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(intriguing electronic music)

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Do you glance around sometimes

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and wonder what everyone's looking at?

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What they're looking for?

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By 2021, it's estimated more people around the world

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will have smartphones than running water.

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On the face of it, we seem distracted

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and fragmented by digital culture,

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but are we perhaps craving connection in new ways?

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Creating, sharing, reacting as never before?

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As we film this, every second,

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8,000 tweets are send into the Twittersphere,

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850 Instagram photos are uploaded,

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and there are 68,000 Google searches.

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In amongst the digital traffic,

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millions of jokes, videos, music samples, and images

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are being shared from friend to friend

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or anonymously on message boards.

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These are memes.

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(upbeat electronic music)

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Internet memes can often appear frivolous,

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sometimes almost random and frequently uncomfortable.

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But they're being churned out 24 hours a day,

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competing in an attention economy

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that draws web traffic and advertising revenue.

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The circumstances of what it means

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to be a human being that's connected

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in this world has completely changed.

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I think it's exciting and weird

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and strange and interesting.

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It is a bit scary, though.

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To try to grapple with this brave new world,

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I'm going to experiment with inventing

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and distributing some memes myself,

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meeting anyone from scientists ...

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That would be a good meme.

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And internet gurus ...

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It's posted.
It's gone!

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Yes!

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To YouTube stars ...

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Oh, that's disgusting, actually.

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And a troll ...

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Meme shared.

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Meme shared.

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Will tell me how to get more shares.

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How do we make something go viral? (laughs)

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To understand our world today,

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I think we need to decode memes,

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how they've worked and spread in the past,

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and how they work and spread

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with dizzying speed in the present,

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how they don't just represent what we think

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but also shape what we think.

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(soft electronic music)

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Memes have been around a lot longer than the internet.

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(ecstatic music)

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You can copy this at home if you like.

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The V sign, said to have started 600 years ago

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at the Battle of Agincourt,

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when English archers defiantly showed the French

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the fingers they'd used to draw longbows against them.

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It became a gesture of abuse,

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but then had a new lease of life in the Second World War.

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(planes whirring)

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Churchill adopted the V as a symbol

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of resistance to fascism.

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The Allies used mass communication

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to encourage people across occupied Europe

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to graffiti Vs for victory as a symbol of defiance.

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("Symphony No. 5" by Beethoven)

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When American president Richard Nixon

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started using V for victory as he wound up the Vietnam War,

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hippie protestors recycled it as a symbol of peace, man.

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So up yours, victory, peace.

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A catchy cultural symbol that caught on

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with different generations and spread from person to person,

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mutating, changing its meanings, and being passed on again.

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In today's terminology, it's a meme.

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The intriguing questions is, why do certain memes,

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like the V sign, become so successful,

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subject to seemingly endless reuse and reinterpretation,

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while most memes are just forgotten?

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(typing)

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Today, technology and mass literacy

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mean we produce and consume memes as never before.

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But which internet memes are gonna have

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the viral success of something like the V sign?

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Luckily, someone is cataloging the needles

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in the internet haystack.

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(horn honking)

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Launched in 2008, Know Your Meme is a kind of Wikipedia

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of memes but, more than that, a benchmark.

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When Know Your Meme catalogs a new meme,

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it gives it official status as a notable cultural event.

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(intriguing electronic music)

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So perhaps editor Brad Kim can tell me

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what's going on, and why, just why.

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Why should we take memes seriously?

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You don't necessarily have to take memes seriously.

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But to be serious, we have a daily craving

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for things that are just so ...

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dumb that it leaves you with the feeling

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I laughed a little harder than I should have.

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I think it's an escapism.

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Certain literary devices that are used in memes

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are timeless.

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Non-sequiturs, for instance,

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not making sense intentionally,

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going against logic, WTF.

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One of my favorite videos on the internet is actually

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a five-second video of a waffle falling over.

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The name of the video is "Waffle Falling Over."

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The reason why I love it is it's very compact

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in setting up all the right jokes,

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which is you click on a video that says

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"Waffle Falling Over," and you're anticipating,

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you're trying to imagine what this is gonna be like.

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It's exactly what it is, and you're left with this feeling

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that's kind of empty, but it's also like,

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what else did I really expect?

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Do you have any advice for me in making a meme?

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Hey, this is a people-approved idea.

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Don't try to focus too much about how far it's going to go.

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Intent shows through, especially if it doesn't deliver.

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Then it's the worst-case scenario,

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which is it's the try hard,

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failing at an attempt to make virals.

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I like that notion of the meme as a people-approved idea,

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a unitive culture that lives or dies

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depending on whether people share it.

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This is the key to the internet's irresistible rise.

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It's been driven be here today, gone tomorrow fads,

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unpredictable moments when jokes and technology collide

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and capture the imagination of internet crowds.

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The history of memes is littered with unlikely hits.

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Look at this.

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(upbeat electronic music)

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This is dancing baby from 1996.

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(record scratching)

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Actually, this isn't dancing baby from 1996,

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but you get the rough idea.

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A bit like the waffle,

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we couldn't actually source or afford the clip,

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because this is regulated TV,

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not the unregulated internet.

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This is dancing baby from 1996,

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a short repeating clip, known as a GIF, or is it a JIF?

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There's a whole website devoted to the debate

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of how to pronounce it?

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10 years later, this video of a boy biting

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his brother's finger was watched by 766 million people.

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Similar pratfalls and epic fails

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have become a staple of internet culture.

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Original content started to be created,

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which generated fads that simultaneously existed

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in the real world and online, for example planking,

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which exploded across the internet after 2011.

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And remember this, the ice bucket challenge,

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that went viral in 2014?

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Crucially, the web gave users the tools

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to copy original work, images, and music,

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mash it up, remix, and share,

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sometimes reaching millions more people

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than the original work did.

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It's a bit like when Andy Warhol

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took mass-produced and iconic photos

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from popular culture and turned them into garish,

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exclusive, limited edition prints.

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To me, Warhol's prints aren't a million miles away

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from internet memes that use existing content online.

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These DIY graphics, image macros,

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pictures combined with text, have become so common

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that they're often simply referred to as being memes.

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To millions of people, this is what a meme is:

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easy to share, easy to create or change.

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On the internet, the boyfriend is distracted.

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Movie star Ryan Gosling says, "Hey girl."

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And poor Harold grimaces for a vast range of reasons.

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But why do these macros need text when Warhol didn't?

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Back in the 1960s, the French philosopher Roland Barthes

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offered us a way to understand this phenomenon.

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Barthes deconstructed a pasta advert,

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paying it the attention usually reserved

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for an art masterpiece, exploring the ways

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in which rich and complex meanings were conveyed

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by the deceptively simple combination of words and images.

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The text, he argued, helps us

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to anchor the meaning of the image.

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It's all a bit like Marcel Duchamp's 1919 take

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on the singular masterpiece, The Mona Lisa.

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He took a mass-produced poster of this one-off painting,

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added a mustache, and anchored and relayed new meanings

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with text: L.H.O.O.Q,

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or in French, (speaking in a foreign language).

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In other words, she's got a fine posterior,

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which Duchamp said helped explain her smile.

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On the internet, everybody is doing a Duchamp,

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using pictures and text.

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The difference now is that we own

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the means of production and dissemination.

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Now audiences can be reached by almost anyone

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at a previously unimaginable speed.

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Back in Duchamp's time, or even Warhol's,

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you needed huge amounts of money

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and often a lot of political influence

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to get to that tipping point.

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Just as a quick aside, with my art historian hat on.

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Perhaps that's why we visit museums

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in unprecedented numbers today,

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hungry for a one-to-one encounter

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with a unique, unanchored symbol:

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Museums, like a clearing in the forest of modern symbols.

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Thanks for indulging me there.

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Now back to the memes.

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These are arguable the most famous picture

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and text combos: the lolcats.

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Laugh out loud cats.

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It's simple: a picture of a cat and a superimposed type.

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It'd be easy to dismiss them as trivia,

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but this simple format has spawned a complex subculture

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with its own rules and norms,

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popularizing new spellings and words.

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(energetic electronic music)

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Amanda Brennan is the meme librarian at Tumbler,

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and she's a big lolcat fan,

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even though she's actually allergic to cats.

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Lolcats were a great way for people

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who weren't very into computers

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to experience meme culture for the first time.

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The format of image macros, where text on the bottom,

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text on the top, that really comes out of lolcats.

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I think it does resonate with people wanting

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to find their expressive part of themselves

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and really express themselves in ways

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that they might not be able to do in their everyday life.

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And a lot of people identify with cats

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because they have such strong personalities.

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A lot of meme culture is about finding your identity,

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figuring out who you are.

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And if you can do it through the expressive nature of a cat,

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whether it be through lolspeak

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or in a GIF or video, a lot of people

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can just explore their identity

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in a really playful way with cats.

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What is lolspeak?

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Well, the LOL part is "laugh out loud."

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And "speak" is the structure of the language

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around a lolcat.

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Lolcats came up in a time when people

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wanted to be way less serious about the internet.

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The image didn't really matter;

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it was more about the text and learning the lexicon,

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showing that you know it, taking these typical words

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like "eat," "human," and flipping them

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into something like "eated," very cutesy.

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It's like when you step out

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and you get into a good book or a good movie.

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In lolspeak you're getting into the world of lolcats

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and that kind of freedom that lolspeak provides.

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Before meeting Amanda, I made some lolcats.

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Now I'm not sure I got them right.

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Is this your first time making a lolcat?

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Yeah.

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All right.

265
00:12:16,256 --> 00:12:17,089
No shame.

266
00:12:17,089 --> 00:12:18,440
It's everyone's first time sometime.

267
00:12:18,440 --> 00:12:20,780
So this first one, this is a great image.

268
00:12:20,780 --> 00:12:21,700
It's very stark.

269
00:12:21,700 --> 00:12:22,900
It's gonna draw someone in.

270
00:12:22,900 --> 00:12:24,140
That paw's really good.

271
00:12:24,140 --> 00:12:26,250
The text, unfortunately, is totally off.

272
00:12:26,250 --> 00:12:28,730
It definitely needs to feel a little more cutesy.

273
00:12:28,730 --> 00:12:31,430
So I would scrap this text

274
00:12:31,430 --> 00:12:33,720
and make it something about like a high five.

275
00:12:33,720 --> 00:12:35,640
Like, "invisible high five!"

276
00:12:35,640 --> 00:12:38,440
Or like, "I'm ready for my high five human!"

277
00:12:38,440 --> 00:12:41,673
But spelled human with OO instead of U.

278
00:12:43,670 --> 00:12:44,503
So how about this one?

279
00:12:44,503 --> 00:12:46,330
We take a bit of a political turn?

280
00:12:46,330 --> 00:12:49,220
Politics doesn't always really work in a cat meme.

281
00:12:49,220 --> 00:12:50,930
You want to stick with something more wholesome,

282
00:12:50,930 --> 00:12:54,740
more positive, and that's really what resonates the best.

283
00:12:54,740 --> 00:12:57,447
It would probably be a caption about like,

284
00:12:57,447 --> 00:12:59,230
"I can be prezident instead!"

285
00:12:59,230 --> 00:13:00,620
'Cause I'm sure people on Tumbler

286
00:13:00,620 --> 00:13:02,123
would want a cat to be president.

287
00:13:02,123 --> 00:13:04,470
So we've had a go at a meta meme.

288
00:13:04,470 --> 00:13:05,785
I love this.
Lolcat.

289
00:13:05,785 --> 00:13:06,618
You love this one?

290
00:13:06,618 --> 00:13:07,451
I do.

291
00:13:07,451 --> 00:13:08,284
I love meta.

292
00:13:08,284 --> 00:13:10,110
I love memes that are making fun of other memes.

