the case for critical commons
in case you've not seen this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VREJV--VHSw Jeremy Hunsinger Center for Digital Discourse and Culture Virginia Tech Information Ethics Fellow Center for Information Policy Research Computers are useless. They can only give you answers. --Pablo Picasso
Very sorry to have to say this ... How profoundly disappointing, if not on the edge of insulting. If (a) you know German reasonably well, and especially if (b) you've seen the terrific film, Der Untergang, that is ripped off here - it doesn't strike me as funny at all. The kindest thing that I can say about it from my standpoint is that it is a weak attempt at humor that depends first of all upon complete ignorance of German, and secondly a strikingly uncritical willingness to accept the now very tired trope of Hitler as the archetype of reactionary evil. (Part of the irony here: I don't think he was all that reactionary, especially with regard to new technologies.) As sympathetic as I am to the argument attempted to be made here - this seems to me to thereby works directly contrary to its intentions. Sorry - no one bats a thousand, not even the redoubtable Jeremy! - charles ess Institut for Informations- og Medievidenskab Helsingforsgade 14 8200 Århus N. Denmark mail: <imvce@hum.au.dk> tel: (+45) 8942 9250 Distinguished Research Professor, Interdisciplinary Studies Drury University, Springfield, Missouri 65802 USA Exemplary persons seek harmony, not sameness. -- Analects 13.23
in case you've not seen this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VREJV--VHSw
It is actually just a spin off of a meme that uses this clip from that movie, there are probably 30 or so different re-texts and mashups i've seen of this clip. The joke, i think, of the meme is that it never ever comes close to the German, nor is it ever supposed to, nor is the content really supposed to be evil or really related to the clip, it is a play of contrasts and a play of hyperbole. I think you hit it on the head, it is supposed to be contrary to intentions, that's sort of its point. Sometimes people re-vocalize the video, but usually they just subtitle it. True it does for some play off the general ignorance of germans, but then the meme has traveled quite far and wide, however, i'm pretty sure that neither german, nor evil is supposed to be the point here. I think the point of the meme centers around the banality of the reproduction and reconstruction of the meanings, well if it has a point at all and isn't, which it frequently is just a form of nihilism of the /b/ sort. I posted this one because there was recently a big debate across a series of blogs about digital humanities versus media studies and I think the use of the meme here captures elements of the mutual critique. I'm sorry you didn't find it worth watching. On Jan 22, 2010, at 11:31 AM, Charles Ess wrote:
Very sorry to have to say this ... How profoundly disappointing, if not on the edge of insulting. If (a) you know German reasonably well, and especially if (b) you've seen the terrific film, Der Untergang, that is ripped off here - it doesn't strike me as funny at all. The kindest thing that I can say about it from my standpoint is that it is a weak attempt at humor that depends first of all upon complete ignorance of German, and secondly a strikingly uncritical willingness to accept the now very tired trope of Hitler as the archetype of reactionary evil. (Part of the irony here: I don't think he was all that reactionary, especially with regard to new technologies.) As sympathetic as I am to the argument attempted to be made here - this seems to me to thereby works directly contrary to its intentions.
Sorry - no one bats a thousand, not even the redoubtable Jeremy!
- charles ess Institut for Informations- og Medievidenskab Helsingforsgade 14 8200 Århus N. Denmark mail: <imvce@hum.au.dk> tel: (+45) 8942 9250
Distinguished Research Professor, Interdisciplinary Studies Drury University, Springfield, Missouri 65802 USA
Exemplary persons seek harmony, not sameness. -- Analects 13.23
in case you've not seen this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VREJV--VHSw
Reference: http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/downfall-hitler-meme --- Alexander Leavitt Research Specialist, Convergence Culture Consortium Comparative Media Studies, MIT http://doalchemy.org Twitter: @alexleavitt On Fri, Jan 22, 2010 at 11:45 AM, jeremy hunsinger <jhuns@vt.edu> wrote:
It is actually just a spin off of a meme that uses this clip from that movie, there are probably 30 or so different re-texts and mashups i've seen of this clip. The joke, i think, of the meme is that it never ever comes close to the German, nor is it ever supposed to, nor is the content really supposed to be evil or really related to the clip, it is a play of contrasts and a play of hyperbole. I think you hit it on the head, it is supposed to be contrary to intentions, that's sort of its point. Sometimes people re-vocalize the video, but usually they just subtitle it. True it does for some play off the general ignorance of germans, but then the meme has traveled quite far and wide, however, i'm pretty sure that neither german, nor evil is supposed to be the point here. I think the point of the meme centers around the banality of the reproduction and reconstruction of the meanings, well if it has a point at all and isn't, which it frequently is just a form of nihilism of the /b/ sort.
I posted this one because there was recently a big debate across a series of blogs about digital humanities versus media studies and I think the use of the meme here captures elements of the mutual critique.
