Hello everyone!
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| Mandatory Selfie Vibes |
My name is Emily Diaz, I am a senior here at NJCU pursuing a BFA in illustration with a minor in English. I am currently learning animation and I enjoy creating colorful characters with dark stories. I often think about, evaluate, and discuss issues revolving around the LGBTQ community, mental illness, late diagnosed women with autism, capitalism and consumerism, gender, and body inclusivity. I have heavy interests in critique of our society and social norms, and spend much of my time watching video essays and analysis of many of these issues. My personal stories revolve a lot around struggles with mental health, corruption, community and humanity as a whole. My BFA is in April by the way! You guys should visit :3 it’s going to be a 6 minute animation with illustrations and character sheets.
Side note for fellow students, I am neurodivergent so there’s a heavy chance I won’t know if you’re joking or sarcastic unless it’s super duper blatantly obvious so my bad.
-Em aka Httpkilljoy
Understanding Patriarchy by Bell Hooks
“The word “patriarchy” just is not a part of their normal everyday thought or speech”
It feels completely bizarre to me knowing how the opposite sex likely barely thinks of or acknowledges the system of patriarchy. Many would argue it doesn't exist at all. As a woman who has been made to feel uncomfortable socially for many reasons, the way certain men completely go out of their way to make me even more uncomfortable is quite upsetting. What I've realized is, it seems as though most don't realize why they're doing or they do not care. As a woman working at Lowes, the amount of rude or sexist comments I get because I'm a woman is completely crazy to me. I've been asked to talk to a male coworker, who said the same exact thing to the customer as I had, but he just wanted to speak to a man instead of me. I've had SEVERAL men absolutely astonished that I can carry and cut chain. I've had them flirt with me on the job a very uncomfortable amount of times. I've had several men come up to me asking why I have a man's job and telling me that they personally feel emasculated because a woman has a man's job and they feel worthless because of it. Again, I work at Lowes in hardware. I move boxes and help customers. Do they just.. not think a woman can do that? I don't understand their thought process or why it's so insanely difficult for them to process. I wonder if these people realize the comments they're making can make someone feel at least a little bit odd. At the same time I recognize a lot of these men probably don't understand the weight of what they're saying or the implications they're making because a lot of them are a bit older and were likely raised into these behaviors.
“He was taught that a boy shouldn't not express feelings”
I honestly feel horrible knowing how many men have suffered under the weight of patriarchy. It affects ALL of us, regardless of sex and gender. Women are mistreated. Non-binary identities are restricted by the tight confines of gender and are ridiculed for attempting to live outside of it. Men are taught they cannot feel. Both sexes are socialized to behave a certain way, many ideas pushing emotions to the side as weakness and feminine. Rage and power are weaponized and acceptable for men while on women it's hysterical. The way patriarchy affects men is extremely toxic as young men learn they need to hide their emotions and brace unhealthy coping mechanisms in order to remain in control of their image and maintain social power. They cannot seek mental health services or help without ridicule, domestic abuse against men isn't taken seriously, and internalized hatred as well as sexism is rampant. TLDR: Patriarchy sucks for everyone.
What Memes Owe to Art History | Artsy
“In the post-internet world, nothing escapes the meme’s comic gaze, and the form is being recognized as an artistic medium for this interconnected online moment.”
As someone who has been unsupervised on the internet since before my preteens, I've seen a ton of memes, internet subcultures, and the expansion of the internet in general. Memes can range from inside jokes, to expansive bizzare concepts, or just an image recaptioned to fit different scenarios. I find it so interesting how meme culture has connected people from different walks of life. Of course, many of us see the same memes over and over if we have similar interests because they algorithm will push it toward us. I've noticed some people will get a meme that was popular in 2016 and it'll still be resurfacing for different groups of people. A meme is sort of eternal on the internet due to its spread through the online space, a permanent digital footprint that could've been trending for 2 days or 3 years. Regardless, for a moment in time, a meme gone viral has seen tons and tons of connections regardless of the topic, which is still very odd to me.