293
00:13:10,110 --> 00:13:11,930
'Cause meme culture, when you think about it,

294
00:13:11,930 --> 00:13:13,130
is just absurd.

295
00:13:13,130 --> 00:13:15,970
It's fun and it's playful, and so is this.

296
00:13:15,970 --> 00:13:17,410
This picture is incredible.

297
00:13:17,410 --> 00:13:19,640
This cat's face, on point.

298
00:13:19,640 --> 00:13:21,830
The language can just be ...

299
00:13:21,830 --> 00:13:23,070
Cute it up a bit.

300
00:13:23,070 --> 00:13:24,470
So have you got a recommendation?

301
00:13:24,470 --> 00:13:27,260
Maybe something like "I can haz meta meme?"

302
00:13:27,260 --> 00:13:29,120
To make it even funnier,

303
00:13:29,120 --> 00:13:31,890
just really playing on this incredible photo.

304
00:13:31,890 --> 00:13:33,530
We're gonna send the good one.

305
00:13:33,530 --> 00:13:34,572
And ...

306
00:13:34,572 --> 00:13:35,898
it's posted!
It's gone!

307
00:13:35,898 --> 00:13:36,731
Yes!

308
00:13:36,731 --> 00:13:38,110
So excited!

309
00:13:38,110 --> 00:13:40,440
Lolcats have got pedigree.

310
00:13:40,440 --> 00:13:42,970
Cats were a popular subject for early photography

311
00:13:42,970 --> 00:13:45,380
in the 19th century, featuring as part

312
00:13:45,380 --> 00:13:47,890
of a craze for picture postcards.

313
00:13:47,890 --> 00:13:51,900
In the 1870s, a Brighton photographer, Harry Pointer,

314
00:13:51,900 --> 00:13:54,590
started photographing cats in funny ways.

315
00:13:54,590 --> 00:13:57,410
He doubled down on the joke with written captions.

316
00:13:57,410 --> 00:13:59,250
But he could have made a killing

317
00:13:59,250 --> 00:14:00,700
if he'd known about lolspeak.

318
00:14:02,990 --> 00:14:04,810
Let's explore this a bit more.

319
00:14:04,810 --> 00:14:07,590
The internet is so a part of our lives

320
00:14:07,590 --> 00:14:10,350
that the norms and behaviors we associate with it

321
00:14:10,350 --> 00:14:14,270
beg the question, how new is all of this?

322
00:14:14,270 --> 00:14:17,330
After all, as we've seen, throughout human history,

323
00:14:17,330 --> 00:14:20,060
communities form, give themselves identity,

324
00:14:20,060 --> 00:14:23,280
and accord meaning around visual symbols.

325
00:14:23,280 --> 00:14:26,990
Very sticky symbols have always been flexible enough

326
00:14:26,990 --> 00:14:30,490
to be interpreted in new ways as the world changes

327
00:14:30,490 --> 00:14:32,270
and still make sense,

328
00:14:32,270 --> 00:14:34,910
sometimes over the course of centuries.

329
00:14:34,910 --> 00:14:36,670
Take the skull and crossbones.

330
00:14:36,670 --> 00:14:40,390
We all know immediately what it means: danger.

331
00:14:40,390 --> 00:14:43,550
But it's hugely flexible in describing that danger.

332
00:14:43,550 --> 00:14:46,760
You can't trust anyone these day.

333
00:14:46,760 --> 00:14:50,060
Or what about the Christian cross or the Islamic crescent?

334
00:14:50,060 --> 00:14:52,480
Both are centuries old and it's been argued

335
00:14:52,480 --> 00:14:54,830
were adopted from even earlier cultures.

336
00:14:54,830 --> 00:14:57,230
Both were flexible enough in their meaning

337
00:14:57,230 --> 00:14:59,330
to be valued by diverse groups of people

338
00:14:59,330 --> 00:15:02,450
with different worldviews at the same time.

339
00:15:02,450 --> 00:15:06,730
Like many other sticky symbols, they are rallying signs.

340
00:15:06,730 --> 00:15:09,690
They help people figure out who else is same,

341
00:15:09,690 --> 00:15:10,773
and who is other.

342
00:15:11,900 --> 00:15:13,233
Talking of which ...

343
00:15:13,233 --> 00:15:14,790
(grandiose music)

344
00:15:14,790 --> 00:15:17,670
Flags are among the most recognizable symbols

345
00:15:17,670 --> 00:15:22,040
of the modern world, used and abused endlessly.

346
00:15:22,040 --> 00:15:25,370
Like the best memes, flags have different meanings

347
00:15:25,370 --> 00:15:28,510
to different people who value the symbolism

348
00:15:28,510 --> 00:15:30,833
for often radically different reasons.

349
00:15:35,580 --> 00:15:38,240
Taking a longer view, biologists would argue

350
00:15:38,240 --> 00:15:40,610
that our ability to generate memes

351
00:15:40,610 --> 00:15:45,310
has been a motor of change, so beneficial to us over time

352
00:15:45,310 --> 00:15:48,403
that our genes have adapted to make us really good at it.

353
00:15:50,060 --> 00:15:51,910
Do we have to go to distant worlds

354
00:15:51,910 --> 00:15:53,830
to find other kinds of replicator

355
00:15:53,830 --> 00:15:56,410
and other consequent kinds of evolution?

356
00:15:56,410 --> 00:15:58,430
I think that a new kind of replicator

357
00:15:58,430 --> 00:16:01,060
has recently emerged on this very planet.

358
00:16:01,060 --> 00:16:02,947
It is staring us in the face.

359
00:16:02,947 --> 00:16:06,290
(relaxed hip hop music)

360
00:16:06,290 --> 00:16:08,940
In his 1976 book The Selfish Gene,

361
00:16:08,940 --> 00:16:11,180
the biologist Richard Dawkins used memes

362
00:16:11,180 --> 00:16:12,990
as a way to explain how religions,

363
00:16:12,990 --> 00:16:16,130
folk tunes, ways of making pots, and even origami

364
00:16:16,130 --> 00:16:19,223
spread over generations, long before the web.

365
00:16:20,400 --> 00:16:23,450
Already it is achieving evolutionary change

366
00:16:23,450 --> 00:16:27,120
at a rate which leads the old gene panting far behind.

367
00:16:27,120 --> 00:16:28,390
The whole point about The Selfish Gene

368
00:16:28,390 --> 00:16:32,050
was it all about natural selection at the level of genes

369
00:16:32,050 --> 00:16:33,940
becoming more numerous in the gene pool,

370
00:16:33,940 --> 00:16:35,880
more numerous in the population.

371
00:16:35,880 --> 00:16:38,490
I wanted to make the point at the end of the book

372
00:16:38,490 --> 00:16:41,190
that genes are not the only possible replicator

373
00:16:41,190 --> 00:16:43,510
that could serve as a unit of natural selection.

374
00:16:43,510 --> 00:16:45,380
So instead I use cultural viruses.

375
00:16:45,380 --> 00:16:47,430
I actually called them mind viruses.

376
00:16:47,430 --> 00:16:51,590
And then said I want a noun that sounds a bit like gene,

377
00:16:51,590 --> 00:16:53,020
and so coined meme.

378
00:16:53,020 --> 00:16:55,840
My meme comes from a suitable Greek root,

379
00:16:55,840 --> 00:16:59,420
but I want a monosyllable that sounds a bit like gene.

380
00:16:59,420 --> 00:17:01,940
I hope my classicist friends will forgive me

381
00:17:01,940 --> 00:17:05,332
if I abbreviate my meme to meme.

382
00:17:05,332 --> 00:17:06,600
(heavenly music)

383
00:17:06,600 --> 00:17:07,730
Do you think that, historically,

384
00:17:07,730 --> 00:17:09,270
there are groups of people who've been

385
00:17:09,270 --> 00:17:11,640
very successful at generating memes?

386
00:17:11,640 --> 00:17:12,820
Absolutely.

387
00:17:12,820 --> 00:17:15,600
Just as Genghis Kahn was incredibly adapt

388
00:17:15,600 --> 00:17:19,000
at propagating his genes, almost an entire world

389
00:17:19,000 --> 00:17:20,740
is descended from Genghis Kahn,

390
00:17:20,740 --> 00:17:24,330
there are extremely fertile meme fountains

391
00:17:24,330 --> 00:17:26,360
who are giving off memes all the time,

392
00:17:26,360 --> 00:17:28,860
people like Martin Luther, Jesus.

393
00:17:28,860 --> 00:17:33,150
These are immensely productive generators of memes

394
00:17:33,150 --> 00:17:34,470
which have spread throughout the world

395
00:17:34,470 --> 00:17:37,250
in the same kind of way as Genghis Kahn's genes.

396
00:17:37,250 --> 00:17:39,610
Do you think that, in early human history,

397
00:17:39,610 --> 00:17:41,940
our ability to transmit cultural information

398
00:17:41,940 --> 00:17:43,790
gave us a survival advantage?

399
00:17:43,790 --> 00:17:46,450
If you take something like a really important

400
00:17:46,450 --> 00:17:49,760
cultural invention, like the wheel, or fire,

401
00:17:49,760 --> 00:17:52,530
or something like that, once that had been invented,

402
00:17:52,530 --> 00:17:54,430
it would have spread as a meme,

403
00:17:54,430 --> 00:17:56,970
and would certainly have contributed

404
00:17:56,970 --> 00:18:00,510
to survival of civilizations and individuals,

405
00:18:00,510 --> 00:18:02,720
and to the survival of the meme itself.

406
00:18:02,720 --> 00:18:07,230
Memes are competing for brain space or something like that.

407
00:18:07,230 --> 00:18:08,903
It's a revolutionary way of looking at it,

408
00:18:08,903 --> 00:18:10,560
because one naturally thinks of it

409
00:18:10,560 --> 00:18:13,060
as a competition between people.

410
00:18:13,060 --> 00:18:16,410
But just as I changed that, in the biological world,

411
00:18:16,410 --> 00:18:18,440
to competition between genes, I suppose I'm trying

412
00:18:18,440 --> 00:18:21,290
to do the same thing at the level of memes.

413
00:18:21,290 --> 00:18:23,840
Susan Blackmore has actually suggested

414
00:18:23,840 --> 00:18:26,400
that it has changed the way our brains are.

415
00:18:26,400 --> 00:18:29,514
Once people started to imitate each other ...

416
00:18:29,514 --> 00:18:33,320
(upbeat hip-hop music)

417
00:18:33,320 --> 00:18:36,300
Then you would acquire status by being good at imitating.

418
00:18:36,300 --> 00:18:38,610
I mean, if you were the one who could light the fire

419
00:18:38,610 --> 00:18:40,720
or keep the fire going, you would acquire status,

420
00:18:40,720 --> 00:18:43,320
probably better mates, and pass on

421
00:18:43,320 --> 00:18:46,400
whatever genes you had for that ability.

422
00:18:46,400 --> 00:18:50,050
There's a kind of coevolution between genes and memes.

423
00:18:50,050 --> 00:18:53,380
This is my argument for how we got such huge brains.

424
00:18:53,380 --> 00:18:54,593
This is a big idea, that memes

425
00:18:54,593 --> 00:18:57,230
might have evolved in parallel with or genes

426
00:18:57,230 --> 00:19:00,440
to give humans big brains, big enough to make lolcats

427
00:19:00,440 --> 00:19:03,020
and do planking, big enough today, perhaps,

428
00:19:03,020 --> 00:19:05,460
to filter out and disregard irrelevant,

429
00:19:05,460 --> 00:19:07,850
annoying, or unhelpful memes.