I'm sorry you didn't find it worth watching. On Jan 22, 2010, at 11:31 AM, Charles Ess wrote:
Very sorry to have to say this ... How profoundly disappointing, if not on the edge of insulting. If (a) you know German reasonably well, and especially if (b) you've seen the terrific film, Der Untergang, that is ripped off here - it doesn't strike me as funny at all. The kindest thing that I can say about it from my standpoint is that it is a weak attempt at humor that depends first of all upon complete ignorance of German, and secondly a strikingly uncritical willingness to accept the now very tired trope of Hitler as the archetype of reactionary evil. (Part of the irony here: I don't think he was all that reactionary, especially with regard to new technologies.) As sympathetic as I am to the argument attempted to be made here - this seems to me to thereby works directly contrary to its intentions.
Sorry - no one bats a thousand, not even the redoubtable Jeremy!
- charles ess Institut for Informations- og Medievidenskab Helsingforsgade 14 8200 Århus N. Denmark mail: <imvce@hum.au.dk> tel: (+45) 8942 9250
Distinguished Research Professor, Interdisciplinary Studies Drury University, Springfield, Missouri 65802 USA
Exemplary persons seek harmony, not sameness. -- Analects 13.23
in case you've not seen this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VREJV--VHSw
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Actually, while I understand Charles's reaction to this video, Let's remember that most memes tend to be offensive, racist, and some downright repulsive. This is the 4chan culture and they don't care about being PC at all (at one point they had the "Happy Negro" meme floating around, qtd. in Encyclopedia Dramatica). So when you work with them or on a topic about them, or on internet culture in general, you just have to accept it for what it is. For me, it was ironic because from what I saw in the video, most of the things that's been tossed around as "digital humanities" aren't the main focus of digital humanities. When the discipline is being discussed, the topics that appear are digital archiving, textual variants of digital texts, digital authorship, data mining, data access and retrieval etc... but I may be horribly wrong because apparently what I do isn't either. burcu On Fri, Jan 22, 2010 at 11:58 AM, Alex Leavitt <alexleavitt@gmail.com>wrote:
Reference: http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/downfall-hitler-meme
---
Alexander Leavitt Research Specialist, Convergence Culture Consortium Comparative Media Studies, MIT http://doalchemy.org Twitter: @alexleavitt
On Fri, Jan 22, 2010 at 11:45 AM, jeremy hunsinger <jhuns@vt.edu> wrote:
It is actually just a spin off of a meme that uses this clip from that movie, there are probably 30 or so different re-texts and mashups i've seen of this clip. The joke, i think, of the meme is that it never ever comes close to the German, nor is it ever supposed to, nor is the content really supposed to be evil or really related to the clip, it is a play of contrasts and a play of hyperbole. I think you hit it on the head, it is supposed to be contrary to intentions, that's sort of its point. Sometimes people re-vocalize the video, but usually they just subtitle it. True it does for some play off the general ignorance of germans, but then the meme has traveled quite far and wide, however, i'm pretty sure that neither german, nor evil is supposed to be the point here. I think the point of the meme centers around the banality of the reproduction and reconstruction of the meanings, well if it has a point at all and isn't, which it frequently is just a form of nihilism of the /b/ sort.
I posted this one because there was recently a big debate across a series of blogs about digital humanities versus media studies and I think the use of the meme here captures elements of the mutual critique.
I'm sorry you didn't find it worth watching. On Jan 22, 2010, at 11:31 AM, Charles Ess wrote:
Very sorry to have to say this ... How profoundly disappointing, if not on the edge of insulting. If (a) you know German reasonably well, and especially if (b) you've seen the terrific film, Der Untergang, that is ripped off here - it doesn't strike me as funny at all. The kindest thing that I can say about it from my standpoint is that it is a weak attempt at humor that depends first of all upon complete ignorance of German, and secondly a strikingly uncritical willingness to accept the now very tired trope of Hitler as the archetype of reactionary evil. (Part of the irony here: I don't think he was all that reactionary, especially with regard to new technologies.) As sympathetic as I am to the argument attempted to be made here - this seems to me to thereby works directly contrary to its intentions.
Sorry - no one bats a thousand, not even the redoubtable Jeremy!
- charles ess Institut for Informations- og Medievidenskab Helsingforsgade 14 8200 Århus N. Denmark mail: <imvce@hum.au.dk> tel: (+45) 8942 9250
Distinguished Research Professor, Interdisciplinary Studies Drury University, Springfield, Missouri 65802 USA
Exemplary persons seek harmony, not sameness. -- Analects 13.23
in case you've not seen this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VREJV--VHSw
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-- Thanks,</burcu> Burcu S. Bakioglu, Ph.D. http://www.palefirer.com http://palefirer.com/blog/ Skype: PaleFireR AIM: PaleFireR -- "Congratulations! You're the first human to fail the Turing test."
