Hitler meme: What, did newspapers take over YouTube too?
Something tragic happened yesterday for those of us who breathe a little Web culture. YouTube acquiesced to a request from Constantin Film to that feature a short segment from the studio’s 2004 German-subtitled movie Downfall.
Not an unusual request by copyright standards, of course, but this one is personal. The segment in question fuels one of the greatest Web memes of all time: the Hitler meme.
You’ve probably seen at least one Hitler meme video. They all have one thing in common: the same climactic scene from Downfall, where Adolf Hitler learns that his rule is about to end. The subtitles take a scene full of rage and realization and apply it to a variety of things happening in society or on the Web, including politics, entertainment, pop culture, and so forth. Here’s one of my favorites, from the 2008 presidential campaign:
Yeah, OK, we’ll get it out of the way early: “Anyone who thinks YouTube’s decision to take the videos off their service is a good idea, please leave the room now.” Read more
Sarah Palin is a construct
Walter Lippmann has been rattling around in my brain for the past few weeks. Part of it is because my class, Media & Society, is right up his alley. The other part is because I’m being subjected to the latest pseduo-event in the news, the release of Sarah Palin’s new book.
I love exposing students to Lippmann because he elegantly strips away all of these ways we falsely see our world. His argument was that most of the things we think we “know” about the world come to us via media, which means that most of how we perceive the world is based on stereotypes. Media, after all, is an incomplete picture merely as a product of its function; we don’t ask what’s not in the picture when looking at a photo, because we don’t think to do so. We put together these individual media moments and over time construct our “view” of something based on little facts, images, and information we’ve consumed via media.
The simple example I use in class is to talk about Paris and then ask students what went through their heads when they heard the word “Paris.” Most of them name famous places – The Eiffel Tower, The Lourvre, sidewalk cafes, leisurely ways of life, etc. Our perception is so shaped by images of famous places, pictures, and writings that it astounds us when something shatters that construct we’ve created by our own use of media. When we hear news of ethnic riots, for example, it doesn’t square with how we view Paris. It sounds a lot more like Los Angeles.
This material is often new to students in M&S. Even the bright ones don’t think of media use as thing that frames our world for us. It’s just media – we’re so immersed in it that it just feels like life. It feels real. Read more