430
00:19:07,850 --> 00:19:11,510
Perhaps this is why some memes stick and others don't,

431
00:19:11,510 --> 00:19:14,650
a Darwinian survival of the fittest.

432
00:19:14,650 --> 00:19:16,620
Creating a successful meme

433
00:19:16,620 --> 00:19:19,630
is certainly an iterative process.

434
00:19:19,630 --> 00:19:22,180
99 out of 100 don't work.

435
00:19:22,180 --> 00:19:26,480
The meme world is red in tooth and claw.

436
00:19:26,480 --> 00:19:27,830
Why can't I clean the stains

437
00:19:27,830 --> 00:19:29,870
off my dental plates with toothpaste.

438
00:19:29,870 --> 00:19:32,370
Nowhere has there been a more exacting testing ground

439
00:19:32,370 --> 00:19:35,820
for memes than advertising, a daily dirty battle

440
00:19:35,820 --> 00:19:37,240
between clever meme creators

441
00:19:37,240 --> 00:19:39,958
and our limited and readily distractibile attention.

442
00:19:39,958 --> 00:19:42,560
(relaxed hip hop music)

443
00:19:42,560 --> 00:19:45,280
Robin Wight is an advertising legend.

444
00:19:45,280 --> 00:19:46,560
He knows.

445
00:19:46,560 --> 00:19:48,280
When Richard Dawkins invented

446
00:19:48,280 --> 00:19:51,526
the concept of memes in the mid-'70s.

447
00:19:51,526 --> 00:19:52,359
(heavenly music)

448
00:19:52,359 --> 00:19:54,240
He was explaining what ad men

449
00:19:54,240 --> 00:19:56,460
had been practicing intuitively.

450
00:19:56,460 --> 00:19:59,370
The idea of jingles, the idea of slogans.

451
00:19:59,370 --> 00:20:01,650
People had found out by trial and error

452
00:20:01,650 --> 00:20:04,230
that some things work better than others.

453
00:20:04,230 --> 00:20:07,040
This was, if you like, an evolutionary battle

454
00:20:07,040 --> 00:20:09,290
which the strongest memes won.

455
00:20:09,290 --> 00:20:11,460
You remember a jingle, a brand,

456
00:20:11,460 --> 00:20:14,400
and a slogan even after the brand is dead.

457
00:20:14,400 --> 00:20:17,370
One we created back in '94

458
00:20:17,370 --> 00:20:19,770
was "the future's bright, the future's orange."

459
00:20:19,770 --> 00:20:22,610
That brand is now dead, but in service,

460
00:20:22,610 --> 00:20:24,940
the ninth best remembered slogan

461
00:20:24,940 --> 00:20:26,453
is "the future's bright, the future's orange."

462
00:20:26,453 --> 00:20:28,850
Can you give me an example from your career

463
00:20:28,850 --> 00:20:31,000
of something that really stuck

464
00:20:31,000 --> 00:20:33,180
and what made it sticky?

465
00:20:33,180 --> 00:20:34,970
We were given 118 118,

466
00:20:34,970 --> 00:20:36,780
and we knew there'd be lots of other brands,

467
00:20:36,780 --> 00:20:37,680
all starting with 118.

468
00:20:37,680 --> 00:20:39,270
How can we make ours stand out

469
00:20:39,270 --> 00:20:40,790
where we are helped by the numbers.

470
00:20:40,790 --> 00:20:43,793
So, first of all, twinning is an iconic concept.

471
00:20:44,680 --> 00:20:46,080
Castor and Pollux.

472
00:20:46,080 --> 00:20:47,430
Twins are already special.

473
00:20:47,430 --> 00:20:52,220
So we made our brand characters echoing the 118 118.

474
00:20:52,220 --> 00:20:54,840
And then we made them memorable.

475
00:20:54,840 --> 00:20:56,410
We put mustaches on them.

476
00:20:56,410 --> 00:20:57,770
We made them iconic.

477
00:20:57,770 --> 00:20:58,990
We made then runners.

478
00:20:58,990 --> 00:21:01,930
We used some other mimetic tricks.

479
00:21:01,930 --> 00:21:03,400
Repetition.

480
00:21:03,400 --> 00:21:04,840
Got your number, got your number,

481
00:21:04,840 --> 00:21:06,340
got your number, got your number.

482
00:21:06,340 --> 00:21:08,480
Then we used Rocky, the music of Rocky.

483
00:21:08,480 --> 00:21:12,520
We borrowed iconography, so a lot of a message

484
00:21:12,520 --> 00:21:15,280
is adding all sorts of layers and symbolism

485
00:21:15,280 --> 00:21:16,780
to the core brand proposition.

486
00:21:18,410 --> 00:21:21,740
Symbolism, layers of meaning, humans-built connections.

487
00:21:21,740 --> 00:21:24,930
These are all clearly staples of a successful meme.

488
00:21:24,930 --> 00:21:26,400
But back in the digital world,

489
00:21:26,400 --> 00:21:28,480
if we were to translate those ingredients,

490
00:21:28,480 --> 00:21:29,850
would this be the result?

491
00:21:29,850 --> 00:21:31,960
Simple, hackneyed, weird.

492
00:21:31,960 --> 00:21:34,340
Emoji are said to be used more frequently on Twitter

493
00:21:34,340 --> 00:21:36,600
than hyphens or the numeral 5.

494
00:21:36,600 --> 00:21:39,870
Here are the eye worms of our 21st century lives.

495
00:21:39,870 --> 00:21:40,767
I think the official number

496
00:21:40,767 --> 00:21:43,590
is something like six billion or so per day.

497
00:21:43,590 --> 00:21:44,590
Six billion?

498
00:21:44,590 --> 00:21:45,423
Yes.

499
00:21:45,423 --> 00:21:46,256
Amazing.

500
00:21:46,256 --> 00:21:49,840
(energetic electronic music)

501
00:21:49,840 --> 00:21:51,350
I'm sitting for my emoji

502
00:21:51,350 --> 00:21:55,133
by the pioneering UK emoji designer Emma Hopkins.

503
00:21:57,457 --> 00:21:59,223
Now, if you'll just look to the right.

504
00:22:01,460 --> 00:22:03,773
And slightly turn your head up.

505
00:22:10,239 --> 00:22:11,906
And give me a smile.

506
00:22:17,990 --> 00:22:19,210
Okay, I think we're done,

507
00:22:19,210 --> 00:22:20,666
if you want to come and have a look.

508
00:22:20,666 --> 00:22:21,833
Yes, please.

509
00:22:24,052 --> 00:22:25,237
(chuckling)

510
00:22:25,237 --> 00:22:27,000
It's a Clay emoji.

511
00:22:27,000 --> 00:22:28,546
Does that really look like me?

512
00:22:28,546 --> 00:22:29,379
(Emma laughing)

513
00:22:29,379 --> 00:22:31,713
For a difference in expression ...

514
00:22:32,709 --> 00:22:33,859
Yeah, that's much more me.

515
00:22:33,859 --> 00:22:35,520
(Emma laughing)

516
00:22:35,520 --> 00:22:36,573
I look about 12.

517
00:22:37,410 --> 00:22:39,810
The set expands and grows

518
00:22:39,810 --> 00:22:42,260
as society calls for a new emoji.

519
00:22:42,260 --> 00:22:44,620
Last year, an avocado emoji was released,

520
00:22:44,620 --> 00:22:46,730
and it was because there was such a demand.

521
00:22:46,730 --> 00:22:49,150
Like, it makes major headline news.

522
00:22:49,150 --> 00:22:52,910
Lovers have successfully wooed one another with emoji.

523
00:22:52,910 --> 00:22:55,620
Recruiters for ISIS, sometimes also known

524
00:22:55,620 --> 00:22:57,780
as Daech or Islamic State,

525
00:22:57,780 --> 00:23:00,330
have used emoji in their promotional tweets.

526
00:23:00,330 --> 00:23:04,860
Someone even translated Moby Dick into emoji Dick.

527
00:23:04,860 --> 00:23:06,870
Living in such a digital age,

528
00:23:06,870 --> 00:23:08,560
we have most of our conversations

529
00:23:08,560 --> 00:23:11,420
over WhatsApp or messengers or social media.

530
00:23:11,420 --> 00:23:12,470
I think it's important to add

531
00:23:12,470 --> 00:23:14,520
an emotive cue to what we're trying to say.

532
00:23:14,520 --> 00:23:16,500
They add atmosphere to a conversation.

533
00:23:16,500 --> 00:23:19,670
For instance, if I am sending you a message

534
00:23:19,670 --> 00:23:22,770
and I'm trying to joke around or I'm being sarcastic,

535
00:23:22,770 --> 00:23:25,380
you might not necessarily understand that tone.

536
00:23:25,380 --> 00:23:27,897
But if I put a little laughing face on the end,

537
00:23:27,897 --> 00:23:30,210
you'll be like, "Oh, she's only joking,"

538
00:23:30,210 --> 00:23:32,670
whereas otherwise it could be perceived as quite blunt.

539
00:23:32,670 --> 00:23:35,410
So are emojis doing the work that body language

540
00:23:35,410 --> 00:23:37,670
and facial expression do in conversation?

541
00:23:37,670 --> 00:23:38,503
Yes.

542
00:23:38,503 --> 00:23:39,336
Yeah.

543
00:23:39,336 --> 00:23:42,610
A 2015 survey by Bangor University

544
00:23:42,610 --> 00:23:45,400
found that almost three-quarters of participants

545
00:23:45,400 --> 00:23:49,450
aged between 18 and 25 felt more comfortable

546
00:23:49,450 --> 00:23:52,980
expressing themselves using emoji than words.

547
00:23:52,980 --> 00:23:55,590
So what do you think the future of emojis is?

548
00:23:55,590 --> 00:23:58,100
Samsung and Google now have apps

549
00:23:58,100 --> 00:23:59,310
where you can create your own emoji

550
00:23:59,310 --> 00:24:01,350
based on like a picture of your face.

551
00:24:01,350 --> 00:24:02,860
So it will scan the image of you.

552
00:24:02,860 --> 00:24:04,850
It will scan your hair length and your eye color

553
00:24:04,850 --> 00:24:06,750
and the shape of your face,

554
00:24:06,750 --> 00:24:09,060
and then that will become your emoji.

555
00:24:09,060 --> 00:24:11,200
This is the most massive dissemination

556
00:24:11,200 --> 00:24:12,940
of self-portraiture in history.

557
00:24:12,940 --> 00:24:13,773
Yeah.

558
00:24:13,773 --> 00:24:17,700
Like lolcats, emoji aren't as new as you might think.

559
00:24:17,700 --> 00:24:19,567
The philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein,

560
00:24:19,567 --> 00:24:21,890
during a lecture in the 1930s,

561
00:24:21,890 --> 00:24:25,050
argued simple expression can convey emotion

562
00:24:25,050 --> 00:24:28,370
far more articulately than people using words.

563
00:24:28,370 --> 00:24:30,750
He sketched three simple faces.

564
00:24:30,750 --> 00:24:34,140
He said, in fact, if we want to be exact,

565
00:24:34,140 --> 00:24:37,203
we use a gesture or a facial expression.

566
00:24:38,490 --> 00:24:41,690
From cats to Darwin, from advertising

567
00:24:41,690 --> 00:24:44,770
to little pixelated faces, here's what I'm discovering

568
00:24:44,770 --> 00:24:47,690
about why internet memes snaffle our attention,

569
00:24:47,690 --> 00:24:50,573
tug at our emotions, or make them want to pass them on.

570
00:24:51,430 --> 00:24:56,430
It begins with the blueprint of mimetic engineering.

571
00:24:56,909 --> 00:25:01,040
(energetic electronic music)

572
00:25:01,040 --> 00:25:02,340
Simplicity.

