Wednesday, November 27, 2013
Sunday, November 17, 2013
Homework 5
Olivia Tang-Kong
Ridiculously Photogenic Guy
Zeddie Little was simply a 25 year old New Yorker in South Carolina running
the Cooper River Bridge Run on March 31, 2012 – when his photo was taken and turned into an
internet meme. Among hundreds of runners, Little managed to land in the range
of a local photographer in perfect lighting and ideal photographing conditions.
Little was also smiling at the camera, as if he was not exhausted from the race
at all. With all these factors lining up, when the local photographer uploaded
the photo of Little onto his Flickr, one of his friends commented on the photo
and deemed Little “Mr. Ridiculously Photogenic Guy.”
The photographer, named Will King, then went on to post the
photo of Little on Reddit, and the photo went viral. Perhaps the juxtaposition
of all the other exhausted, unphotogenic runners in relation to Little’s
fantastic smile drew people to the photo. Perhaps the general attractiveness of
Little himself made the photo interesting for viewers. Perhaps the disbelief
that someone who had been running for hours would look as perfectly poised as
Little did intrigued people. Regardless, the photo of Little exploded on the
internet, garnering 40,000 up votes on Reddit and 300,000 views on Flickr
within the first few hours of being on the internet.
The first iteration of the meme was Little’s faced
super-imposed on the other runners in the original photo. The next iteration of
the meme, which grew to be a more common use of the meme, was Little’s face
photoshopped into a picture with two women making silly faces at the camera. The
meme read: “Sees a couple of girls taking a disastrous photo. Turns it into a
work of art”
From then on, the Ridiculously Photogenic Guy Meme turned
into a macro meme series, featuring a photo of Little during the race and text
which implies that Little is a ridiculously successful, lucky, and renown
character to match his good looks. Often jokes were made about Little’s often
successful romantic life, as well as his good looks. Examples can be seen
below:
The Ridiculously Photogenic Guy Meme quickly rose in
popularity for the first few weeks following the publication of Little’s photo. April 2012 was the peak of this meme's popularity Little was even featured in a Good Morning America segment regarding his recent
rise to internet fame. However, after a few months, the meme fell in popularity.
This particular meme inspired several other macro memes,
including the Tries Really Hard Girl, an image of a girl in the original photo
of Zeddie Little. She has a strained look on her face, and the text surrounding
the image often references Little stealing her spotlight. There have also been
other “ridiculously photogenic” equivalents, including Ridiculously Photogenic
Puppy and Ridiculously Photogenic Metal Head, which have had similar patterns
to the original meme.
Chris Kim
Chocolate Rain
"Chocolate Rain" is a video of Tay Zonday performing the song by the same name on YouTube.
Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwTZ2xpQwpA
For starters, it's a catchy song with an infectious background track and very strange lyrics. Each line begins with the words "Chocolate Rain" and is followed by seemingly random sets of words, although Tay Zonday has later stated that the lyrics are about racism. I think that this song was able to get a lot of attention at this time because of his voice (very deep, although he seems like a fairly small guy) and the silly content matter.
This video began to take traction on the internet a few months after Tay uploaded it (April 2007) when Anonymous picked up on the song in July 2007. After it's viewcount skyrocketed that month, it was a featured video on YouTube, garnering it even more attention.
Google Trends: http://www.google.com/trends/explore?hl=en-US#q=tay+zonday,Chocolate+Rain
Tay Zonday would later cover and create more songs and be featured on a variety of TV shows and commercials. To this day, his video Chocolate Rain remains one of the most popular on YouTube, and has over 94 million views.
Timothy Wang
All Your Base Are Belong to Us
Shane McDonough
“I Know That Feel Bro”
The, “I know that feel bro” meme, began circulating on 4chan in early 2011. The meme is a black and white line drawing that depicts the face of a bald man with a closed mouth and slightly squinted eyes, ether looking in the distance or embracing another bald man. It is used online to express empathy and solidarity with what someone else is saying or reacting to on online social media sites and message boards (be the subject matter serious or humorous). I believe this meme has stuck around and will continue to stick around because this notion of agreeing and feeling for what other people are saying online is so easily, humorously, and visually expressed with this simple image. It’s actually a really good natured meme because even is someone is posted about something negative in their lives, responding with some variation of the “I know that feel bro” meme shows you’ve been there and you empathize.