Charles, I completely disagree with you. I find it refreshingly funny, as does the director of Untergang, Oliver Hirschbiegel: http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2010/01/the_director_of_downfall_on_al.... Archetypes (e.g. of evil) are sometimes very useful for a brief comment. Although they are not always distinguishedly correct, because that would have been boring. All the best, Robin -- Robin Cheesman <robin@ruc.dk> El 22-01-2010 11:31, Charles Ess escribió:
Very sorry to have to say this ... How profoundly disappointing, if not on the edge of insulting. If (a) you know German reasonably well, and especially if (b) you've seen the terrific film, Der Untergang, that is ripped off here - it doesn't strike me as funny at all. The kindest thing that I can say about it from my standpoint is that it is a weak attempt at humor that depends first of all upon complete ignorance of German, and secondly a strikingly uncritical willingness to accept the now very tired trope of Hitler as the archetype of reactionary evil. (Part of the irony here: I don't think he was all that reactionary, especially with regard to new technologies.) As sympathetic as I am to the argument attempted to be made here - this seems to me to thereby works directly contrary to its intentions.
Sorry - no one bats a thousand, not even the redoubtable Jeremy!
- charles ess Institut for Informations- og Medievidenskab Helsingforsgade 14 8200 Århus N. Denmark mail: <imvce@hum.au.dk> tel: (+45) 8942 9250
Distinguished Research Professor, Interdisciplinary Studies Drury University, Springfield, Missouri 65802 USA
Exemplary persons seek harmony, not sameness. -- Analects 13.23
in case you've not seen this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VREJV--VHSw
_______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
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Ditto on what others said about the meme. And given what you feel about them, I think of all of the Hitler meme vids created, this is the one for you Charles: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqqxRPZdfvs Hitler rants about the Hitler Parodies Cheers, -Sharon Greenfield On Jan 22, 2010, at 8:31 AM, Charles Ess wrote:
Very sorry to have to say this ... How profoundly disappointing, if not on the edge of insulting. If (a) you know German reasonably well, and especially if (b) you've seen the terrific film, Der Untergang, that is ripped off here - it doesn't strike me as funny at all. The kindest thing that I can say about it from my standpoint is that it is a weak attempt at humor that depends first of all upon complete ignorance of German, and secondly a strikingly uncritical willingness to accept the now very tired trope of Hitler as the archetype of reactionary evil. (Part of the irony here: I don't think he was all that reactionary, especially with regard to new technologies.) As sympathetic as I am to the argument attempted to be made here - this seems to me to thereby works directly contrary to its intentions.
Sorry - no one bats a thousand, not even the redoubtable Jeremy!
- charles ess Institut for Informations- og Medievidenskab Helsingforsgade 14 8200 Århus N. Denmark mail: <imvce@hum.au.dk> tel: (+45) 8942 9250
Distinguished Research Professor, Interdisciplinary Studies Drury University, Springfield, Missouri 65802 USA
Exemplary persons seek harmony, not sameness. -- Analects 13.23
in case you've not seen this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VREJV--VHSw
_______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
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The first time I saw it was Spring last year with the Furher as Hillary Clinton ranting about superdelegates, Florida and Ohio etc. Was that the first for others as well? Archaeology of meme emergence... cheers m From: live <human.factor.one@gmail.com>
Ditto on what others said about the meme.
And given what you feel about them, I think of all of the Hitler meme vids created, this is the one for you Charles: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqqxRPZdfvs Hitler rants about the Hitler Parodies
Cheers, -Sharon Greenfield
On Jan 22, 2010, at 8:31 AM, Charles Ess wrote:
Very sorry to have to say this ... How profoundly disappointing, if not on the edge of insulting. If (a) you know German reasonably well, and especially if (b) you've seen the terrific film, Der Untergang, that is ripped off here - it doesn't>strike me as funny at all. The kindest thing that I can say about it from my standpoint is that it is a weak attempt at humor that depends first of all upon complete ignorance of German, and secondly a strikingly uncritical willingness to accept the now very tired trope of Hitler as the archetype of reactionary evil. (Part of the irony here: I don't think he was all that reactionary, especially with regard to new technologies.) As sympathetic as I am to the argument attempted to be made here - this seems to me to thereby works directly contrary to its intentions.
Sorry - no one bats a thousand, not even the redoubtable Jeremy!
- charles ess Institut for Informations- og Medievidenskab Helsingforsgade 14 8200 Århus N. Denmark mail: <imvce@hum.au.dk> tel: (+45) 8942 9250
Distinguished Research Professor, Interdisciplinary Studies Drury University, Springfield, Missouri 65802 USA
Exemplary persons seek harmony, not sameness. -- Analects 13.23
in case you've not seen this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VREJV--VHSw
_______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org>Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
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**** Dr Mathieu O'Neil Adjunct Research Fellow Australian Demographic and Social Research Institute College of Arts and Social Science The Australian National University email: mathieu.oneil@anu.edu.au web: http://adsri.anu.edu.au/people/visitors/mathieu.php
My first time... Hitler was devastated to learn that the Dallas Cowboys had lost to the New York Giants in the NFL playoffs two years ago. And it still makes me laugh. On 01/22/2010 12:09 PM, Mathieu ONeil wrote:
The first time I saw it was Spring last year with the Furher as Hillary Clinton ranting about superdelegates, Florida and Ohio etc. Was that the first for others as well? Archaeology of meme emergence...
cheers m
From: live <human.factor.one@gmail.com>
Ditto on what others said about the meme.
