15 April, there was a spoof site registered under the domain http://www.nothinglikeaustralia.net. The campaign plans to mobilise social networking and user produced content to spread its message, a policy that might be a little risky, if the spoof is anything to go by.

The Australian reports that the tourism body is taking an unusually relaxed approach to the spoof:

Tourism Australia has had its new $150 million advertising campaign “There’s nothing like Australia” spoofed by a “brandjacker” using images of Lindy Chamberlain, the Cronulla riots and Steve Irwin.

But after investigating the website the tourism body has decided to take no action, despite the mock ads using TA’s intellectual property.

Of course, this isn’t the first time this has happened. The previous major campaign, the much maligned “Where the Bloody Hell Are You?” effort attracted a number of spoofs, most famously by Dan Ilic, and the one by the Chaser team. (Warning, possibly not safe for work). There’s even a New Zealand version. Here’s the original, if you don’t remember it.

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Given my interests in memetics (more soon) I’m really looking forward to this, and not just because Peta is a friend. If you’re in Brisbane, check it out.

Dr Peta Mitchell
Tuesday 13th April 2010, 2.00pm-3.30pm
Social Sciences and Humanities Library Conference Room
Level 1 Duhig Building (Bldg 2)
The University of Queensland
St Lucia Campus

Abstract
In his 1976 work, The Selfish Gene, Richard Dawkins proposes, seemingly almost as an afterthought, a second kind of “selfish” replicator. Theories of biological evolution can look to the gene as the base unit of replication and reproduction, but what, Dawkins asks us, about cultural evolution? How are ideas reproduced and why do some ideas find traction while others do not? The neologism Dawkins coins for his proposed cultural replicator is the “meme,” and he cites as examples cultural artefacts such as “tunes, ideas, catch-phrases, clothes fashions, ways of making pots or of building arches.”

In this paper, Dr Mitchell will examine the status of the meme as metaphor, and particularly the ways in which the meme increasingly began to be figured in terms of contagion—as thought contagion—rather than in terms of evolutionary biology. This, she will argue, places the meme within a long tradition of troping human thought as a kind of virus or a form of contagion, and I will consider the meme as developing out of the 17th and 18th century concept of the “contagion of example.” Finally, she wishes to suggest that, despite Stephen Jay Gould’s denigration of the meme as a “meaningless metaphor,” the meme’s reflexive potential means that it may offer itself as a singularly useful tool for considering the very workings of metaphor.

About the Presenter
Peta Mitchell is a lecturer in the School of English, Media Studies, and Art History at the University of Queensland. Her research broadly focuses on cultural geography, spatial theory, metaphor, contemporary literature, and new media technologies. She is author of Cartographic Strategies of Postmodernity (Routledge 2008), and her current book project, Contagious Metaphor (contracted by Continuum), examines cross-disciplinary uses of the metaphor of contagion. In 2009, she took up research fellowships at UQ’s Centre for Critical and Cultural Studies and at the University of Edinburgh’s Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities.

This seminar is to be chaired by Associate Professor Anita Harris.

For more details, contact Rebecca Ralph, Centre for Critical and Cultural Studies. Phone (07) 3346 7407, or email r.ralph@uq.edu.au

Launched on the 26 February, The Edge is a new initiative of the State Library of Queensland, with an emphasis on digital media and innovation.

The Edge is the State Library of Queensland’s newest initiative, sitting alongside its established programs and continuing the library’s growth as a cultural and knowledge destination.

It is a place for young Queenslanders; a place for experimentation and creativity, giving contemporary tools to young people to allow them to explore critical ideas, green initiatives, new design practices and media making.

The Edge enables the creation of all sorts of art and technology, research, training, mentoring and being mentored, networking, and entertaining and being entertained.

Informal spaces abound for discussion and the pursuit of individual and group activities, which foster a sense of community, a commitment to collaboration and a spirit of openness.

It runs programs devoted to innovation in craft, music, film, writing, and other areas, with workshops and presentations, as well as areas where you can just drop in and play.

It’s still early days, and it will be interesting to see how all this turns out: whether it becomes a vibrant area of digital arts in Brisbane, or whether it turns out to be a multi-million dollar (I assume) white elephant.

The early signs are promising.

I got this via email a couple of days ago. Another of those well-intentioned spam emails that purports to show how we should get back to “common-sense” (always of the conservative variety, of course). Things were always better in the “old days,” before political correctness.

I’ve added a few comments…

Scenario: Jack goes rabbit shooting before school, pulls into school parking lot with rifle in gun rack.

1957 – Vice Principal comes over, looks at Jack’s rifle, goes to his car and gets his rifle & chats with Jack about guns.

2009 – School goes into lock down, Star Force called, Jack hauled off to jail and never sees his truck or gun again. Counsellors called in for traumatized students and teachers.

Comment – A culture that normalises and glorifies guns leads inevitably to obscene tragedies such as Columbine High and Virginia Tech. But of course, guns don’t kill people—apparently it’s heavy metal music and Dungeons and Dragons that kills people.

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