The original image is said to have come from the German image board Krautchan, and to have been created by user “Wojak”. Wojak posted the image on several international image boards with threads bemoaning the fact that he did not have a girlfriend, and it became know as “Wojak’s face”. The meme appeared on 4chan in the 2-bald-men-embracing format as early as January 27th 2011.
Today, the meme is still used, and a spinoff of the meme: “feels” is now also widely circulated. “Feels” is a term used in memes, gifs, and even text response, to refer to emotional occurrences and experiences, be they fictional (i.e. Bambi’s mom dying in the movie Bambi) or real (i.e. a video showing a military father reuniting with his son). Feels can refer to emotions that are happy, sad, or a combination.
According to Google Insights interest web searches for “I know that feel” or “I know that fee bro” meme reached their peak in July 2012, and though the popularity of these terms in web searches has dropped off a bit these terms are still searched relatively highly today.
Sources:
http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/feels
http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/i-know-that-feel-bro
http://www.google.com/trends/explore?hl=en-US#q=%22i+know+that+feel+bro%22,%22i+know+that+feel%22
Brian Ly
Slam Remixes aka "Come on and Slam"
Slam Remixes initially started on the early days of the internet prior to the YouTube era in a tribute site to Randy Savage on YTMND, mixing Quad City DJ's "Space Jam" as featured in the movie of the same name with chiptune song "Funky Stars", with the final product being known as Savageslam, created on April 13, 2005.
This then spawned various spinoffs of mixing "Space Jam" with video game music, popular music, and many other forms of music. Due to what is likely how well the song seems to sync up with other songs, mashups with "Space Jam" made Slam Remixes popular in various subcultures.
Slam Remixes in its modern iterations first appeared on YouTube in a remix for a song from the game Barkley, Shut Up and Slam: Gaiden, which was a game that featured NBA star Charles Barkley, on May 6, 2009, leading to many future iterations having Charles Barkley's face photoshopped onto the characters of the song remixed with "Space Jam." In this variation, while the "Space Jam" remixes were already popular due to how well the remixes were made, the almost ridiculously out of place faces of Charles Barkley on video game and anime characters made this meme even more popular in gaming and anime communities.
Examples of Videos:
Videos and MP3's have been shared on gaming websites such as IGN, music websites such as SoundCloud, and even on anime forums. Since the meme is rather derivative and thrives on generating new user-based content, it is difficult to assess exactly how popular this meme exactly is, since rather than focusing on the original version, it is based more on the idea of remixing the "Space Jam" song. However, it is interesting to note that the YouTube search query "Come on and Slam" generates about 268,000 results and the subreddit r/comeonandslam has over 1,100 mashups as of August 3, 2012 and over 22,000 subscribers as of November 27, 2013.
As noted in the development of the meme, the idea initially started with the Randy Savage tribute on YTMND, but it truly grew and exploded when the remixes became associated with Charles Barkley through the Barkley game. Rather than necessarily spawning other memes, it grew from a single YTMND site to an entire subculture based on editing Charles Barkley's face onto video game and anime characters and remixing "Space Jam" with a song from the same source, even meriting a fairly active subreddit.
Information from source: http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/slam-remixes-vs-quad-city-djs
Qiqi Zhen
"Babe Caught Me Sleeping"
"Babe Caught Me Sleeping" is a meme and phrase for selfies by people pretending to be asleep. Often, the image will have a very obvious revelation that the said person took the photo themselves, such as through a mirror reflection. This meme stems off from the more general "Bitches be like" meme phrase for various cliché behaviors of females. The meme started as a Twitter post on October 2012 by @NostrandAv featuring a photo of a woman taking a picture of herself while pretending to be asleep, along with the caption "Females Be Like 'Bae Caught Me Slipping'"
However, it was instagram user Jermz_vi who started the fad with the picture most often associated with this phrase, namely a picture of a person asleep, along with a mirror reflection revealing that it was a selfie. The picture was posted on November, and many other users tried to emulate the same situation. These pictures were then shared through many image hosting sites and forums.