573
00:25:02,340 --> 00:25:04,400
Keep it simple, stupid.

574
00:25:04,400 --> 00:25:06,890
The best memes are direct and very simple

575
00:25:06,890 --> 00:25:09,020
with a low barrier to entry.

576
00:25:09,020 --> 00:25:11,013
Many successful image macros and GIFs

577
00:25:11,013 --> 00:25:13,210
have got punchlines already,

578
00:25:13,210 --> 00:25:15,490
and people can easily rework them

579
00:25:15,490 --> 00:25:18,760
by simply creating a new and surprising feed line.

580
00:25:18,760 --> 00:25:20,810
It's the same in political protests.

581
00:25:20,810 --> 00:25:23,960
Simple gestures that can be easily replicated

582
00:25:23,960 --> 00:25:25,870
can be hugely powerful.

583
00:25:25,870 --> 00:25:27,690
A clenched fist symbol,

584
00:25:27,690 --> 00:25:30,540
or kneeling during the American national anthem,

585
00:25:30,540 --> 00:25:32,950
is authentic and not approved.

586
00:25:32,950 --> 00:25:35,600
It's by the people, for the people.

587
00:25:35,600 --> 00:25:39,270
And it's an effective, free, repeatable symbol

588
00:25:39,270 --> 00:25:40,839
anyone can imitate.

589
00:25:40,839 --> 00:25:42,330
(glitching)

590
00:25:42,330 --> 00:25:43,400
Humor.

591
00:25:43,400 --> 00:25:46,150
Meme humor plays with our expectations,

592
00:25:46,150 --> 00:25:49,620
giving us what we want, like the imagined dialogue

593
00:25:49,620 --> 00:25:51,780
between Barack Obama and Joe Biden,

594
00:25:51,780 --> 00:25:53,630
or it plays against expectations,

595
00:25:53,630 --> 00:25:56,830
from pratfalls to something a little edgier.

596
00:25:56,830 --> 00:25:58,970
Humor is the way that people

597
00:25:58,970 --> 00:26:02,409
have been talking back to power for millennia.

598
00:26:02,409 --> 00:26:05,220
(relaxed electronic music)

599
00:26:05,220 --> 00:26:08,830
The whole point of the court jester was to couch

600
00:26:09,950 --> 00:26:13,260
sharp critiques in a humorous way.

601
00:26:13,260 --> 00:26:14,310
Insight.

602
00:26:14,310 --> 00:26:16,390
Memes don't always have to be funny.

603
00:26:16,390 --> 00:26:18,530
They can offer quite serious observations

604
00:26:18,530 --> 00:26:20,250
about human nature.

605
00:26:20,250 --> 00:26:23,187
A meme can tell us a truth about ourselves.

606
00:26:23,187 --> 00:26:25,970
"This is fine" is a two-panel image of a dog

607
00:26:25,970 --> 00:26:29,280
trying to reassure itself that everything is fine,

608
00:26:29,280 --> 00:26:32,280
despite sitting in a room that's engulfed in flames,

609
00:26:32,280 --> 00:26:36,490
playing on self-denial in the face of a hopeless situation.

610
00:26:36,490 --> 00:26:40,140
It speaks to something deep in the human condition.

611
00:26:40,140 --> 00:26:41,498
We copy things to other people

612
00:26:41,498 --> 00:26:42,340
'cause we want to show off,

613
00:26:42,340 --> 00:26:44,840
'cause we want to be liked, because we frightened.

614
00:26:45,900 --> 00:26:48,470
We just will go on pouring stuff out there.

615
00:26:48,470 --> 00:26:49,570
Visuals.

616
00:26:49,570 --> 00:26:51,650
The most successful internet memes

617
00:26:51,650 --> 00:26:54,120
communicate using visual content.

618
00:26:54,120 --> 00:26:54,993
TL;DR.

619
00:26:56,030 --> 00:26:57,980
Too long; didn't read.

620
00:26:57,980 --> 00:27:00,470
That's the common response to the sheer volume

621
00:27:00,470 --> 00:27:02,980
and complexity of material on the internet.

622
00:27:02,980 --> 00:27:05,680
Quick and direct, images beat text

623
00:27:05,680 --> 00:27:08,230
in the competition for attention spans.

624
00:27:08,230 --> 00:27:13,110
Humans were a visual species long before we started to talk

625
00:27:13,110 --> 00:27:15,820
and well before we started to write.

626
00:27:15,820 --> 00:27:17,900
It's estimated that the first cave paintings

627
00:27:17,900 --> 00:27:20,160
were created 40,000 years ago,

628
00:27:20,160 --> 00:27:22,820
the first writing 5,000 years ago.

629
00:27:22,820 --> 00:27:25,580
Some visual memes echo through history.

630
00:27:25,580 --> 00:27:28,580
Here are the precursors of Hollywood CGI monsters

631
00:27:28,580 --> 00:27:30,590
and hard-bitten heroes.

632
00:27:30,590 --> 00:27:33,550
Pictures have a way of resonating,

633
00:27:33,550 --> 00:27:37,403
allowing us to read between the lines and tell a story.

634
00:27:38,310 --> 00:27:40,010
Controversy and debate.

635
00:27:40,010 --> 00:27:40,970
Remember this?

636
00:27:40,970 --> 00:27:44,810
An interrupted financial interview that went viral in 2017?

637
00:27:44,810 --> 00:27:47,640
It was simple, visual, unexpectedly funny.

638
00:27:47,640 --> 00:27:50,120
But the thing that really sent it stratospheric

639
00:27:50,120 --> 00:27:51,950
was the furious debate that followed

640
00:27:51,950 --> 00:27:53,213
about why people assumed the women

641
00:27:53,213 --> 00:27:57,380
snatching her children away was a nanny, not a wife.

642
00:27:57,380 --> 00:27:59,220
My apologies. (chuckling)

643
00:27:59,220 --> 00:28:01,010
When there are two opposing camps,

644
00:28:01,010 --> 00:28:05,620
there will always be a longer trail of memes left behind.

645
00:28:05,620 --> 00:28:07,030
Sharing.

646
00:28:07,030 --> 00:28:09,880
Great memes are memes you want to share.

647
00:28:09,880 --> 00:28:12,140
They say something to your peers, your in-group,

648
00:28:12,140 --> 00:28:15,253
about your personality and crucially what you feel.

649
00:28:16,660 --> 00:28:19,580
Many people feel that little says more about them

650
00:28:19,580 --> 00:28:21,794
than the videos they choose to share.

651
00:28:21,794 --> 00:28:24,260
(energetic electronic music)

652
00:28:24,260 --> 00:28:26,110
That's the theory anyway, for the people

653
00:28:26,110 --> 00:28:28,250
who call themselves social publishers.

654
00:28:28,250 --> 00:28:30,270
These are the offices of Lad Bible.

655
00:28:30,270 --> 00:28:33,370
One of the top three publishers of viral content globally,

656
00:28:33,370 --> 00:28:36,210
Lab Bible reaches a billion people a month.

657
00:28:36,210 --> 00:28:37,830
Elle's just put a video out.

658
00:28:37,830 --> 00:28:40,140
So, very quickly she'll be able to ascertain

659
00:28:40,140 --> 00:28:42,340
how it's doing compared to previous pieces of content

660
00:28:42,340 --> 00:28:44,330
we've done, and just by looking at

661
00:28:44,330 --> 00:28:45,990
the engagement rates we've gotten so far.

662
00:28:45,990 --> 00:28:48,620
So, we've just put out a video

663
00:28:48,620 --> 00:28:50,760
of a dog rolling in the mud, basically.

664
00:28:50,760 --> 00:28:53,670
It's a submission, so one of our audience has sent it in,

665
00:28:53,670 --> 00:28:57,680
and it's got seven shares, 25 comments.

666
00:28:57,680 --> 00:28:59,980
So what would you be hoping for after five minutes?

667
00:28:59,980 --> 00:29:04,020
Usually about 200 comments, 100 shares.

668
00:29:04,020 --> 00:29:05,610
They're the main things that we focus on.

669
00:29:05,610 --> 00:29:07,130
And every one of those shares

670
00:29:07,130 --> 00:29:09,600
could lead to hundreds more shares.

671
00:29:09,600 --> 00:29:11,920
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And it just goes viral

672
00:29:11,920 --> 00:29:12,753
by that point, right?
Exactly.

673
00:29:12,753 --> 00:29:14,700
So this video should do, after 24 hours,

674
00:29:14,700 --> 00:29:15,958
do about three million, three and a half million?

675
00:29:15,958 --> 00:29:17,183
Yeah, something along those lines.

676
00:29:17,183 --> 00:29:18,687
2.5 to three mill it should do.

677
00:29:18,687 --> 00:29:21,580
And that's just another day at the office.

678
00:29:21,580 --> 00:29:22,912
Yeah, it's another good day at the office, yeah.

679
00:29:22,912 --> 00:29:25,245
(chuckling)

680
00:29:26,302 --> 00:29:28,260
(whacks ping pong ball)

681
00:29:28,260 --> 00:29:29,810
Social publishing's very much driven

682
00:29:29,810 --> 00:29:31,110
and led by the audience.

683
00:29:31,110 --> 00:29:33,690
If they engage with your content, if they comment,

684
00:29:33,690 --> 00:29:37,440
if they share, they click, you know within seconds,

685
00:29:37,440 --> 00:29:39,150
and you know to do more of that.

686
00:29:39,150 --> 00:29:42,520
So, a lot of content online can seem really niche,

687
00:29:42,520 --> 00:29:44,940
but it actually reaches a massive audience.

688
00:29:44,940 --> 00:29:47,210
What do you think that reveals about us?

689
00:29:47,210 --> 00:29:49,683
I think a lot of us can sometimes think

690
00:29:49,683 --> 00:29:52,370
that maybe individually we're about weird

691
00:29:52,370 --> 00:29:54,150
or we might be interested in things

692
00:29:54,150 --> 00:29:55,510
that maybe other people aren't.

693
00:29:55,510 --> 00:29:58,900
I think the internet is potentially a bit of like a lens

694
00:29:58,900 --> 00:30:00,690
for actually other people who like

695
00:30:00,690 --> 00:30:01,567
the same weird things that we do.

696
00:30:01,567 --> 00:30:03,270
And you want to share that and be proud of it.

697
00:30:03,270 --> 00:30:05,530
It becomes almost like a social badge of honor

698
00:30:05,530 --> 00:30:09,020
that you and 10 million other people feel exactly the same.

699
00:30:09,020 --> 00:30:11,660
Some people think that social media is quite shallow.

700
00:30:11,660 --> 00:30:13,180
Do you think that's fair?

701
00:30:13,180 --> 00:30:15,490
The reason I ask this is that I've been impressed

702
00:30:15,490 --> 00:30:17,660
by their editorial meeting earlier.

703
00:30:17,660 --> 00:30:20,090
Next, original ideas.

704
00:30:20,090 --> 00:30:20,950
Who wants to kick us off?

705
00:30:20,950 --> 00:30:21,783
Stu?

706
00:30:21,783 --> 00:30:23,440
We have a veterans retreat,

707
00:30:23,440 --> 00:30:26,840
which has actually been opened to victims of terrorism.

708
00:30:26,840 --> 00:30:29,140
We haven't done anything on Ed Gein before.

709
00:30:29,140 --> 00:30:31,450
He's the guy who's literally inspired

710
00:30:31,450 --> 00:30:34,070
the movie Psycho, Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

711
00:30:34,070 --> 00:30:36,930
We could speak to a mental health charity

712
00:30:36,930 --> 00:30:39,820
and see if there was a rise in phone calls

713
00:30:39,820 --> 00:30:41,310
and things last week.