And given what you feel about them, I think of all of the Hitler meme vids created, this is the one for you Charles: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqqxRPZdfvs Hitler rants about the Hitler Parodies
Cheers, -Sharon Greenfield
On Jan 22, 2010, at 8:31 AM, Charles Ess wrote:
Very sorry to have to say this ... How profoundly disappointing, if not on the edge of insulting. If (a) you know German reasonably well, and especially if (b)
you've seen
the terrific film, Der Untergang, that is ripped off here - it
doesn't>strike me as funny at all.
The kindest thing that I can say about it from my standpoint is
that it is a
weak attempt at humor that depends first of all upon complete
ignorance of
German, and secondly a strikingly uncritical willingness to
accept the now
very tired trope of Hitler as the archetype of reactionary
evil. (Part of
the irony here: I don't think he was all that reactionary,
especially with
regard to new technologies.) As sympathetic as I am to the argument attempted to be made
here - this
seems to me to thereby works directly contrary to its intentions.
Sorry - no one bats a thousand, not even the redoubtable Jeremy!
- charles ess Institut for Informations- og Medievidenskab Helsingforsgade 14 8200 Århus N. Denmark mail: <imvce@hum.au.dk> tel: (+45) 8942 9250
Distinguished Research Professor, Interdisciplinary Studies Drury University, Springfield, Missouri 65802 USA
Exemplary persons seek harmony, not sameness. -- Analects 13.23
in case you've not seen this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VREJV--VHSw
_______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers
http://aoir.org>Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
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**** Dr Mathieu O'Neil Adjunct Research Fellow Australian Demographic and Social Research Institute College of Arts and Social Science The Australian National University email: mathieu.oneil@anu.edu.au web: http://adsri.anu.edu.au/people/visitors/mathieu.php
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This video 1) first portrays Hitler as anti-technology Luddite ("I want all Internet access shut down immediately"), and then 2) in a sudden turn shows him as alternative media protagonist in favour of "critical commons" for "educating the world for free" and making available "open educational resources". 1) Goebbels considered the radio the most important medium for, as he said, "politically education", but one should better say for ideologically manipulating the people. "Zeitungswissenschaft" (journalism studies) was an important field of Nazi academia. The mass production of "Volksempf?nger" radio receivers was the Nazis' attempt to make available radio receivers to all families in the "Third Reich" in order to expose them to Nazi propaganda. This shows that the Nazis were not at all Luddites and anti-technology. 2) Brecht once wrote that the radio would be the most powerful medium if receivers would also be enabled to be senders. The Volksempf?nger only had one central channel, listening to "enemy stations" (Feindsender), as BBC and other stations were called by the Nazis, was prohibited and resulted in many cases in severe jail sentences or even the death penalty. This shows that the Nazis did not share Brecht's vision of open media, but to the contrary only were interested in completely centralized mass media that they installed and defended with the help of repression and violence. Therefore also the analogy of Hitler/the Nazis and open media/creative commons is inadequate. The mission of "Critical Commons" is: "At the heart of Critical Commons is an online tool for viewing, tagging, sharing, annotating and curating media within the guidelines established by a given community. Our goal is to build open, informed communities around media-based teaching, learning and creativity, both inside and outside of formal educational environments" (http://criticalcommons.org/about-us) The video is making two false analogies. The Nazis would today probably support Internet censorship, Internet surveillance, etc. And actual Nazi groups are trying to use the Internet for their own propaganda, but most of these sites work in a traditional way without much employment of "social media" and "web 2.0". One can argue if this video is funny or distasteful - these are unnecessary moral discussions, but one thing is for sure: the clip is unintelligent. -- - - - Priv.-Doz. Dr. Christian Fuchs Associate Professor ICT&S Center University of Salzburg Sigmund Haffner Gasse 18 5020 Salzburg Austria christian.fuchs@sbg.ac.at Phone +43 662 8044 4823 Personal Website: http://fuchs.uti.at Editor of tripleC - Cognition, Communication, Co-Operation | Open Access Journal for a Global Sustainable Information Society http://www.triple-c.at Fuchs, Christian. 2008. Internet and Society: Social Theory in the Information Age. New York: Routledge. http://fuchs.uti.at/?page_id=40
One can argue if this video is funny or distasteful - these are unnecessary moral discussions, but one thing is for sure: the clip is unintelligent.