While its search was at its peak in early 2013, this meme is still rather popular even to this day. This meme became famous, most likely due to the fact that the viewer can clearly see through the lie, making this a hilarious epic fail for some people. Yet, at the same time, it showed a hint of truth on what people do on the internet to appear cute or to show off their relationship. Hence, the meme occasionally appears again when the situation fits.
Other examples:
Chocolate Rain
"Chocolate Rain" is a video of Tay Zonday performing the song by the same name on YouTube.
Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwTZ2xpQwpA
This video began to take traction on the internet a few months after Tay uploaded it (April 2007) when Anonymous picked up on the song in July 2007. After it's viewcount skyrocketed that month, it was a featured video on YouTube, garnering it even more attention.
Google Trends: http://www.google.com/trends/explore?hl=en-US#q=tay+zonday,Chocolate+Rain
Tay Zonday would later cover and create more songs and be featured on a variety of TV shows and commercials. To this day, his video Chocolate Rain remains one of the most popular on YouTube, and has over 94 million views.
Timothy Wang
All Your Base Are Belong to Us
Transcript
of the “All Your Base” Meme’s Dialogue:
Captain: What happen ?
Mechanic: Somebody set up us the bomb.
Operator: We get signal.
Captain: What !
Operator: Main screen turn on.
Captain: It’s you !!
CATS: How are you gentlemen !!
CATS: All your base are belong to us.
CATS: You are on the way to destruction.
Captain: What you say !!
CATS: You have no chance to survive make your time.
CATS: Ha ha ha ha …
Operator: Captain !!
Captain: Take off every ‘ZIG’!!
Captain: You know what you doing.
Captain: Move ‘ZIG’.
Captain: For great justice.
Mechanic: Somebody set up us the bomb.
Operator: We get signal.
Captain: What !
Operator: Main screen turn on.
Captain: It’s you !!
CATS: How are you gentlemen !!
CATS: All your base are belong to us.
CATS: You are on the way to destruction.
Captain: What you say !!
CATS: You have no chance to survive make your time.
CATS: Ha ha ha ha …
Operator: Captain !!
Captain: Take off every ‘ZIG’!!
Captain: You know what you doing.
Captain: Move ‘ZIG’.
Captain: For great justice.
Zero Wing Video Game
(European Version), 1989. Transcript taken from http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/all-your-base-are-belong-to-us.
The
“All Your Base” meme’s content originated in a 1989 16-bit game called Zero Wing. The dialogue features many
lines of horrible English translations from Japanese, which includes a lot of
bad grammar. This horrible translation is an example of Engrish, which is
humorous in its attempt to imitate the lack of parallelism in
Asian-language-to-English translations. The sentences in English and sentences
in Asian language are different in structure, and thus, attempts to translate
to English while maintaining the same structure of the Asian languages results
in an awkward, but hilarious, grammatically incorrect English sentence.
Engrish
started to become popular in the mid-1990s, and the “All Your Base” meme earned
its meme-ship in 1998. Its popularity spans from 1998 to the mid-2000s, where
the meme started to lose the interest of the people of the Internet.
 |
| Notice that Google Insights only provides data starting in 2004, but the meme's popularity had already started to decline. |
It
is hard to gauge the number of hits on the “All Your Base” meme, but some
measures of its popularity include the following:
- In 2000, a thread involving the “All Your Base” meme is started in the Photoshop-savvy online forum Something Awful. The discussion thread grew to over 30 pages and featured over 2000 Photoshop images.
- Many videos on YouTube have been made with influence from the “All Your Base” meme. A 2006 video (not shown here due to foul language), reaches over 2,000,000 views.
The
meme is sadly not the inspiration for other memes, but it does influence some
other pieces of work.
- On June 5, 2000, the Zero Wing Dub Project is released on OverClocked. The Internet now has a library of voiceovers and sound effects generated from users, based on their own renditions of the characters’ voices.
