The Role Of Memes In Digital Society: What Good Do Memes Do?

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November 8th, 2017
The Role of Memes in Digital Society
Since their advent, memes continues to play a significant role in the digital society. This assignment sets out to evaluate the role of Memes in the digital society, based on the “The Mob Project”, as documented in “My crown Experiment: The Mob Project” by Bill Wasik. This assignment investigates and analyses the social benefits of memes, their use in artistic expression, a tool for connecting people and their subsequent impact on social change. Finally, the essay shall review the harm, dangers and risks associated with memes in the modern digital society.
‘The Mob Project’revolved around buzz creation through orchestrating mob audiences through a simple email technology. Its success was based on the “flash mob” idea, and they believe that the event could be of high quality due to the possibility of having a popular person in attendance. The Mob project’s success was thus pegged on a simple model, a sudden buzz creation that would stir a ‘flash mob’ to congregate perhaps with the view that the advertised event would turn out to be a public thriller. “….thrill seekers can beam themselves in whatever interesting is going on”(Wasik p.477).The ‘flash mob’ would in turn trigger a media buzz, perhaps due to the unprecedented crowds, or participation of a celebrity figure. Wasik states that the “…the participation of some well-liked figure, or the presence, or rumored presence, of same; ..” (Wasik p.477).
The success of flash mob projects such as “The Mob Project” is no longer guaranteed in modern digital society. Reason being that the social media platforms have taken over its earlier envisaged role of creating a buzz around an event with the intention of attracting sudden‘physical crowds’. Although the initial project was email based, the modern ‘Memes’ are more advanced, sophisticated and multifaceted. They employ multiple technologies that are now linked through mobile platforms unlike the initial Mob Project. Since social media utilize mobile phones, users can independently generate a buzz over a certain event through customized and targeted tweets. As a result, they have a high probability of reaching great audiences. Subsequently, this can stir public interest particularly those within the precincts of the event. Nonetheless, its success is still minimal and not quite guaranteed since it depends on whether the post or tweet is able to generate a social media “flash mob” by becoming a trending subject. If a post becomes a trending subject, it might generate significant traffic that would necessitate hitting media headlines. Conversely, it’s still unlikely that it can lead to actual crowds of anxious thrill seekers at the event scene. In my view, “The flash project” business model has since been overtaken and replaced by more agile and public social media communication tools that embody the same technology. Therefore, there is nil probality that a business built on the “Flash Project Model” would succeed in the modern digital society.
According to Bill Wasik, “…the mob project was almost immediately taken up by blogs” (p.477).This is a sure indicator that this project would still fail in modern times as the blogs have long been replaced by social media platforms which are free and open to everyone. Nevertheless, the role of blogs in the modern digital society cannot be wished way. Any tweet or post can generate ‘Flash Mob’ traffic as it happens quite often. However, as to whether this can translate into an independent, viable business idea is still a subject of debate. Currently, it’s the social media platforms that are beneficiaries of the buzz generated through sudden, ‘flashdot’ kind of traffic through advertisements. Thus in my view, the idea behind the Wasik’s ‘Mob Project’ is technologically extinct, but ideologically alive. Memes have an important role in the modern digital society. Despite the unviability of the idea as a business model, I still think that memes such as the Mob Project can help in driving internet traffic, and particularly, on social media platforms. Since social media platforms embody the ‘Mob Project’ idea, they can be essential tools for creating a buzz around current events. This buzz would in turn trigge...