I'm actually pretty sure here.... that it is intelligent, and that your analysis was again grossly far from the text as understood as within a defined meme and set of cultural references for that meme. The clip has nothing to do with Nazi's or evil or censorship. The meme is playing purely off the emotional portrayals. This is pretty common in memes, emotions play a significant part of the text. I'm sure that if someone had done the same thing with unicorns or narwals or football players or really anything expressing the same emotional depth and the same emotional plot (which to me reads as classically greek emotions from a classical tragedy), you'd have a similar meme, but they didn't, the communities in question took to this clip. It is the reproduction and reconstruction of those meanings in relation to the emotions that make this work. Memes frequently rely less on the symbolic nature of the whole text, than on a specific aspect of that text and its understanding/appropriation by a small community. glancing over the myriad of offers on youtube for this particularly meme, it should be pretty obvious as to what the form, context and reference is supposed to be. When we read this meme, we have to read it sort of like we read an academic paper, there is a form, there are references, there is a genre, there are things in it that are there for a purpose and things in it to serve the form, but not everything in an academic paper is part of the conversation, neither is everything in this meme. You can reference it, if that works for you and you can provide the backing to support your analysis, don't get me wrong. Similarly people mis-cite academic papers all the time, including claiming a paper says something when it does not, because they did not understand the whole of the paper because they misplaced it in its referents/context. That happens, and I'd say focussing on the Nazi's here is sort of like saying, the paper relies on habermas's concept of legitimation, when it is actually referencing lyotard's concept of paralogy, not the same. Rarely does any part of this meme rely on nazi's or evil, and one could say if you look at enough of them, that to rely on the nazi or evil metaphor misses the point, much like analyzing the language in German misses the point. Communication is also not the point, nor is the mode of communication, web 2.0, or anything else really the main thing here. The point is to attach emotion to text, now whether this text does that effectively or not, we can debate. However, the appropriation of the meme to make the point to the population that it was attempting to reach, which is clearly not all of AoIR, but perhaps a significant group within it, Now, as to the judgement of intelligence. I'd actually want to see an argument about that... Granted, I'm not saying you should like it, like what it uses, or anything. I'm just saying... we should be careful in our portrayals of what it is, and what it is not. Jeremy Hunsinger Center for Digital Discourse and Culture Virginia Tech Information Ethics Fellow, Center for Information Policy Research, School of Information Studies, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee http://wiki.tmttlt.com http://www.tmttlt.com Whoever ceases to be a student has never been a student. -George Iles
hi jeremy, i think we have different perspectives on this video. you argue that the form/genre of this video is interesting. but this form/genre is not specific for the internet, so in my view the form/genre does not have a particular interest for internet research. i more argue that what is interesting for internet researchers is the content because it is about internet politics. and at the content level the hitler-analogy is misplaced. it depends on how you "read" this text. personally i am interested in how internet politics is displayed in popular media at the content level. the form intracts here with the content level, but we cannot ignore discussing the viability of the content level. in any case, i appreciate that you brought up an interesting topic, althoug we view this from completely different angles. probably another influence here is that my cultural background is the german-speaking world, so i tend to view all media content related to the nazis with great care. these are important topics, and your cultural background plays an important part in how you read such media texts. best, christian
Before it gets too late for me to think in any way approaching rational clarity ... A) i would have thought that the point of this sort of thing was to make an argument, and then underscore that argument one way or another - e.g., as Jeremy suggests, by attaching emotion, and/or as many others have suggested, by attempting humor. If that's true, then B) it seems that for at least a few of us, the effort at humor doesn't work. I did notice in the reference that Robin Cheeseman kindly sent along that the director himself has to turn down the sound in order to "get" the humor of the added text. This suggests to me that a certain kind of literacy is called for here - one that requires separating the film, including the passion of the original voices in these incredible performances, from its own sound track, larger cultural context (e.g., what this film meant, for example, for German artists and actors who could, after nearly five decades of self-imposed silence, produce such a profoundly moving and insightful movie), etc. My apologies for not being up to speed on this, but thanks for the generous efforts to educate me (really). Still, within this perspective, as one of the German comments on the reference Robin sent put it: So unterhaltsam ist's doch nicht! Whether or not we are able to find the clip humorous - C) while I'll give the posts a more careful and fresh look after I finish moving apartments this weekend (starting this evening) - I do get the impression that our discussion of this so far resembles the response to the following video: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8vBn2_ia8zM> As pointed out to me by a wise and experienced film scholar colleague, who uses this in his film classes - when he asks the students afterwards what they notice about the film, they all point to the various ways in which it is funny, etc. Nobody notices or remembers that it's a commercial for Berlitz - and in that sense, while it may be a terribly funny video, it fails in its primary goal of making Berlitz stick in the mind of the audience. In the same way - while I was clearly not as clear as I needed to be in my original post, part of my point was that
As sympathetic as I am to the argument attempted to be made here - this seems to me to thereby works directly contrary to its intentions. Again, perhaps I've missed something important in the postings, and if so apologies - but it seems to me that the focus has been on whether or not the meme works as humor, etc., _not_ whether or not it works to support the argument(s) attempted here. Given that there are important arguments to be made about such important matters as raised in the video - e.g., whether or not tenure must depend upon publication in print media - it's interesting that we have not taken up the arguments, but rather the question of humor. This is not meant as a criticism of anyone - but an observation that seems to reiterate my point: it's not clear to me how successful this is, in the end, at leaving us with an awareness of important arguments (and/or possible critiques thereof).