714
00:30:41,310 --> 00:30:43,630
Looking into Crocs and the material

715
00:30:43,630 --> 00:30:47,110
they're made from being found not to be biodegradable.

716
00:30:47,110 --> 00:30:50,980
Veganism is not cruelty free, apparently.

717
00:30:50,980 --> 00:30:51,813
All right, yes.

718
00:30:51,813 --> 00:30:52,646
Good ideas today, guys.

719
00:30:52,646 --> 00:30:55,520
So, we'll get our hustle on and have a good day, yeah?

720
00:30:55,520 --> 00:30:59,420
I think when we talk about our editorial tone of voice

721
00:30:59,420 --> 00:31:02,920
or what we cover, someone positioned it as

722
00:31:02,920 --> 00:31:05,160
you want to hang out with someone that can be funny,

723
00:31:05,160 --> 00:31:09,290
can be serious, can have an opinion, can host a conversation

724
00:31:09,290 --> 00:31:11,080
all at the same time and kinda mix it up.

725
00:31:11,080 --> 00:31:12,350
If someone tries to be funny all the time,

726
00:31:12,350 --> 00:31:13,183
they get annoying.

727
00:31:13,183 --> 00:31:14,850
If someone's really serious, they're too heavy,

728
00:31:14,850 --> 00:31:16,770
and you're not gonna hang out with them too much.

729
00:31:16,770 --> 00:31:19,510
So how do you get a video to go viral?

730
00:31:19,510 --> 00:31:22,370
We've done a few pieces where we've got

731
00:31:22,370 --> 00:31:24,619
people who you wouldn't expect to be together.

732
00:31:24,619 --> 00:31:27,419
I think there's a piece of Judi Dench and Lethal Bizzle.

733
00:31:28,350 --> 00:31:32,339
One's kind of a beloved actress, one's a grime artist.

734
00:31:32,339 --> 00:31:33,646
♪ One more time, let's go! ♪

735
00:31:33,646 --> 00:31:35,441
♪ Pow yeah I'm Judy to the D ♪

736
00:31:35,441 --> 00:31:37,063
♪ Pow if you don't know about me ♪

737
00:31:37,063 --> 00:31:37,896
♪ Pow ♪

738
00:31:37,896 --> 00:31:39,610
It's just things you wouldn't imagine to see

739
00:31:39,610 --> 00:31:41,780
in your day to day that kind of tap into a feeling that,

740
00:31:41,780 --> 00:31:44,070
because it's so out of the ordinary,

741
00:31:44,070 --> 00:31:45,964
you share it with your friends, go, "Have you seen this?"

742
00:31:45,964 --> 00:31:47,030
♪ Pow ♪

743
00:31:47,030 --> 00:31:49,690
It's that, "Have you seen this?" kind of essence

744
00:31:49,690 --> 00:31:51,950
that translates across the internet.

745
00:31:51,950 --> 00:31:52,783
Okay.

746
00:31:52,783 --> 00:31:54,030
Time for our next meme.

747
00:31:54,030 --> 00:31:57,310
I'm going to pitch Lab Bible an idea for a viral video.

748
00:31:57,310 --> 00:32:00,270
It'll involve another national treasure we've just met:

749
00:32:00,270 --> 00:32:01,740
Richard Dawkins.

750
00:32:01,740 --> 00:32:05,960
Richard Dawkins invented the notion of the meme in 1976.

751
00:32:05,960 --> 00:32:09,360
Do you think we can make a viral film about Dawkins?

752
00:32:09,360 --> 00:32:10,780
I think one of the really important things

753
00:32:10,780 --> 00:32:12,080
is the first 10 seconds.

754
00:32:12,080 --> 00:32:15,563
So, those 10 seconds are where you need to capture the user.

755
00:32:16,400 --> 00:32:17,780
No, I don't know.

756
00:32:17,780 --> 00:32:19,010
It's like the headline of an article,

757
00:32:19,010 --> 00:32:20,430
so you pick the biggest hook,

758
00:32:20,430 --> 00:32:21,570
put the best part of the video,

759
00:32:21,570 --> 00:32:23,690
show a tiny clip of it at the start, get 'em hooked.

760
00:32:23,690 --> 00:32:25,031
You can say that again.

761
00:32:25,031 --> 00:32:26,910
It's gotta be snappy.

762
00:32:26,910 --> 00:32:29,930
It's gotta have imagery that they're gonna be hooked

763
00:32:29,930 --> 00:32:32,530
on watching and they're gonna watch to the end.

764
00:32:32,530 --> 00:32:34,920
If the last clip is something that you really engage with,

765
00:32:34,920 --> 00:32:35,990
then that's gonna be the feeling

766
00:32:35,990 --> 00:32:38,360
that you carry through after that, into your actions.

767
00:32:38,360 --> 00:32:40,880
So that's the bit that's gonna make you share it.

768
00:32:40,880 --> 00:32:42,360
How long do you think it should be?

769
00:32:42,360 --> 00:32:43,810
Maybe like a minute and a half

770
00:32:43,810 --> 00:32:44,810
to two minutes, I would say.

771
00:32:44,810 --> 00:32:46,590
So it's like the Charlatans said:

772
00:32:46,590 --> 00:32:48,540
always leave them wanting more.

773
00:32:48,540 --> 00:32:49,397
Yeah.

774
00:32:49,397 --> 00:32:51,564
(dinging)

775
00:32:52,500 --> 00:32:53,333
So here goes.

776
00:32:55,540 --> 00:32:58,127
Nobody knows what the (bleep) a meme is anymore.

777
00:32:58,127 --> 00:33:01,294
(light-hearted music)

778
00:33:07,920 --> 00:33:10,453
It should be pronounced to rhyme with cream.

779
00:33:12,640 --> 00:33:15,090
Meme, you keep using that word.

780
00:33:15,090 --> 00:33:17,413
I do not think it means what you think it means.

781
00:33:18,620 --> 00:33:20,380
So that's a bad meme.

782
00:33:20,380 --> 00:33:23,330
I coined the word meme, but now it just means

783
00:33:23,330 --> 00:33:25,490
some text over an image.

784
00:33:25,490 --> 00:33:26,640
You can say that again.

785
00:33:27,850 --> 00:33:29,580
So we've seen how memes evolved.

786
00:33:29,580 --> 00:33:31,910
We've found out that they appeal to our emotions

787
00:33:31,910 --> 00:33:33,560
and help us build connections.

788
00:33:33,560 --> 00:33:36,560
Now the big question is, what does it all mean?

789
00:33:36,560 --> 00:33:38,410
How do these global cultures of memes

790
00:33:38,410 --> 00:33:40,680
impact on our societies and politics,

791
00:33:40,680 --> 00:33:42,670
especially our politics?

792
00:33:42,670 --> 00:33:46,103
Perhaps the answer lies once again in symbols from the past.

793
00:33:46,940 --> 00:33:50,200
Long before the internet, before TV and radio,

794
00:33:50,200 --> 00:33:52,360
another technological change spread a meme

795
00:33:52,360 --> 00:33:54,190
to powerful effect.

796
00:33:54,190 --> 00:33:56,890
In 1830s France, Charles Philipon,

797
00:33:56,890 --> 00:33:59,320
a Parisian publisher of lithographs,

798
00:33:59,320 --> 00:34:02,000
began to answer cheap, popular prints

799
00:34:02,000 --> 00:34:05,650
that depicted King Louis Philippe as a pear.

800
00:34:05,650 --> 00:34:08,840
The pear quickly became a popular image

801
00:34:08,840 --> 00:34:11,160
scrawled on the walls of Paris.

802
00:34:11,160 --> 00:34:13,950
Lithographs had amplified the spread of a meme

803
00:34:13,950 --> 00:34:16,640
in the streets in the form of graffiti.

804
00:34:16,640 --> 00:34:18,950
Today, the pear has its equivalent

805
00:34:18,950 --> 00:34:21,720
in literally millions of images and cartoons

806
00:34:21,720 --> 00:34:24,440
proliferating across the internet.

807
00:34:24,440 --> 00:34:25,880
And graffiti and the internet

808
00:34:25,880 --> 00:34:28,070
sometimes still feed each other,

809
00:34:28,070 --> 00:34:31,550
rather like lithographs and graffiti of pears,

810
00:34:31,550 --> 00:34:33,300
like the radio and scrawled Vs

811
00:34:33,300 --> 00:34:36,110
on walls in Nazi-occupied Europe.

812
00:34:36,110 --> 00:34:39,410
There's always been a potential multiplier effect

813
00:34:39,410 --> 00:34:42,033
between mass media and the street.

814
00:34:47,760 --> 00:34:49,780
Come close to hear your future.

815
00:34:49,780 --> 00:34:52,130
You're really, really pathetic.

816
00:34:52,130 --> 00:34:54,430
Do you people see this loser?

817
00:34:54,430 --> 00:34:55,740
Get him outta here!

818
00:34:55,740 --> 00:34:57,580
At the Design Museum in London,

819
00:34:57,580 --> 00:35:00,160
this exhibition explores a shift in political memes

820
00:35:00,160 --> 00:35:03,020
since the election of Barack Obama in 2008.

821
00:35:03,020 --> 00:35:05,170
It traces how the so-called alt-right,

822
00:35:05,170 --> 00:35:06,760
on anonymous message boards,

823
00:35:06,760 --> 00:35:09,090
took children's cartoons like Pepe the Frog

824
00:35:09,090 --> 00:35:10,940
and turned them into symbols of hate.

825
00:35:11,840 --> 00:35:14,970
With their directness, appeal to tribalism and emotions,

826
00:35:14,970 --> 00:35:18,750
memes are deployed as weapons to get a rise or reaction.

827
00:35:18,750 --> 00:35:21,310
The exhibition, titled Hope to Nope,

828
00:35:21,310 --> 00:35:24,110
hints at how online and offline politics and culture

829
00:35:24,110 --> 00:35:25,383
have become intertwined.

830
00:35:26,590 --> 00:35:29,470
It's almost like TV turned politics into entertainment,

831
00:35:29,470 --> 00:35:32,820
and social media's turned it into a virtual playground

832
00:35:32,820 --> 00:35:35,210
full of funny kids, bullies, victims,

833
00:35:35,210 --> 00:35:39,140
using memes as their means of attack and defense.

834
00:35:39,140 --> 00:35:40,760
These rival factions are fighting

835
00:35:40,760 --> 00:35:42,720
what some see as a culture war,

836
00:35:42,720 --> 00:35:45,390
raging through the disruptions of Brexit,

837
00:35:45,390 --> 00:35:48,133
and Donald Trump's election to the U.S. presidency.

838
00:35:49,640 --> 00:35:51,570
Digital entrepreneur Kennyatta Cheese

839
00:35:51,570 --> 00:35:54,330
sees 2016 as the critical turning point

840
00:35:54,330 --> 00:35:56,650
when the internet meme hit the mainstream.

841
00:35:56,650 --> 00:35:57,594
That was the moment.

842
00:35:57,594 --> 00:35:59,680
(upbeat electronic music)

843
00:35:59,680 --> 00:36:02,520
Where all of a sudden you have U.S. presidential candidates

844
00:36:02,520 --> 00:36:05,733
talking about Pepe the Frog being a symbol of hate.

845
00:36:07,990 --> 00:36:09,670
You have memes being turned--

846
00:36:09,670 --> 00:36:11,480
Image macros being turned into

847
00:36:11,480 --> 00:36:14,830
sort of ideological IEDs and being spread

848
00:36:14,830 --> 00:36:15,900
in places like Facebook.