- On November 14, 2000, a song titled “Invasion of the Gabber Robots” is released. It is a “remix featuring some of the original soundtrack with Dub project voiceover and would eventually become the official unofficial All Your Base Belong To Us anthem.” (Know Your Meme - All Your Base Are Belong to Us, http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/all-your-base-are-belong-to-us)
Examples
of the “All Your Base” Meme
- All Your Base Dialogue Video
- The following images are taken from http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/all-your-base-are-belong-to-us
“I Know That Feel Bro”
The, “I know that feel bro” meme, began circulating on 4chan in early 2011. The meme is a black and white line drawing that depicts the face of a bald man with a closed mouth and slightly squinted eyes, ether looking in the distance or embracing another bald man. It is used online to express empathy and solidarity with what someone else is saying or reacting to on online social media sites and message boards (be the subject matter serious or humorous). I believe this meme has stuck around and will continue to stick around because this notion of agreeing and feeling for what other people are saying online is so easily, humorously, and visually expressed with this simple image. It’s actually a really good natured meme because even is someone is posted about something negative in their lives, responding with some variation of the “I know that feel bro” meme shows you’ve been there and you empathize.
The original image is said to have come from the German image board Krautchan, and to have been created by user “Wojak”. Wojak posted the image on several international image boards with threads bemoaning the fact that he did not have a girlfriend, and it became know as “Wojak’s face”. The meme appeared on 4chan in the 2-bald-men-embracing format as early as January 27th 2011.
Today, the meme is still used, and a spinoff of the meme: “feels” is now also widely circulated. “Feels” is a term used in memes, gifs, and even text response, to refer to emotional occurrences and experiences, be they fictional (i.e. Bambi’s mom dying in the movie Bambi) or real (i.e. a video showing a military father reuniting with his son). Feels can refer to emotions that are happy, sad, or a combination.
According to Google Insights interest web searches for “I know that feel” or “I know that fee bro” meme reached their peak in July 2012, and though the popularity of these terms in web searches has dropped off a bit these terms are still searched relatively highly today.
Sources:
http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/feels
http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/i-know-that-feel-bro
http://www.google.com/trends/explore?hl=en-US#q=%22i+know+that+feel+bro%22,%22i+know+that+feel%22
Brian Ly
Slam Remixes aka "Come on and Slam"
Slam Remixes initially started on the early days of the internet prior to the YouTube era in a tribute site to Randy Savage on YTMND, mixing Quad City DJ's "Space Jam" as featured in the movie of the same name with chiptune song "Funky Stars", with the final product being known as Savageslam, created on April 13, 2005.
Slam Remixes in its modern iterations first appeared on YouTube in a remix for a song from the game Barkley, Shut Up and Slam: Gaiden, which was a game that featured NBA star Charles Barkley, on May 6, 2009, leading to many future iterations having Charles Barkley's face photoshopped onto the characters of the song remixed with "Space Jam." In this variation, while the "Space Jam" remixes were already popular due to how well the remixes were made, the almost ridiculously out of place faces of Charles Barkley on video game and anime characters made this meme even more popular in gaming and anime communities.
Examples of Videos:
What Does the Chuck Say? - Quad City DJs vs. Ylvis
Ore no Barklimouto ga Konna ni Ballin' Wake ga Nai (My Little Barkley Can't Be This Ballin') - Quad City DJs vs. ClariS
Since this meme doesn't exactly have a specific name, spreading based on remixed videos, there is not much data on Google Trends. However, it is interesting to note that "Come on and Slam" has been on a steady increase since December 2011, still at its peak (and likely climbing even higher) as of October 2013.Videos and MP3's have been shared on gaming websites such as IGN, music websites such as SoundCloud, and even on anime forums. Since the meme is rather derivative and thrives on generating new user-based content, it is difficult to assess exactly how popular this meme exactly is, since rather than focusing on the original version, it is based more on the idea of remixing the "Space Jam" song. However, it is interesting to note that the YouTube search query "Come on and Slam" generates about 268,000 results and the subreddit r/comeonandslam has over 1,100 mashups as of August 3, 2012 and over 22,000 subscribers as of November 27, 2013.
