I can’t believe it. Our last project was Star Wars and now our project is on memes and Tik Tok! I’m not kidding, our latest project is about how memes can show the significance and consequence of nationalism around the world. In fact, our driving question is “How can we use current memes to comment on the significance and consequences of nationalism around the world?” Since the start of 2020 our class has been researching and learning about memes, historical significance, and nationalism. Our goal for this project is to be able to make memes that convey a historical understanding of nationalism. 

So we first learned about historical significance and what makes a historical event significant. There are three things an event must meet to be considered historically significant by historians. How notable it was at the time, how widespread and lasting the consequences were(doesn’t have to be bad consequences), and how symbolic it is.

We then learned about nationalism and how it can bring many different people together, or drive them apart. We learned about how people express nationalism and how nationalism can lead to war. Nationalism can be a positive force that can bring people together, or drive people apart and cause bitter rivalries between nations that can lead to war.

 

Then we learned about memes. I never thought memes would be connected to my school, but I guess I never thought I would use an iPad for school and look what happened. We learned about how memes are kind of like cells. They can multiply and mutate just like cells. Richard Dawkins describes memes as an idea, behaviour, or style that spreads from person to person through a culture- often trying to convey a theme, phenomenon, or meaning represented with the meme. A unit for carrying cultural ideas, symbols, or practices, that was spread through writing, images, speech, or an imitable phenomena, with a mimicked theme. 

Tik Tok, the viral video app that has taken the world by storm, is a form of a meme. The videos, that can use the same sound as other videos, can be changed by different creators to make their own meme out of a meme template. This fits Dawkins description of a meme, as the tik toks are mutating into different tik toks with ideas taken from that original tik tok. Below Re three tik toks that I made with my friends to help show how tik toks are a form of meme.

https://youtu.be/81rEx0cIcLc

 

I am really looking forwards to the rest of the project. I have enjoyed this project so far, and I like having a project that is focused around one of my interests/things I do in my free time. Thanks for reading and I’ll see you all in the next post. Have a great 2020!