Saturday, March 14, 2009

The affable stupidity of the internet

I think what makes this post (via Kottke) so great isn't the subject matter, necessarily--which seems to be a fairly run-of-the-mill meme--but how well researched it is. I especially like their tracking of the McGangBang phenomenon through various forums, "sprouting out from the passionate subcultures of video gaming, sneaker-lovers, and car enthusiasts".

On a related note, it never quite struck me before that internet memes often exhibit properties of absurdist exquisite corpse games like telephone: little touches or variations get added in, like the political theme that inexplicably accompanied the McGangBang's presence on MySpace.

I will close by doubling-down on the web-2.0-obnoxious-quotient of this post by citing a relevant tweet from @strutting:
I wanted a site that tracks the latest 4Chan trends so I wouldn't actually have to read 4Chan. Then I realized that site is The Internet.
Okay I'll stop now.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Later, I realized that site was encyclopedia dramatica. Oh well, the less literal answer is a lot funnier.

David Morris said...

Agreed.

(btw--strutting commenting on Izott?? It is like a web 2.0 crossover episode)