As noted in the development of the meme, the idea initially started with the Randy Savage tribute on YTMND, but it truly grew and exploded when the remixes became associated with Charles Barkley through the Barkley game. Rather than necessarily spawning other memes, it grew from a single YTMND site to an entire subculture based on editing Charles Barkley's face onto video game and anime characters and remixing "Space Jam" with a song from the same source, even meriting a fairly active subreddit.
Information from source: http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/slam-remixes-vs-quad-city-djs
Qiqi Zhen
"Babe Caught Me Sleeping"
"Babe Caught Me Sleeping" is a meme and phrase for selfies by people pretending to be asleep. Often, the image will have a very obvious revelation that the said person took the photo themselves, such as through a mirror reflection. This meme stems off from the more general "Bitches be like" meme phrase for various cliché behaviors of females. The meme started as a Twitter post on October 2012 by @NostrandAv featuring a photo of a woman taking a picture of herself while pretending to be asleep, along with the caption "Females Be Like 'Bae Caught Me Slipping'"
 |
| http://t.co/GfpP8KQb |
However, it was instagram user Jermz_vi who started the fad with the picture most often associated with this phrase, namely a picture of a person asleep, along with a mirror reflection revealing that it was a selfie. The picture was posted on November, and many other users tried to emulate the same situation. These pictures were then shared through many image hosting sites and forums.
 |
| Jermz_vi |
While its search was at its peak in early 2013, this meme is still rather popular even to this day. This meme became famous, most likely due to the fact that the viewer can clearly see through the lie, making this a hilarious epic fail for some people. Yet, at the same time, it showed a hint of truth on what people do on the internet to appear cute or to show off their relationship. Hence, the meme occasionally appears again when the situation fits.
Other examples:
Images from: http://knowyourmeme.com/
There are also video versions, shown HERE is a vine by werevertumorro, who keeps saying "stop taping me" to his "love." However, by the end, a reflection from the mirror shows that it is the guy himself who is videotaping the vine.
Victoria Bravo
In May 2006, a video called
“La Caida de Edgar” was uploaded to YouTube. The video is 43 seconds long, and
focuses on an adolescent boy attempting to cross a creek using a bridge made
out of tree branches.
This video peaked in
popularity in June 2006 (Google Interests) and was most viewed in Mexico, along
with a few other Latin American countries showing some interest. The reason the
video was so popular in these particular regions is because it was filmed in
Mexico, and the dialogue is in Spanish. It is also popular because it is a
clear example of schadenfreude: harassment by Edgar’s friends is what leads to
him falling in the creek. Instead of his friends being concerned with him, they
laugh. The video ends with one of his friends saying to him what would be the
English equivalent of “damn, you just took a bath.” This video is funny because
it involves a kid cursing and being heckled by his friends.
The video was extremely
popular for a short while; today it has 39,000,000 views (YouTube). While it
may not be constantly talked about, members of the Latino community still
recognize him and know right away that it is him who’s being quoted when you
recite the phrase, “yaaaa gueyyyy,” which was Edgar’s initial plea to have his
friend leave him alone. This video continues to get occasional, but steady
comments, views and likes on it.
There weren’t many other
memes that emerged from Edgar’s popularity, as spoofs and/or parodies would
involve a possibly dangerous act of knocking someone into a creek. While there
weren’t many remakes of this video, Edgar’s popularity did garner him nation-wide
attention in Mexico. He became a YouTube celebrity: he was interviewed on a
variety of news channels, and was even the spokesperson of a brand of chocolate
bar called “Emperador,” who expanded on the video’s success and featured
soldiers coming into the scene to throw Edgar’s friends into the creek and save
him.