849
00:36:15,900 --> 00:36:18,850
You have a lot of people who have never seen this before,

850
00:36:18,850 --> 00:36:21,390
who have never really truly understood the cultures

851
00:36:21,390 --> 00:36:22,950
that went along with it,

852
00:36:22,950 --> 00:36:26,010
or understood what people were actually doing with memes,

853
00:36:26,010 --> 00:36:30,600
coming in and all of a sudden passing judgment,

854
00:36:30,600 --> 00:36:34,070
but also having a lot of fear around these things,

855
00:36:34,070 --> 00:36:38,193
the idea that image macros, that viral videos

856
00:36:38,193 --> 00:36:41,790
can be taken and used in a different context

857
00:36:41,790 --> 00:36:43,453
in order to try to sway opinion.

858
00:36:44,730 --> 00:36:47,550
It's been happening forever, right?

859
00:36:47,550 --> 00:36:50,670
But here was a time where it felt like it mattered.

860
00:36:50,670 --> 00:36:51,560
I don't care.

861
00:36:51,560 --> 00:36:53,000
I really don't.

862
00:36:53,000 --> 00:36:54,120
There's a lot of anxiety,

863
00:36:54,120 --> 00:36:56,370
especially in the mainstream press nowadays,

864
00:36:56,370 --> 00:36:58,336
around information bubbles,

865
00:36:58,336 --> 00:37:00,760
that people just get fed the same old thing.

866
00:37:00,760 --> 00:37:02,890
I don't think it's a negative, though.

867
00:37:02,890 --> 00:37:04,780
I don't think it's a bug; it's a feature.

868
00:37:04,780 --> 00:37:06,740
It's how we find commonality

869
00:37:06,740 --> 00:37:08,780
and we maintain those connections.

870
00:37:08,780 --> 00:37:11,900
To me, the difference between our grandparents,

871
00:37:11,900 --> 00:37:15,900
sort of in their own groups, reading the same information,

872
00:37:15,900 --> 00:37:18,710
the effect that you could have on the world

873
00:37:18,710 --> 00:37:22,040
was fairly limited, where now,

874
00:37:22,040 --> 00:37:23,760
we're all nodes on a giant network.

875
00:37:23,760 --> 00:37:28,740
It is really easy to get an idea from St. Petersburg, Russia

876
00:37:28,740 --> 00:37:33,580
to the Facebook feed of somebody in Kansas, right?

877
00:37:33,580 --> 00:37:35,990
Almost any symbol can become a weapon

878
00:37:35,990 --> 00:37:38,410
in anyone's efforts to shape other people's thoughts

879
00:37:38,410 --> 00:37:42,520
and feelings: just cut, paste, and share online.

880
00:37:42,520 --> 00:37:45,240
I wonder if this is the awkward teenage years

881
00:37:47,249 --> 00:37:48,923
of the global society, right?

882
00:37:49,928 --> 00:37:53,050
It's the time where you start to question who you are.

883
00:37:53,050 --> 00:37:55,950
All of a sudden, you start using these labels

884
00:37:55,950 --> 00:37:58,600
in order to not just identify yourself

885
00:37:58,600 --> 00:38:00,440
but identify other as well.

886
00:38:00,440 --> 00:38:03,450
And so, if I'm labeling the mainstream,

887
00:38:03,450 --> 00:38:05,891
I'm maybe gonna call them "normies".

888
00:38:05,891 --> 00:38:07,910
Normie.

889
00:38:07,910 --> 00:38:11,190
Or if I'm politically right, but I'm not going to,

890
00:38:11,190 --> 00:38:15,540
I don't want to identify with the 60-year-old politicians,

891
00:38:15,540 --> 00:38:17,700
maybe I call myself the alt-right.

892
00:38:17,700 --> 00:38:19,100
Alt-right.

893
00:38:19,100 --> 00:38:22,390
You have a group of people who feel disaffected.

894
00:38:22,390 --> 00:38:26,630
You have a group of people who, whether justified or not,

895
00:38:26,630 --> 00:38:31,027
feel as if their identity is being challenged,

896
00:38:31,027 --> 00:38:33,720
and they're trying to find ways to express it.

897
00:38:33,720 --> 00:38:37,700
The alt-right and the people who are affiliated with that

898
00:38:37,700 --> 00:38:42,240
are people who have been engaging in meme making

899
00:38:42,240 --> 00:38:44,720
and are sort of at the heart of the culture

900
00:38:44,720 --> 00:38:49,260
that spawned meme culture, so there is this deep level

901
00:38:49,260 --> 00:38:53,250
of digital, cultural literacy that was happening.

902
00:38:53,250 --> 00:38:56,330
The spread of memes has always meant trouble for someone.

903
00:38:56,330 --> 00:39:00,380
They're recycled to cause outrage or to provoke debate.

904
00:39:00,380 --> 00:39:03,400
Is offense just part of the process?

905
00:39:03,400 --> 00:39:05,530
On the internet, these heavily ironic

906
00:39:05,530 --> 00:39:07,608
and edgy memes are called dank.

907
00:39:07,608 --> 00:39:11,108
(upbeat electronic music)

908
00:39:13,570 --> 00:39:16,030
I'm meeting YouTube comedian Tom Walker

909
00:39:16,030 --> 00:39:18,020
to explore the boundaries of humor,

910
00:39:18,020 --> 00:39:20,250
satire, and politics on the internet.

911
00:39:20,250 --> 00:39:22,270
Where is dankness leading us?

912
00:39:22,270 --> 00:39:25,370
I think there is a general anarchy to it

913
00:39:25,370 --> 00:39:28,930
by its very nature of people just throw stuff out there

914
00:39:28,930 --> 00:39:30,500
and see what kinda happens.

915
00:39:30,500 --> 00:39:33,550
It doesn't have to go through this filter of this sort of

916
00:39:35,710 --> 00:39:36,880
political correctness

917
00:39:36,880 --> 00:39:39,210
and commissioning editor before it ends up

918
00:39:39,210 --> 00:39:41,640
in this very diluted manner on television.

919
00:39:41,640 --> 00:39:44,200
So, maybe that's what's distinctive;

920
00:39:44,200 --> 00:39:47,290
it's that it's unfiltered, that it can be offensive,

921
00:39:47,290 --> 00:39:49,410
that it can be brilliant, that it can be immediate,

922
00:39:49,410 --> 00:39:51,670
that it can actually just be a bit shoddy.

923
00:39:51,670 --> 00:39:54,530
In other news, Muslims are bad, China's bad,

924
00:39:54,530 --> 00:39:58,090
but not as bad as it used to be, and Russia is always bad!

925
00:39:58,090 --> 00:39:59,910
This is Tom Walker's comic creation,

926
00:39:59,910 --> 00:40:02,630
the irascible reporter Jonathan Pie.

927
00:40:02,630 --> 00:40:04,102
A way of sending up the news

928
00:40:04,102 --> 00:40:06,000
that has scored millions of hits.

929
00:40:06,000 --> 00:40:08,187
What Pie allows people to do is they go,

930
00:40:08,187 --> 00:40:09,470
"This is what I think."

931
00:40:09,470 --> 00:40:12,020
He's venting their frustrations about Brexit,

932
00:40:12,020 --> 00:40:15,950
about Trump, about the Tories, to a certain extent

933
00:40:15,950 --> 00:40:18,590
about the Left and their censoriousness

934
00:40:18,590 --> 00:40:20,917
and their snowflakiness, if you like.

935
00:40:20,917 --> 00:40:22,130
No, no, no, no, no!

936
00:40:22,130 --> 00:40:22,963
I'm doing, no, I'm doing the new--

937
00:40:22,963 --> 00:40:23,796
I'm doing the (bleep) news!

938
00:40:24,920 --> 00:40:27,040
Look at this piece of satire, but this ...

939
00:40:27,040 --> 00:40:29,580
He represents my brand.

940
00:40:29,580 --> 00:40:31,110
That's what makes him sticky.

941
00:40:31,110 --> 00:40:33,200
A kind of identity shortcut?

942
00:40:33,200 --> 00:40:34,350
In a way, yeah, yeah.

943
00:40:34,350 --> 00:40:36,290
This guy believes in what I believe.

944
00:40:36,290 --> 00:40:38,460
I think, also, people thought it was real.

945
00:40:38,460 --> 00:40:43,040
Right, look at this British journalist losing it.

946
00:40:43,040 --> 00:40:44,480
Morning, Tim!

947
00:40:44,480 --> 00:40:45,313
Morning!

948
00:40:45,313 --> 00:40:46,146
Howdy!

949
00:40:46,146 --> 00:40:47,640
How was Washington?

950
00:40:47,640 --> 00:40:51,680
The biggest video by far that I've and will ever have

951
00:40:51,680 --> 00:40:54,770
is my response to Trump winning the White House.

952
00:40:54,770 --> 00:40:56,150
And that's on how many now?

953
00:40:56,150 --> 00:41:00,380
Over all the platforms, it's roughly 150 million.

954
00:41:00,380 --> 00:41:01,440
It's crazy.

955
00:41:01,440 --> 00:41:02,415
Hillary Clinton!

956
00:41:02,415 --> 00:41:03,720
Don't get me wrong, I wanted Hillary to win.

957
00:41:03,720 --> 00:41:05,910
I'd personally vote for Lucifer over Donald Trump.

958
00:41:05,910 --> 00:41:06,820
Trump!

959
00:41:06,820 --> 00:41:09,370
The pussy-grabbing, wall-building, climate-change-denying,

960
00:41:09,370 --> 00:41:12,770
healthcare-abolishing, tax-dodging, shit-spewing demagogue!

961
00:41:12,770 --> 00:41:15,380
How shit have you got to be to lose to that?

962
00:41:15,380 --> 00:41:17,090
So why did this one do so well?

963
00:41:17,090 --> 00:41:19,720
It blamed everyone, so annoyed everyone,

964
00:41:19,720 --> 00:41:21,460
so it got a discussion going.

965
00:41:21,460 --> 00:41:23,750
It's a vent.

966
00:41:23,750 --> 00:41:25,440
The reason this one worked so well

967
00:41:25,440 --> 00:41:28,383
is because me and my co-writer didn't think it would work.

968
00:41:29,730 --> 00:41:30,880
We decided to let go.

969
00:41:30,880 --> 00:41:34,570
We decided we'll write what we think we believe

970
00:41:34,570 --> 00:41:36,890
rather than what we think other people will believe.

971
00:41:36,890 --> 00:41:39,880
Intent shows through.

972
00:41:39,880 --> 00:41:41,120
Thanks, Brad.

973
00:41:41,120 --> 00:41:43,030
A fascinating question is whether

974
00:41:43,030 --> 00:41:45,920
all this venting and irony can go too far.

975
00:41:45,920 --> 00:41:47,530
Is there a too far?

976
00:41:47,530 --> 00:41:51,830
Well there is a too far, depending who you're talking to.

977
00:41:51,830 --> 00:41:54,703
Offense and humor are so closely linked.

978
00:41:57,330 --> 00:41:58,340
It's subjective.

979
00:41:58,340 --> 00:42:01,070
What makes you laugh might not make him laugh.

980
00:42:01,070 --> 00:42:02,853
Neither of you are wrong.

981
00:42:02,853 --> 00:42:06,217
A real laugh, as well as a real (groans),

982
00:42:07,560 --> 00:42:09,230
so closely linked.

983
00:42:09,230 --> 00:42:12,290
But it is an emotional reaction that you can't hide.

984
00:42:12,290 --> 00:42:13,900
Lots of inane comments like "lol".

985
00:42:13,900 --> 00:42:15,310
Memes can certainly split opinion.

986
00:42:15,310 --> 00:42:17,640
A distinctive element of our culture today

987
00:42:17,640 --> 00:42:20,050
often seems to be visceral disagreement.

988
00:42:20,050 --> 00:42:22,740
Tom defends the right to free speech on the internet,

989
00:42:22,740 --> 00:42:24,760
but he's been attacked bitterly for it.

