Group+Proposal-Revised

A meme is an assumed unit of cultural ideas, symbols or practices that are transmitted from one mind to another through writing, speech, gestures, rituals or other imitable phenomena. There are many ways in which a person can release their meme out to the world, this is through any form of communication such as commercials, social networks, word of mouth, blogs, promotions, etc. The dominating tactic of making a well-known meme is by releasing it onto the internet. The connections are extremely fast that they allow individuals to spread their meme like a virus. Our group’s meme expresses the on-going issue of which is the better device…the iPhone or the Blackberry. We chose this topic because in this day and age, a cellular phone is almost a necessity; everyone owns one, and of course everyone would like to have the best. Therefore, our meme can relate to a majority of the people around the world. Given that RIM and Apple are the leading phone companies and have been in competition for years, many consumers often wonder which one is better. This gave our group the opportunity to take advantage of the heavily debated topic to make a video about which they should choose: iPhone or Blackberry. For the most part, consumers often research the product before they buy it. Essentially, the question that they will Google or YouTube is “iPhone or Blackberry?” Thus, we decided to name the title of our meme that as well: “iPhone or Blackberry?” In the video we produced an instrumental out of iPhone and Blackberry alert sounds. These sounds are programmed defaults on the phones and are often heard through out any given day. Even if a person does not own a Blackberry or iPhone; they will recognize the sounds immediately because they are subconsciously listening to it everywhere they go. Familiarity also helps with a meme as //Know Your Meme// expressed in the //Om Nom Nom// meme, which originated from The Cookie Monster from Sesame Street. Since the instrumental is original, it is something new, refreshing and not overly played, which gives it the opportunity to become catchy giving our group a competitive advantage over other songs. The next thing that our group did was have one of our members rap about the iPhone and Blackberry over top of the instrumental that we made, therefore making it a song. With his lyrical play on words discussing the differences and features on the two competing phones, a sense of stickiness is created in the sense that you want to hear what is being said. Given that someone who is looking into buying a Blackberry or iPhone they will want to hear our opinion when they search for the keywords on YouTube. People who already own one of the phones will see this video and likely want to hear what is said in defence of the phone they own. This gives them their own impression on the debate, and the option to comment and express their opinions as well, thus spreading the meme. In the song, the verses describe the differences between the phones, along with their battles between them and key features. The Chorus is simply, “iPhone…Blackberry…iPhone…Blackberry” and etc…, with pictures of each of the phones switching back and forth. Given that the repetition of these two words along with the pictures of the phone and the clever instrumental, it will get stuck in a person’s head, whether it be annoying, catchy, entertaining, or garbage, none-the-less it is there. Along with our catchy beat and creative lyrics, we have also added a video of the popular arcade game, Street Fighter. The video showcases a fight between Ryu and M. Bison, two of the rival characters in the game. In this case, the iPhone represents Ryu and the Blackberry, M. Bison. The implication of choosing this video game shows the good versus evil, where as Ryu is good and M. Bison is evil. We made this comparison to show a clear bias, giving the iPhone the edge. As well, it relates to our video because Street Fighter is not available to the Blackberry, which we also use as part of the comparison. Since the video is quite long, this battle between the iPhone (Ryu) and the Blackberry (Bison) keeps the viewers entertained and wanting to continue watching. Now, not only does the viewer want to hear what is being said but they also want to see who is going to win the fight. In the fight there are some captions coming from the characters indicating what each one can do as they are said in the song, this helps people see the main battling features between the two phones. The visuals help keep the viewer interested and entertained, which enhances their experience of the video. Since we have included all of what was discussed into the video, we also needed to promote our meme to ensure its success. We began by uploading it on to YouTube, which on its own will not do much, but it gives us a link to the video as to where it can be watched. As we have already stated, memes are very easy to spread across the world with the help of the internet, and with the power of social networking, we were able to promote our video much faster. After being uploaded onto YouTube, each of us posted it on our Facebook walls and Twitter statuses. As well, we posted the video on many of our friends’ Facebook walls, along with captions such as “THIS IS AMAZINGGG!!!!” This essentially helped promote the meme, regardless of what people thought of the actual content. The fact that we have pushed it to the world as being “amazing” will make it more //memetic//. Even if some people believe it is a terrible video, the fact that we labeled it “amazing”, will make them actually show their friends as a prank. This has been seen in the popular meme known as “Rickroll,” where audiences expect to see something, only to get pranked into watching a Rick Astley music video. This method creates buzz; viewers that hate on the meme are just as good as those who like it, both of which increase the view count on the video, which essentially makes it a successful post. Along with posting it on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, we have posted it on Blackberry and iPhone forums and message boards as well. People who are on these forums will definitely have lots to say about the video. Lastly, we posted it on our Wikispaces as well the class Wikispace for class members to see and hopefully get some more hits from that. In our design of creating this meme it gave us a better understanding of how memes are created simply from day to night. The work of the internet makes this possible through all the avenues that we have explored in trying to promote our meme. The Internet is an open source of information, and exchanging of communication that has given our society new ways of being creative from your own home.