Sources:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b89CnP0Iq30
Autum Boulais-Grumpy Cat
Being a closeted crazy cat lady, I have been pretty fond of the Grumpy Cat memes since the debuted last year. I follow several cat themed Twitters and Facebooks; they are my favorite animal. Grumpy Cat, whose real name is Tarder Sauce, is a mixed breed cat with a permanent “grumpy” look on her face. Her owner says the facial expression is due to feline dwarfism. Her image was originally posted by her owner’s brother on the /r/pics of Reddit. Within hours the image had been photoshopped and memes were created. It was upvoted over 25,000 times within the first twenty-four hours. The owner’s brother also posted video clips of the feline on YouTube. Most of the memes created involved the cat’s face with sarcastic and/or pessimistic saying from the cat’s perspective. Other memes showed Grumpy Cat’s image next to other stern faced humans, such as Ron Swanson. Within 48 hours of its creation, there were more than 300 memes created. Grumpy Cat was popular not only on Reddit and YouTube, but also in BuzzFeed, Quickmeme, UpRoxx, FunnyJunk and Daily of the Day. The ifficial GrumpyCat.com webpage was opened in October 2012 and the Grumpy Cat Facebook page currently has 2.4 million likes. Grumpy Cat has been featured on the Wall Street Journal as well as the cover of New York Magazine. Grumpy Cat has also inspired Grumpy Grandma memes, Grumpy Cat art projects, and a feature film. She also won BuzzFeed's Meme of the Year Award and a Webby Award in 2013.
I think the reason for Grumpy Cat’s success is that his image is a type of humor that is universal. There is no language, education or intellectual requirements needed to enjoy these memes. The ability of creating personalized memes using Grumpy Cat’s image makes it even more popular, as it adds a interactive element-no matter where you are in the world, it is likely you can look at Grumpy Cat’s face and find a relation to it and something else that is occurring in your life. Plus, its rare to see a cat looking so….grumpy.
David Zhang
Ryan Gosling
Teen heart-throb Ryan Gosling has been in media since he was
a young boy. From his days in the Mickey Mouse Club to starring in movies such
as “The Notebook,” “Crazy, Stupid, Love.” and “Gangster Squad,” Ryan Gosling
has grown a large female fan-base. Because of this, Ryan Gosling has become
subject to the meme, “Hey Girl.” In these memes, a picture Ryan Gosling is
accompanied by the phrase “Hey Girl” at the top of the picture and then a
flirtatious phrase such as “I know that the MLA guide says you have to indent
the first paragraph of that paper you just finished, but you should really set
your opening paragraphs flush left. Who are you going to trust, the Modern
Language Association of America? Or this face.” This meme was created in 2008
and has since exploded into social media. (Huffington Post: Valentine’s Day).
Since its inception in 2008, the Ryan Gosling “Hey Girl” meme had its first
spike in popularity on google insight in 2011. After 2011, the meme dipped back
down and then exponentially rose. To this day, the meme is still very popular;
however, the meme obtains a majority of its searches geographically from Texas,
California, and New York. On the contrary, Ryan Gosling has had spikes in his
search since 2005 (Google insight). I believe this can be attributed to the
movie he was in, “The Notebook,” a female favorite. Similarly, his
popularity went down after 2006 and did not reach similar heights until 2011
(Google insight). After 2011, his popularity has only grown because of the
movie he starred in, “Crazy, Stupid, Love.” Similarly, the popularity of Ryan
Gosling’s “Hey Girl” meme also took off. In the movie, Gosling plays a colorful
pick-up artist, a ladies man. Because of this movie, Gosling has become a male
sex symbol and now has a meme about him.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IeA75Q-zH2Y
(Ryan Gosling hey girl video)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/21/ryan-gosling-hey-girl-meme_n_2923993.html
(Ryan Gosling Hey girl not about him)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/10/ryan-gosling-hey-girl-valentines-day-photos-meme_n_1263024.html
(Ryan Gosling Valentine’s day)
http://purplepond.wordpress.com/2012/02/10/hey-girl/
(website of hosted meme)
http://purplepond.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/mla.jpeg
(actual meme used in homework)
http://www.google.com/trends/explore?q=ryan+gosling#q=ryan%20gosling&cmpt=q
(google insight “Ryan Gosling”)
http://www.google.com/trends/explore?q=ryan+gosling#q=ryan+gosling+hey+girl+meme&cmpt=q&geo=US
(Google insight “Ryan Gosling Hey Girl Meme”) searched most frequently in
CA, TX, NY.