“Similarly, memes offer a highly accessible and interactive platform of production that is ripe for challenge and dissent, with disagreements and controversy only fueling the fire of a successful meme truly going viral.”
Memes can vary from photo formats, two templates, two gifts and videos. A lot of trends arise solely for the meme template, excluding what the actual topic is. Of course, it can start off as a certain niche, but if it goes viral the concept will expand greatly. As of right now, on tiktok and Instagram people use templates which originally focus on a certain topic, usually with a certain audio in the back so the sound gets trending. The text on screen and the “performance” of what's happening in the video can technically be the meme, and hundreds upon thousands of people will participate in these trends, some internet subcultures taking it for their own and changing or expanding on the idea. Some people take the idea straight, change it, use dark humor with it, and so on. In a way it seems like a little bit of a mini-evolution depending on who it reaches and how the audience or poster takes it.
Memes Are Our Generation's Protest Art
“Anti-Trump folks turn to memes like Barack Obama and Joe Biden pranking Trump’s White House arrival to cope, and when it comes to straight-up insulting the president, the examples are endless: covfefe, staring into the eclipse, tiny hands, tiny Trump, and his continuous difficulties operating umbrellas.”
This isn’t really abOut this quote in particular but it reminded me of something. A while ago on TikTok there was this meme/trend using online game clips and AI audio of the past couple of presidents and Ben Shapiro as if they were playing Minecraft. It was really weird yet funny?? They basically made the presidents into archetypes based on how we view them and their interactions were kind of like “bros” who hate each other. Truly a time to be alive. I feel like some memes you have to be there to really get it, but some have just enough context to be slightly funny. Like with this one, it’s the archetypes of Obama, Biden, and Trump and putting their voices in a fake situation with a script as if they’re playing a game and dunking on each other the whole time. From what I remember of the memes/trend, Trump was the aggressive prankster one, Biden was the “old man” who would ask really dumb questions, and Obama was the more collected one who actually wanted to play the game. Of course, it’s not real and there isn’t a ton of social commentary from these videos but it’s an entertaining source of parody almost as it's satirical to archetypes we associate with these public figures.
“Memes can spread far more quickly than the songs or art projects of previous generations, and there’s such a low barrier to entry that anyone can make them; they can go viral in a matter of minutes.”
While I do enjoy memes, there’s definitely a very large demographic of them. A lot of people who are unfortunately chronically online (such as myself) (((this is a half joke))) can identify the certain demographics and where in the algorithm they’re usually pushed. There’s the “normie” memes that are old, basic 2015 memes that resurface for whatever reason in 2024, the facebook/tiktok memes millennials enjoy, the edgy memes from 2016-2020 with “dark humor”, to today with weird cats and “corecore”. A lot of meme culture isn’t even really actually memes at this point in the sense that they aren’t always pictures or gifs with text. A lot of it is templates and themes now, audios and aesthetics. I think a lot of people participating in meme culture don’t really realize how much of it has dada-esque visuals and simply think of it as a complication of chaos. The digital realm has allowed us the opportunity to delve into so many forms of audio and visual media.
It’s a bit hard to label or describe without going too much into it but much of it depends on how it resonates with a niche, who expands on it, and who appropriates it from one internet space to another. For example, phrases can be memes too. I remember the neurodivergent community coined the memey-joke “is it acoustic” ((implying autism)) toward themselves as a lighthearted joke. Eventually it got to neurotypical people using it as an insult, changing the vibe of the whole joke and thus impacting the tone of the whole thing as it’s now kind of an insult. The vitality of the internet can change something super quick depending on whose screen it pops up on and we have no control of that really. Some of things are arguably not “memes”, but the term has evolved so out of control now that I feel a lot of things can be described as a meme.
Here’s some examples of my illustrations, including my original character Arlette.
@httpkilljoy
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| Bingus |
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| Walter? Put the possums away, Walter. |
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| After party |
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