In any event, good night and thanks for all the fish! With great gratitude and cordiality, - c. On 1/22/10 9:04 PM, "jeremy hunsinger" <jhuns@vt.edu> wrote:
The point is to attach emotion to text, now whether this text does that effectively or not, we can debate. However, the appropriation of the meme to make the point to the population that it was attempting to reach, which is clearly not all of AoIR, but perhaps a significant group within it,
i'd like to add that the hitler/satire meme is not solely an internet thing, but has strong roots in mel brook's movie, "the producers," which wrangles with several of the issues mentioned in this thread. here's the wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Producers_(1968_film) see the movie for even greater clarification. i'm all for the multiple bakhtinian-style readings, but i'd hate to lose sight of the fact that this emnates from a tradition of comedy, and not internet culture or theory.. anyway, that's my zwei pfennig. -robert On Fri, Jan 22, 2010 at 3:37 PM, Charles Ess <charles.ess@gmail.com> wrote:
Before it gets too late for me to think in any way approaching rational clarity ... A) i would have thought that the point of this sort of thing was to make an argument, and then underscore that argument one way or another - e.g., as Jeremy suggests, by attaching emotion, and/or as many others have suggested, by attempting humor. If that's true, then B) it seems that for at least a few of us, the effort at humor doesn't work. I did notice in the reference that Robin Cheeseman kindly sent along that the director himself has to turn down the sound in order to "get" the humor of the added text. This suggests to me that a certain kind of literacy is called for here - one that requires separating the film, including the passion of the original voices in these incredible performances, from its own sound track, larger cultural context (e.g., what this film meant, for example, for German artists and actors who could, after nearly five decades of self-imposed silence, produce such a profoundly moving and insightful movie), etc. My apologies for not being up to speed on this, but thanks for the generous efforts to educate me (really). Still, within this perspective, as one of the German comments on the reference Robin sent put it: So unterhaltsam ist's doch nicht!
Whether or not we are able to find the clip humorous - C) while I'll give the posts a more careful and fresh look after I finish moving apartments this weekend (starting this evening) - I do get the impression that our discussion of this so far resembles the response to the following video: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8vBn2_ia8zM> As pointed out to me by a wise and experienced film scholar colleague, who uses this in his film classes - when he asks the students afterwards what they notice about the film, they all point to the various ways in which it is funny, etc. Nobody notices or remembers that it's a commercial for Berlitz - and in that sense, while it may be a terribly funny video, it fails in its primary goal of making Berlitz stick in the mind of the audience. In the same way - while I was clearly not as clear as I needed to be in my original post, part of my point was that
As sympathetic as I am to the argument attempted to be made here - this seems to me to thereby works directly contrary to its intentions. Again, perhaps I've missed something important in the postings, and if so apologies - but it seems to me that the focus has been on whether or not the meme works as humor, etc., _not_ whether or not it works to support the argument(s) attempted here. Given that there are important arguments to be made about such important matters as raised in the video - e.g., whether or not tenure must depend upon publication in print media - it's interesting that we have not taken up the arguments, but rather the question of humor. This is not meant as a criticism of anyone - but an observation that seems to reiterate my point: it's not clear to me how successful this is, in the end, at leaving us with an awareness of important arguments (and/or possible critiques thereof).
In any event, good night and thanks for all the fish! With great gratitude and cordiality, - c.
On 1/22/10 9:04 PM, "jeremy hunsinger" <jhuns@vt.edu> wrote:
The point is to attach emotion to text, now whether this text does that effectively or not, we can debate. However, the appropriation of the meme to make the point to the population that it was attempting to reach, which is clearly not all of AoIR, but perhaps a significant group within it,
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Come to think of it the Democratic primary wars occured two years ago, in northern spring 2008 - so depending on when these NFL playoffs occured it may well be that Hillary raging against her fate may be the first in the series... Regarding the director 'turning the sound down' I assumed when I read it that it was because he was getting a bit bored with the screamed dialogue after going through 145 detournements...?
My first time...
Hitler was devastated to learn that the Dallas Cowboys had lost to the New York Giants in the NFL playoffs two years ago. And it still makes me laugh.
On 01/22/2010 12:09 PM, Mathieu ONeil wrote:
The first time I saw it was Spring last year with the Furher as Hillary Clinton ranting about superdelegates, Florida and Ohio etc. Was that the first for others as well? Archaeology of meme emergence...
cheers m
The Dallas/New York playoff version would have been January 2008. And I assumed that the director turned the sound down so that the actual dialogue (which he would understand perfectly, after all) didn't overwhelm his ability to concentrate on the fake subtitles. On 01/22/2010 03:03 PM, Mathieu ONeil wrote:
Come to think of it the Democratic primary wars occured two years ago, in northern spring 2008 - so depending on when these NFL playoffs occured it may well be that Hillary raging against her fate may be the first in the series...