Tuesday, October 29, 2013
Homework 3
David Zhang
The NBA season has arrived. As fans anticipate the first
game of the season, fans can obtain more information about their respective
teams on their social media websites. The Golden State Warriors are the
flagship for fans in the Bay Area and their Facebook page proves to be an
effective social media tool. The Warrior’s Facebook page gives out premiums, allows
user-generated content, and regularly updates the content flow on the website.
First off, the Warrior’s Facebook page allows fans to obtain
premiums, or free stuff to attract users. The latest example of premiums on the
Warrior’s website is an autographed copy of the new Sports Illustrated
featuring Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson. To obtain one of the autographed
issues, one must complete the challenge on the Sports Illustrated magazine.
This gets their fans more involved. In addition, the Warrior’s Facebook also
allows their fans to create user generated content. The Warriors have a
bloggers round table where fans can talk to one another and discuss projections
for the upcoming season. Also, users can comment on their Facebook page. Last
but not least, the Warrior’s Facebook updates their content flow almost daily.
This allows users to keep up with the most current news on the Warriors.
As a result of giving users free things, allowing users to
create their own content, as well as updating their content flow regularly, the
Warriors have a very successful Facebook page. They have over 2,500 likes on a
post created three hours ago. As one can see, the Warriors social media
marketing is very effective.
Chris Kim
Recently, a 3DS and a copy of Pokemon X ended up in my possession. As the hottest new video game of Fall/Winter 2013, I wanted to look up more information about Pokemon and learn more about this franchise. Fortunately, I was able to quickly find their Facebook page, titled "Pokemon" in order to learn more. I think overall, this page is a very effective marketing tool, hitting a huge part of their target market and effectively converting new visitors to like and follow their page.
The Facebook page offers its visitors and followers games, exclusive videos, quizzes, giveaways, and more. Since they came out with a new game with a lot of new characters and mechanics that people aren't familiar with yet, Pokemon uses their page to explain these things to their audience. In addition, they have giveaways for parts of the extensive Pokemon merchandise line for people who participate in their contests and games. Lastly, Pokemon gives users a chance to interact closer with the page and the organization through user-generated content spotlights and by replying to commenters personally.
Olivia Tang-Kong
Creating a facebook page for a product like Cheez-Its might seem like a mundane and difficult task at first. This is a snack item that has lots of competitors and not much of a brand-name which pulls people to be loyal to a specific brand of cheese flavored cracker. Creating a facebook page for a snack food which does not revolve around premiums and giving away free products might seem next to impossible. However, Cheez-Its works to develop a social media presence, one which markets itself mainly through participation and content flow. New and engaging statuses and photos are posted on the facebook page daily. The content posted is often humorous, slightly outlandish questions which all revolve around their snack product. For example, a status posted today prompted followers to ‘LIKE if you think ‘Trick or Treat’ should just be “CHEEZ-IT or CHEEZ-IT.’” Cheez-Its also features lots of user-submitted content on their facebook page. Thanks to the some of Cheez-Its’s biggest fans, there are pictures of Smart Cars covered in Cheez-Its, cakes made out of Cheez-Its, Cheez-Its jewelry, and even memes featuring the cheese cracker. Cheez-Its has capitalized on this participation by having photo contests among its followers. Perhaps most interestingly, Cheez-Its makes a huge effort to respond to all user posts on its timeline, whether people are asking questions about the product, complaining about a defective product, or are just relaying their appreciation for Cheez-Its. This helps the Facebook page function as a customer service portal of sorts, where a dialogue between user and company can be sustained.