990
00:42:24,760 --> 00:42:26,357
It was a (bleep) joke, you (beep).

991
00:42:26,357 --> 00:42:28,110
You think slightly differently to me

992
00:42:28,110 --> 00:42:29,390
when it comes to freedom of speech,

993
00:42:29,390 --> 00:42:31,480
therefore you must be alt-right,

994
00:42:31,480 --> 00:42:33,530
therefore you must be a Nazi apologist.

995
00:42:33,530 --> 00:42:35,540
There's no way to win a political debate

996
00:42:35,540 --> 00:42:37,880
going, "You're a bigot, la, la, la, la, la."

997
00:42:37,880 --> 00:42:40,272
That seems to be their modus operandi:

998
00:42:40,272 --> 00:42:42,853
if you disagree with us, you must be a bigot.

999
00:42:43,763 --> 00:42:45,260
(tapping)

1000
00:42:45,260 --> 00:42:46,860
The world of memes is direct.

1001
00:42:46,860 --> 00:42:48,730
It provokes emotional responses,

1002
00:42:48,730 --> 00:42:51,340
and it can polarize; a perfect environment

1003
00:42:51,340 --> 00:42:54,967
for those who like to shout "boo" anonymously and run away.

1004
00:42:54,967 --> 00:42:55,849
(startling music)

1005
00:42:55,849 --> 00:42:58,182
(screaming)

1006
00:43:00,610 --> 00:43:04,840
We used to think of trolls as sad, lone individuals

1007
00:43:04,840 --> 00:43:07,110
taking out their personal issues on the world

1008
00:43:07,110 --> 00:43:09,303
under a cloak on online anonymity.

1009
00:43:10,230 --> 00:43:12,610
Trolls have gone mainstream.

1010
00:43:12,610 --> 00:43:16,000
Sometimes a troll is a paid social media user

1011
00:43:16,000 --> 00:43:17,940
twisting online discussions.

1012
00:43:17,940 --> 00:43:21,230
Other times, a troll is actually an automated bot

1013
00:43:21,230 --> 00:43:24,663
rapidly spreading invective and disinformation online.

1014
00:43:25,640 --> 00:43:27,700
Some regimes have cottoned onto the idea

1015
00:43:27,700 --> 00:43:30,570
of using trolls to manipulate public information

1016
00:43:30,570 --> 00:43:33,240
and disinformation in rival states,

1017
00:43:33,240 --> 00:43:36,240
influencing people to support their interests.

1018
00:43:36,240 --> 00:43:40,020
I've had email chains smearing me.

1019
00:43:40,020 --> 00:43:43,520
I've had troll attacks on Twitter,

1020
00:43:43,520 --> 00:43:45,629
harassment on Facebook.

1021
00:43:45,629 --> 00:43:47,820
(upbeat music)

1022
00:43:47,820 --> 00:43:49,879
The Finnish journalist Jessikka Aro

1023
00:43:49,879 --> 00:43:51,400
has been investigating the impact

1024
00:43:51,400 --> 00:43:54,970
of Russian propaganda in Finland since 2014.

1025
00:43:54,970 --> 00:43:57,320
A thing that the trolls and propagandists wanted to do

1026
00:43:57,320 --> 00:43:59,480
was silence me, to make me so scared

1027
00:43:59,480 --> 00:44:02,650
that I would stop myself of continuing my investigations.

1028
00:44:02,650 --> 00:44:05,020
But instead of that, I did the opposite.

1029
00:44:05,020 --> 00:44:09,180
As the months and years went on, more and more hate speech

1030
00:44:09,180 --> 00:44:11,130
was all the time produced about me.

1031
00:44:11,130 --> 00:44:13,563
I was being sent memes all the time.

1032
00:44:14,650 --> 00:44:18,020
So here they are saying that I make home visits.

1033
00:44:18,020 --> 00:44:20,320
They basically frame me as a prostitute.

1034
00:44:20,320 --> 00:44:23,505
Here, trolls made music video.

1035
00:44:23,505 --> 00:44:27,505
(singing in a foreign language)

1036
00:44:32,530 --> 00:44:35,710
They are framing me as some kind of mentally ill person

1037
00:44:35,710 --> 00:44:38,690
who has made up all this Russian troll phenomenon

1038
00:44:38,690 --> 00:44:40,310
only from my imagination.

1039
00:44:40,310 --> 00:44:43,110
Another photo manipulation, the trolls say

1040
00:44:43,110 --> 00:44:45,710
and the neo-Nazis say that I am restricting

1041
00:44:45,710 --> 00:44:47,370
their freedom of speech.

1042
00:44:47,370 --> 00:44:49,917
How does all this make you feel.

1043
00:44:49,917 --> 00:44:52,500
Well, how would you feel,

1044
00:44:52,500 --> 00:44:55,660
when you had a text message from your dead father

1045
00:44:55,660 --> 00:44:58,073
who's observing you, having ...

1046
00:44:59,920 --> 00:45:02,890
unknown people sending you death threats

1047
00:45:02,890 --> 00:45:05,090
because they have been reading

1048
00:45:05,090 --> 00:45:07,260
just trash about you and believing in it?

1049
00:45:07,260 --> 00:45:08,580
Obviously, it's nasty.

1050
00:45:08,580 --> 00:45:11,740
The Russian information operations are designed

1051
00:45:11,740 --> 00:45:14,360
specifically to target my emotions,

1052
00:45:14,360 --> 00:45:16,990
to target everyone's emotions.

1053
00:45:16,990 --> 00:45:18,410
Whatever they write online,

1054
00:45:18,410 --> 00:45:21,050
I understand that they get paid for it.

1055
00:45:21,050 --> 00:45:23,690
And I get paid for what I do,

1056
00:45:23,690 --> 00:45:25,460
so we have these different jobs,

1057
00:45:25,460 --> 00:45:28,170
and I really feel pity that they have such jobs.

1058
00:45:28,170 --> 00:45:31,950
Jessikka Aro's is an extreme case amongst many.

1059
00:45:31,950 --> 00:45:34,300
Trolling with fake news is the new currency

1060
00:45:34,300 --> 00:45:36,127
of politics in the mimetic age.

1061
00:45:36,127 --> 00:45:39,150
The dishonest, lying media!

1062
00:45:39,150 --> 00:45:40,980
The sad thing is it's effective.

1063
00:45:40,980 --> 00:45:43,820
A 2018 MIT study found that fake news

1064
00:45:43,820 --> 00:45:46,720
can spread faster and deeper than real news.

1065
00:45:46,720 --> 00:45:50,490
Analyzing 126,000 contested news stories

1066
00:45:50,490 --> 00:45:54,860
over 10 years on Twitter, tweeted by three million users,

1067
00:45:54,860 --> 00:45:59,460
it found hoax and rumor were more widely shared than truth.

1068
00:45:59,460 --> 00:46:03,230
On the internet, it would seem noise wins.

1069
00:46:03,230 --> 00:46:07,590
Then again, have we ever lived in a time of truthful news?

1070
00:46:07,590 --> 00:46:11,850
All news is just a representation of actual events,

1071
00:46:11,850 --> 00:46:13,663
a selective take.

1072
00:46:16,260 --> 00:46:17,610
To explore this further,

1073
00:46:17,610 --> 00:46:20,710
I went to actually meet a troll under a bridge,

1074
00:46:20,710 --> 00:46:25,370
a troll on a mission to combat online racism and xenophobia.

1075
00:46:25,370 --> 00:46:27,110
A troll is somebody who goes on the internet

1076
00:46:27,110 --> 00:46:29,150
just to make people upset.

1077
00:46:29,150 --> 00:46:31,180
A liberal troll is somebody who goes on the internet

1078
00:46:31,180 --> 00:46:33,150
to make a conservative upset.

1079
00:46:33,150 --> 00:46:36,060
Christopher Blair, aka Busta Troll,

1080
00:46:36,060 --> 00:46:38,217
is a self-proclaimed liberal troll

1081
00:46:38,217 --> 00:46:40,770
who makes a living publishing fake news stories

1082
00:46:40,770 --> 00:46:42,870
that might appeal to the alt-right.

1083
00:46:42,870 --> 00:46:45,080
He puts in plausible content out there

1084
00:46:45,080 --> 00:46:47,010
to provoke a reaction.

1085
00:46:47,010 --> 00:46:50,730
The alt-right unwittingly steal his satirical posts,

1086
00:46:50,730 --> 00:46:53,453
sharing them online without irony.

1087
00:46:54,360 --> 00:46:57,513
After the economy crashed in 2008,

1088
00:46:58,580 --> 00:47:02,570
I was left with a family of four, without a job,

1089
00:47:02,570 --> 00:47:05,223
after working construction for 20-some-odd years.

1090
00:47:06,360 --> 00:47:07,833
I was angry.

1091
00:47:09,252 --> 00:47:10,300
Angry at my government.

1092
00:47:10,300 --> 00:47:12,330
So I took the anger, I went to Facebook,

1093
00:47:12,330 --> 00:47:15,950
and I started a page, and I started to make memes,

1094
00:47:15,950 --> 00:47:20,530
liberal memes, supporting liberal causes.

1095
00:47:20,530 --> 00:47:23,340
And the conservative trolls started to come to my page.

1096
00:47:23,340 --> 00:47:24,590
They started attacking me.

1097
00:47:24,590 --> 00:47:28,430
So I had to create a persona to fight off the trolls,

1098
00:47:28,430 --> 00:47:30,980
which is where I came up with Busta Troll.

1099
00:47:30,980 --> 00:47:34,680
We market our page at conservatives

1100
00:47:34,680 --> 00:47:37,280
in the are of 60 years old and better.

1101
00:47:37,280 --> 00:47:41,140
They are extremely biased, they are extremely uneducated.

1102
00:47:41,140 --> 00:47:42,860
And what we do, we pull them into the comments,

1103
00:47:42,860 --> 00:47:44,450
because these are some of the worst racists

1104
00:47:44,450 --> 00:47:45,830
and xenophobes on Facebook.

1105
00:47:45,830 --> 00:47:47,660
They comment racist things.

1106
00:47:47,660 --> 00:47:50,700
The trolls that are patrolling the page report them.

1107
00:47:50,700 --> 00:47:52,430
They get their little Facebook timeouts.

1108
00:47:52,430 --> 00:47:55,130
It may seem trivial, but when you do that

1109
00:47:55,130 --> 00:47:58,250
30, 40, 50 times sometimes in a day or a week,

1110
00:47:58,250 --> 00:48:00,350
you're eliminating a lot of hate from Facebook.

1111
00:48:00,350 --> 00:48:02,810
So that's one of the reasons we do what we do.

1112
00:48:02,810 --> 00:48:04,150
Can you show me a recent example

1113
00:48:04,150 --> 00:48:06,540
of the kind of thing you've done?

1114
00:48:06,540 --> 00:48:07,850
Yeah, this is a great one here.

1115
00:48:07,850 --> 00:48:10,190
Illinois state senator introduced legislation

1116
00:48:10,190 --> 00:48:12,740
that would give Wakandan refugees a sanctuary city

1117
00:48:12,740 --> 00:48:15,630
of Chicago a monthly income of $2,000.

1118
00:48:15,630 --> 00:48:18,450
Of course, Wakanda is the fake country

1119
00:48:18,450 --> 00:48:20,370
in the new Black Panther movie.

1120
00:48:20,370 --> 00:48:22,120
It's an absolutely ridiculous story

1121
00:48:22,970 --> 00:48:24,670
that was shared almost 400 times

1122
00:48:24,670 --> 00:48:27,080
by people who don't care that it's ridiculous;

1123
00:48:27,080 --> 00:48:29,620
it confirms their bias that they hate refugees

1124
00:48:29,620 --> 00:48:31,020
and so on and so forth.