Regarding the director 'turning the sound down' I assumed when I read it that it was because he was getting a bit bored with the screamed dialogue after going through 145 detournements...?
My first time...
Hitler was devastated to learn that the Dallas Cowboys had lost to the New York Giants in the NFL playoffs two years ago. And it still makes me laugh.
On 01/22/2010 12:09 PM, Mathieu ONeil wrote:
The first time I saw it was Spring last year with the Furher
as Hillary Clinton ranting about superdelegates, Florida and Ohio etc. Was that the first for others as well? Archaeology of meme emergence...
cheers m
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The phenomenon of the Hitler memes has gained momentum in several other languages as well, including Hebrew (there are more than 50 Hebrew memes on YouTube currently). This, of course, caused a heated debate about the place (or lack thereof) of such parodies in a country populated by Holocaust survivors (see http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1065210.html). It is, indeed, a very sensitive issue - but then again, the core of many viral videos is that of a ridiculing and offending effect as a way of gaining attention, and no better way to get that attention than honing in on one of the most emotionally charged topics of the 20th century. Based on the statistics provided by YouTube, as well as upload date, the original meme that started the frenzy was probably the XBox video of 2007. Yet with this list in mind, I think that Hitler's take on the scientific review process is an excellent example of the ways different communities of interest take this video excerpt and make it their own, using domain-related terms and key figures. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VRBWLpYCPY Cheers, ~ Dana ======================= Dana Rotman PhD candidate University of Maryland's iSchool Fri, Jan 22, 2010 at 4:03 PM, Mathieu ONeil <mathieu.oneil@anu.edu.au>wrote:
Come to think of it the Democratic primary wars occured two years ago, in northern spring 2008 - so depending on when these NFL playoffs occured it may well be that Hillary raging against her fate may be the first in the series...
Regarding the director 'turning the sound down' I assumed when I read it that it was because he was getting a bit bored with the screamed dialogue after going through 145 detournements...?
My first time...
Hitler was devastated to learn that the Dallas Cowboys had lost to the New York Giants in the NFL playoffs two years ago. And it still makes me laugh.
On 01/22/2010 12:09 PM, Mathieu ONeil wrote:
The first time I saw it was Spring last year with the Furher as Hillary Clinton ranting about superdelegates, Florida and Ohio etc. Was that the first for others as well? Archaeology of meme emergence...
cheers m
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That's obviously a culturally generational issue - wherein young Israelis feel fine with talking about/making fun of/etc Hitler and the older generation is not, nor may ever be, ready for such a transition. Also, 'Hebrew' does not always equal 'Israel' - although your example below it just does happen to, as their topic is Tel Aviv parking. -S- Sharon Greenfield Social Psychologist @SharonG On Jan 22, 2010, at 1:35 PM, Dana Rotman wrote:
The phenomenon of the Hitler memes has gained momentum in several other languages as well, including Hebrew (there are more than 50 Hebrew memes on YouTube currently). This, of course, caused a heated debate about the place (or lack thereof) of such parodies in a country populated by Holocaust survivors (see http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1065210.html) .
It is, indeed, a very sensitive issue - but then again, the core of many viral videos is that of a ridiculing and offending effect as a way of gaining attention, and no better way to get that attention than honing in on one of the most emotionally charged topics of the 20th century.
Based on the statistics provided by YouTube, as well as upload date, the original meme that started the frenzy was probably the XBox video of 2007. Yet with this list in mind, I think that Hitler's take on the scientific review process is an excellent example of the ways different communities of interest take this video excerpt and make it their own, using domain- related terms and key figures. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VRBWLpYCPY
Cheers, ~ Dana
Speaking of the viral nature of the Hitler meme (some of which I find amusing, like the one JH posted this morning) I received THREE of them this week: on Tuesday, one was done about the election in Massachusetts. Then the Creative Commons one hit my inbox today. And now this one parodying itself. 'tis all in good fun, IMHO -- and some of them are rather well-written. My German is rusty (er, "ganz rustiche") as the next person's (Charles aside!) but from a pure production perspective let's remember these videos all follow the same broad construct: There's a controversial item for discussion and the central character in the video gets furious and takes it out on his underlings, with wonderful raw emotion and facial expressions shown by all involved. Lather, rinse, repeat. Godwin's law aside, IMHO it's perfect fodder for satire and parody. Some are better than others, to be sure. FWIW saying, my first "Downfall meme" was during the 2008 financial crisis when Hitler realized all his money was invested in Countrywide and other subprime can't-lose mortgage deals. ;) My 2 cents this Friday... -rick On Jan 22, 2010, at 12:56 , live wrote:
Ditto on what others said about the meme.
