https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8351-0174
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Abstract
While an image may be worth a thousand words, a meme can be worth much more. From politics to videos, games to social media, memes are an integral part of today’s online communication and content production in the paradigm of participation culture that is prevalent on the internet and in society. By looking at memes as a socially constructed and intertextual discourse which represents different voices, perspectives, and creative insights, these cultural units are also a reflection of how cybercommunities think about, circulate, and imbue content with meaning in their everyday lives. Among many varieties of meme categories, music plays an important role in the production and consolidation of this online dimension, especially on YouTube and other social media. From rock to classical music, most music genres are featured either in static or audiovisual memes, except for one (large) period of music that is commonly referred to as ‘modern’ music. Despite niche and specialised meme pages, groups and forums related to contemporary music, this broad category is quite overlooked by YouTube compilations, social media featuring classical music, and other online spaces, thus mixing and confusing repertoires and stereotypes. With recurrent tropes regarding gender, power, and aesthetics that can be found either in pages dedicated to western contemporary art music and on other generalised platforms labelling it as ‘ugly’, ‘male’ or ‘white’, this paper aims to examine how the musical dimension affects the production of music memes and related online content, thus analysing its role in popular culture today and how cybercommunities—with or without audiovisual literacy—relate to and spread this (musical) phenomenon.
Keywords:
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
2 While the original video from Shapiro’s videocast isn’t available, this particular excerpt was shared by Jason Campbell—a researcher on the media news platform Media Matters: https://twitter.com/JasonSCampbell/status/1292900655464677377.
3 Created by Grandayy: https://youtu.be/jWsx2iqO1ks.
4 It also reflects a bigger issue: women engaging in creativity, celebrating their sexuality, and discussing their agency over their own bodies and relationships are still a threat and therefore subject to negativity, harassment, and judgement.
5 As opposed to ‘Classical Music is Cool’ on the same platform: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ClassicalMusicIsBoring.
7 Biologist Richard Dawkins coined the term meme in his book The Selfish Gene from 1976, as the cultural equivalent of the gene, examining how cultural products—technology, fashion, art, etc.—spread and transform themselves through different processes, from copies to imitations. He sought to demonstrate through his analysis how to better comprehend the variations and flows of cultural trends and movements in different time periods: ‘Cultural transmission is analogous to genetic transmission’ (Dawkins Citation1976, 189).
8 In 2009, YouTube music videos were dominant in the most favorited category (Burgess and Green Citation2009, 50). Almost ten years later, in revisited research, YouTube accounted for 46% of all online music streaming in 2017 and music still remains ‘one of YouTube’s “strongest verticals”’ (Burgess and Green Citation2018, 34).
9 The pre-set filter of YouTube is by order of relevance. In addition, I’ve also checked the ‘most viewed’ filter to verify any significant changes in the order of results.
10 An infographic on the many things that have been accused of killing classical music since the fourteenth century was shared in the article by William Robin: https://imgur.com/kS6IaAE.
16 This meme can be found here: https://www.facebook.com/contemporarymusicmemes/photos/a.1428917044070007/2538374596457574/.
17 Isabella Elferen (Citation2016) defines musical literacy as fluency in listening to and interpreting the music of films, television, or advertising through frequent exposure to these media, which consequently forms the ability to decipher and expect familiar messages, codes, and meanings.
18 This meme can be found here: https://www.facebook.com/artmusicmemes/photos/1660651887353878/.
19 This information may alter in time with either an increase or otherwise in the number of followers and interactions with the page. This one was last accessed on 7 December 2021.
21 This figure is comprised of two examples of macros adapted from the meme category ‘Recontextualised Porn’—https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/recontextualized-porn—using well-knows images of these actresses to overlap with performance jokes. Both are available in the respective links: https://www.facebook.com/contemporarymusicmemes/photos/a.1428917044070007/2001984116763294/ and https://www.facebook.com/contemporarymusicmemes/photos/a.1428917044070007/2006484336313272/. Other examples of this type of meme can be found in this photo album: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1428917044070007&type=3.
22 This figure is comprised of two examples of macros adapted from the meme category ‘Overly Manly Man’: https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/overly-manly-man.
23 9GAG is a famous online site for sharing funny content and, mainly, memes, since 2008. With many different types of humor categories, it’s possible to still find daily posts referring to sexism and gender stereotypes about women and non-binary people, which can justify the comment placed on the meme pictured in .
24 This and other contemporary music meme pages rarely mention women and non-white composers, using montages with pictures, sheet music and depictions of the most recognised (male) composers in their various compositional aesthetics—Schoenberg, Webern, Xenakis, Ligeti, Boulez, Berio, Stockhausen, Schnittke, Pärt or Ferneyhough, to name a few.
26 One of the most popular covers is by death metal band Dead Territory: https://youtu.be/kGEG4JiOqew.
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Joana Freitas
Joana Freitas is a PhD student in Musicology at the School of Social Sciences and Humanities of the NOVA University of Lisbon. She is an integrated researcher of the Centre for the Study of the Sociology and Aesthetics of Music (CESEM), and a member of the Research Clusters in Sound and Music in Digital and Audiovisual Media (CysMus) and Gender and Music (NEGEM), both integrated in the Group of Critical Theory and Communication (GTCC). Her main areas of interest are video game music, film music, audiovisual media, interactivity, digital culture and cybercommunities, gender, and sexuality.