1125
00:48:31,020 --> 00:48:33,080
This is probably the greatest,

1126
00:48:33,080 --> 00:48:34,890
our greatest meme of all time.

1127
00:48:34,890 --> 00:48:36,810
Sharia law must be stopped.

1128
00:48:36,810 --> 00:48:39,380
If you mention Sharia law, these people go crazy.

1129
00:48:39,380 --> 00:48:41,420
Under Governor Brown, students in California

1130
00:48:41,420 --> 00:48:45,030
are now required to learn Arabic numerals.

1131
00:48:45,030 --> 00:48:46,730
That's right, zero through nine.

1132
00:48:46,730 --> 00:48:49,230
Comment one to 10 how much this angers you.

1133
00:48:49,230 --> 00:48:50,063
Oh, the irony.

1134
00:48:50,063 --> 00:48:53,980
You can see all the angry reacts

1135
00:48:53,980 --> 00:48:58,320
from all the 36,000 people who think their poor children

1136
00:48:58,320 --> 00:49:01,550
are gonna have to learn how to right zero through nine.

1137
00:49:01,550 --> 00:49:03,380
36,000 shares.

1138
00:49:03,380 --> 00:49:04,430
11,000 comments.

1139
00:49:04,430 --> 00:49:08,107
Lookit: "I'm so angry about Sharia and all of their habits.

1140
00:49:08,107 --> 00:49:11,500
"You come to my country you obey my countries laws."

1141
00:49:11,500 --> 00:49:14,810
3.6 thousand people hit the love react on that,

1142
00:49:14,810 --> 00:49:16,530
because they agree with this woman.

1143
00:49:16,530 --> 00:49:21,010
It's amazing how absolutely uneducated people can be

1144
00:49:21,010 --> 00:49:22,750
over something so simple.

1145
00:49:22,750 --> 00:49:23,583
And this isn't something

1146
00:49:23,583 --> 00:49:25,479
that you couldn't Google in five seconds.

1147
00:49:25,479 --> 00:49:27,591
Your site's a satire, but your critics say

1148
00:49:27,591 --> 00:49:29,090
that they're fake news.

1149
00:49:29,090 --> 00:49:32,590
It's funny, 'cause I get emails from reporters

1150
00:49:32,590 --> 00:49:35,970
all the time wanting my sources. (chuckles)

1151
00:49:35,970 --> 00:49:38,750
And I tell them, my source is in my head.

1152
00:49:38,750 --> 00:49:40,280
You are fact checking fiction.

1153
00:49:40,280 --> 00:49:42,100
This is satire; I made it up.

1154
00:49:42,100 --> 00:49:45,240
So when over 100,000 people share one of your parodies,

1155
00:49:45,240 --> 00:49:47,710
how does it make you feel about human nature?

1156
00:49:47,710 --> 00:49:48,833
It makes me sad.

1157
00:49:49,710 --> 00:49:52,730
That there can be so many people that would be so willing

1158
00:49:52,730 --> 00:49:56,163
to just believe something and send it along so easily.

1159
00:49:57,090 --> 00:49:59,440
The one bit of solace that I get out of that is

1160
00:50:00,520 --> 00:50:01,440
it doesn't last long.

1161
00:50:01,440 --> 00:50:03,460
People believe them, and then they get told

1162
00:50:03,460 --> 00:50:06,400
by reasonable people who say no, this is not real.

1163
00:50:06,400 --> 00:50:08,420
My reason for hope doesn't come from my page;

1164
00:50:08,420 --> 00:50:10,030
it comes from my kid.

1165
00:50:10,030 --> 00:50:11,757
I've got a 16-year-old daughter

1166
00:50:11,757 --> 00:50:13,950
who lobbied me to take her

1167
00:50:13,950 --> 00:50:15,610
to March for Your Lives in Washington.

1168
00:50:15,610 --> 00:50:19,570
So my reason for hope lies with the younger generation.

1169
00:50:19,570 --> 00:50:21,560
So, Chris, we've been trying to cook up

1170
00:50:21,560 --> 00:50:25,130
some memes of our own, see whether we can get a response.

1171
00:50:25,130 --> 00:50:25,963
Do you want to have a look?

1172
00:50:25,963 --> 00:50:27,070
Sure.

1173
00:50:27,070 --> 00:50:28,563
So here's our first one.

1174
00:50:28,563 --> 00:50:29,530
What do you make of that?

1175
00:50:29,530 --> 00:50:30,957
Is it gonna go viral?

1176
00:50:30,957 --> 00:50:32,460
Feminazis are running British TV.

1177
00:50:32,460 --> 00:50:33,293
God bless America.

1178
00:50:33,293 --> 00:50:35,074
That's wonderful.

1179
00:50:35,074 --> 00:50:35,950
I love that.

1180
00:50:35,950 --> 00:50:37,930
The problem that you're gonna have is,

1181
00:50:37,930 --> 00:50:39,220
see all this stuff here?

1182
00:50:39,220 --> 00:50:43,340
These are words, syllables, and they mean things.

1183
00:50:43,340 --> 00:50:45,370
This is what we call TL;DR.

1184
00:50:45,370 --> 00:50:46,713
Too long; didn't read.

1185
00:50:47,820 --> 00:50:51,010
Your average American liberal will read 200 to 300 words.

1186
00:50:51,010 --> 00:50:53,060
Your average American conservative

1187
00:50:53,060 --> 00:50:55,000
will read six to eight syllables.

1188
00:50:55,000 --> 00:50:56,650
So we keep the headline and--

1189
00:50:56,650 --> 00:50:58,730
You keep the headline, you put a picture of a cat

1190
00:50:58,730 --> 00:51:00,721
wearing an American flag, and you're good to go.

1191
00:51:00,721 --> 00:51:01,835
Okay.

1192
00:51:01,835 --> 00:51:02,950
So, second time, lookie.

1193
00:51:02,950 --> 00:51:03,783
Sure.

1194
00:51:03,783 --> 00:51:04,980
This one's a bit more visual.

1195
00:51:04,980 --> 00:51:05,813
Okay.

1196
00:51:05,813 --> 00:51:06,850
Oh, that's much better.

1197
00:51:06,850 --> 00:51:08,650
British PC madness.

1198
00:51:08,650 --> 00:51:11,160
BBC bosses enforce Ramadan dress code.

1199
00:51:11,160 --> 00:51:12,707
Welcome to Britainistan.

1200
00:51:12,707 --> 00:51:13,540
They're gonna love that.

1201
00:51:13,540 --> 00:51:14,700
Ooh boy, you know?

1202
00:51:14,700 --> 00:51:16,950
What you've done here is you've taken 16 syllables

1203
00:51:16,950 --> 00:51:18,340
and you've put them together in a way

1204
00:51:18,340 --> 00:51:22,253
that really will appeal to your average ...

1205
00:51:23,580 --> 00:51:24,890
ignorant American.

1206
00:51:24,890 --> 00:51:26,550
So it's powerful imagery.

1207
00:51:26,550 --> 00:51:28,330
You've got a woman in a hijab.

1208
00:51:28,330 --> 00:51:31,250
You've got a reference to Muslims.

1209
00:51:31,250 --> 00:51:34,123
The fact that it's British and BBC may ...

1210
00:51:35,210 --> 00:51:37,180
decrease the amount that this could go viral,

1211
00:51:37,180 --> 00:51:40,020
but that absolutely could work, without a doubt.

1212
00:51:40,020 --> 00:51:41,240
That would be a good meme.

1213
00:51:41,240 --> 00:51:42,450
So we put it out there and see

1214
00:51:42,450 --> 00:51:43,540
whether people pick up on it?

1215
00:51:43,540 --> 00:51:44,373
Sure.

1216
00:51:44,373 --> 00:51:45,206
We can.

1217
00:51:45,206 --> 00:51:46,160
I'd be happy to.

1218
00:51:46,160 --> 00:51:50,300
You'll know within the first 10, maybe 15 minutes, tops,

1219
00:51:50,300 --> 00:51:52,500
if you've got something that's gonna go places.

1220
00:51:52,500 --> 00:51:53,810
I mean, this looks like a great meme,

1221
00:51:53,810 --> 00:51:55,410
but it could get zero shares.

1222
00:51:55,410 --> 00:51:56,243
So you're out there now.

1223
00:51:56,243 --> 00:52:00,070
Your meme has been presented to about 400,000 people.

1224
00:52:00,070 --> 00:52:01,410
Meme shared.

1225
00:52:01,410 --> 00:52:02,300
Meme shared.

1226
00:52:02,300 --> 00:52:04,130
As Busta thought, the British angle

1227
00:52:04,130 --> 00:52:05,610
meant that our Britainistan meme

1228
00:52:05,610 --> 00:52:07,680
didn't do so well across the Atlantic.

1229
00:52:07,680 --> 00:52:10,520
But Buster then re-versioned it for an American audience,

1230
00:52:10,520 --> 00:52:11,740
and it got traction.

1231
00:52:11,740 --> 00:52:14,140
And as a quick roundup for full disclosure,

1232
00:52:14,140 --> 00:52:16,390
our Richard Dawkins video got ...

1233
00:52:16,390 --> 00:52:21,210
on Lab Bible, and our lolcat got five like.

1234
00:52:21,210 --> 00:52:22,850
So that's a bad meme.

1235
00:52:22,850 --> 00:52:25,690
Well, I'm more of a dog person anyway.

1236
00:52:25,690 --> 00:52:28,360
In the longterm, I have a lot of faith in people.

1237
00:52:28,360 --> 00:52:29,630
I have a lot of faith in us.

1238
00:52:29,630 --> 00:52:30,510
We learn.

1239
00:52:30,510 --> 00:52:33,060
Billions of people on the planet

1240
00:52:33,060 --> 00:52:34,810
choosing to watch this and not that,

1241
00:52:34,810 --> 00:52:36,720
or to pass on this and not pass on that,

1242
00:52:36,720 --> 00:52:38,690
or to take that and go, "I'll do a little quirk,"

1243
00:52:38,690 --> 00:52:39,900
and pass that on.

1244
00:52:39,900 --> 00:52:43,630
So, here is the most amazing, new,

1245
00:52:43,630 --> 00:52:47,543
evolutionary explosion of creativity.

1246
00:52:48,990 --> 00:52:51,620
Memes come and go in a culture so sped up

1247
00:52:51,620 --> 00:52:54,680
as to sometimes seem almost meaningless.

1248
00:52:54,680 --> 00:52:57,920
But that production and reception are and always have been

1249
00:52:57,920 --> 00:53:01,480
a window into popular culture as it really is:

1250
00:53:01,480 --> 00:53:04,890
impulsive, derisive, bawdy, contested,

1251
00:53:04,890 --> 00:53:08,760
skeptical of experts and of authority.

1252
00:53:08,760 --> 00:53:10,440
Memes are also testimony

1253
00:53:10,440 --> 00:53:13,670
to human inventiveness and playfulness.

1254
00:53:13,670 --> 00:53:17,350
At their best, memes are about engaging people,

1255
00:53:17,350 --> 00:53:20,070
about our senses of belonging.

1256
00:53:20,070 --> 00:53:22,810
They're little packets of digital information

1257
00:53:22,810 --> 00:53:24,800
flying around.

1258
00:53:24,800 --> 00:53:27,193
But also deeply human.

1259
00:53:28,579 --> 00:53:33,496
("Never Gonna Give you Up" By Rick Astley)

1260
00:53:47,386 --> 00:53:51,266
♪ We're no strangers to love ♪

1261
00:53:51,266 --> 00:53:55,433
♪ You know the rules and so do I ♪