And given what you feel about them, I think of all of the Hitler meme vids created, this is the one for you Charles: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqqxRPZdfvs Hitler rants about the Hitler Parodies
Cheers, -Sharon Greenfield
On Jan 22, 2010, at 8:31 AM, Charles Ess wrote:
Very sorry to have to say this ... How profoundly disappointing, if not on the edge of insulting. If (a) you know German reasonably well, and especially if (b) you've seen the terrific film, Der Untergang, that is ripped off here - it doesn't strike me as funny at all. The kindest thing that I can say about it from my standpoint is that it is a weak attempt at humor that depends first of all upon complete ignorance of German, and secondly a strikingly uncritical willingness to accept the now very tired trope of Hitler as the archetype of reactionary evil. (Part of the irony here: I don't think he was all that reactionary, especially with regard to new technologies.) As sympathetic as I am to the argument attempted to be made here - this seems to me to thereby works directly contrary to its intentions.
Sorry - no one bats a thousand, not even the redoubtable Jeremy!
- charles ess Institut for Informations- og Medievidenskab Helsingforsgade 14 8200 Århus N. Denmark mail: <imvce@hum.au.dk> tel: (+45) 8942 9250
Distinguished Research Professor, Interdisciplinary Studies Drury University, Springfield, Missouri 65802 USA
Exemplary persons seek harmony, not sameness. -- Analects 13.23
in case you've not seen this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VREJV--VHSw
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I think Jeremy provided the best defense for this possible. The self-parodying Hitler video was new to me, thanks for including that one. Not to toot my own horn, but my knowledge of German is quite good. Although sometimes I do turn down the volume on these videos while watching, because of a sinking feeling I get caused by the juxtaposition of the profound emotion of the film's performance and, say, a Superbowl reference, all in all I find the videos amusing. Ever see that Charlie Chaplin Hitler video meme? From, oh, around 1940? From Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Dictator#Cast_and_analysis ): "The film contains several of Chaplin's most famous sequences. The rally speech by Hynkel, delivered in German-sounding gibberish, is a caricature of Hitler's oratory style, which Chaplin studied carefully in newsreels." I'm surprised no one (other than Charles, perhaps, who at best hit it only obliquely) has mentioned the political and sociological importance of American English speakers mocking German phonetics without understanding the language. Cold War anti-Soviet mentality is passe, but it's "cool" to mock the Germans again. On Fri, Jan 22, 2010 at 1:26 PM, Richard Forno <rforno@infowarrior.org>wrote:
Speaking of the viral nature of the Hitler meme (some of which I find amusing, like the one JH posted this morning) I received THREE of them this week: on Tuesday, one was done about the election in Massachusetts. Then the Creative Commons one hit my inbox today. And now this one parodying itself. 'tis all in good fun, IMHO -- and some of them are rather well-written.
My German is rusty (er, "ganz rustiche") as the next person's (Charles aside!) but from a pure production perspective let's remember these videos all follow the same broad construct: There's a controversial item for discussion and the central character in the video gets furious and takes it out on his underlings, with wonderful raw emotion and facial expressions shown by all involved. Lather, rinse, repeat. Godwin's law aside, IMHO it's perfect fodder for satire and parody.
Some are better than others, to be sure. FWIW saying, my first "Downfall meme" was during the 2008 financial crisis when Hitler realized all his money was invested in Countrywide and other subprime can't-lose mortgage deals. ;)
My 2 cents this Friday...
-rick
On Jan 22, 2010, at 12:56 , live wrote:
Ditto on what others said about the meme.
And given what you feel about them, I think of all of the Hitler meme vids created, this is the one for you Charles: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqqxRPZdfvs Hitler rants about the Hitler Parodies
Cheers, -Sharon Greenfield
On Jan 22, 2010, at 8:31 AM, Charles Ess wrote:
Very sorry to have to say this ...
How profoundly disappointing, if not on the edge of insulting. If (a) you know German reasonably well, and especially if (b) you've seen the terrific film, Der Untergang, that is ripped off here - it doesn't strike me as funny at all. The kindest thing that I can say about it from my standpoint is that it is a weak attempt at humor that depends first of all upon complete ignorance of German, and secondly a strikingly uncritical willingness to accept the now very tired trope of Hitler as the archetype of reactionary evil. (Part of the irony here: I don't think he was all that reactionary, especially with regard to new technologies.) As sympathetic as I am to the argument attempted to be made here - this seems to me to thereby works directly contrary to its intentions.
Sorry - no one bats a thousand, not even the redoubtable Jeremy!
- charles ess Institut for Informations- og Medievidenskab Helsingforsgade 14 8200 Århus N. Denmark mail: <imvce@hum.au.dk> tel: (+45) 8942 9250
Distinguished Research Professor, Interdisciplinary Studies Drury University, Springfield, Missouri 65802 USA
Exemplary persons seek harmony, not sameness. -- Analects 13.23
in case you've not seen this
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participants (13)
-
Alex Leavitt -
Burcu Bakioglu -
Charles Ess -
Christian Fuchs -
Conor Schaefer -
Dana Rotman -
Gilbert B. Rodman -
jeremy hunsinger -
live -
Mathieu ONeil -
nativebuddha -
Richard Forno -
Robin Cheesman