Brian Ly
Always a popular checkout line candy bar known for its catchy jingle in the 90s and its breakable form factor, Kit Kat has evolved in its marketing into the 21st century, utilizing Facebook and other forms of social media. Much like its success with its catchy jingle in the 90s, one many even today cannot get out of their heads, Kit Kat employs a rather modern implementation of the classic jingle in the form of microblogging on their Facebook page. Rather than just featuring their products, Kit Kat uses the distinctive Kit Kat shape to create traditional scenes, whether it’s Halloween monsters to hype up the season and bring attention to Kit Kat as the premier choice for Halloween candy or in the Android shape to demonstrate collaboration with other corporations. Also featured on the page are a variety of sweepstakes month after month, ranging from small, like winning free Kit Kat, to large, like winning an Android phone from the aforementioned Google partnership. With these various offers, fans of Kit Kat can get involved directly. Kit Kat, while making many of its very interesting advertisements, also at times displays user-generated content involving Kit Kat that is relevant to other users. Much like other Facebook pages, Kit Kat also responds to concerns and complaints, answering earnestly to their customers and providing solutions. With frequent updates of interesting Kit Kat images and Kit Kat-related statuses, Kit Kat creates what is ultimately a very interesting presence that definitely has a certain appeal and draw to keep their customers coming back. For a product already so delicious, Kit Kat effectively uses social media marketing to make their brand all the more interesting and their page all the more worth revisiting.
Victoria Bravo
Recently, a 3DS and a copy of Pokemon X ended up in my possession. As the hottest new video game of Fall/Winter 2013, I wanted to look up more information about Pokemon and learn more about this franchise. Fortunately, I was able to quickly find their Facebook page, titled "Pokemon" in order to learn more. I think overall, this page is a very effective marketing tool, hitting a huge part of their target market and effectively converting new visitors to like and follow their page.
The Facebook page offers its visitors and followers games, exclusive videos, quizzes, giveaways, and more. Since they came out with a new game with a lot of new characters and mechanics that people aren't familiar with yet, Pokemon uses their page to explain these things to their audience. In addition, they have giveaways for parts of the extensive Pokemon merchandise line for people who participate in their contests and games. Lastly, Pokemon gives users a chance to interact closer with the page and the organization through user-generated content spotlights and by replying to commenters personally.
Olivia Tang-Kong
Creating a facebook page for a product like Cheez-Its might seem like a mundane and difficult task at first. This is a snack item that has lots of competitors and not much of a brand-name which pulls people to be loyal to a specific brand of cheese flavored cracker. Creating a facebook page for a snack food which does not revolve around premiums and giving away free products might seem next to impossible. However, Cheez-Its works to develop a social media presence, one which markets itself mainly through participation and content flow. New and engaging statuses and photos are posted on the facebook page daily. The content posted is often humorous, slightly outlandish questions which all revolve around their snack product. For example, a status posted today prompted followers to ‘LIKE if you think ‘Trick or Treat’ should just be “CHEEZ-IT or CHEEZ-IT.’” Cheez-Its also features lots of user-submitted content on their facebook page. Thanks to the some of Cheez-Its’s biggest fans, there are pictures of Smart Cars covered in Cheez-Its, cakes made out of Cheez-Its, Cheez-Its jewelry, and even memes featuring the cheese cracker. Cheez-Its has capitalized on this participation by having photo contests among its followers. Perhaps most interestingly, Cheez-Its makes a huge effort to respond to all user posts on its timeline, whether people are asking questions about the product, complaining about a defective product, or are just relaying their appreciation for Cheez-Its. This helps the Facebook page function as a customer service portal of sorts, where a dialogue between user and company can be sustained.
Brian Ly
Always a popular checkout line candy bar known for its catchy jingle in the 90s and its breakable form factor, Kit Kat has evolved in its marketing into the 21st century, utilizing Facebook and other forms of social media. Much like its success with its catchy jingle in the 90s, one many even today cannot get out of their heads, Kit Kat employs a rather modern implementation of the classic jingle in the form of microblogging on their Facebook page. Rather than just featuring their products, Kit Kat uses the distinctive Kit Kat shape to create traditional scenes, whether it’s Halloween monsters to hype up the season and bring attention to Kit Kat as the premier choice for Halloween candy or in the Android shape to demonstrate collaboration with other corporations. Also featured on the page are a variety of sweepstakes month after month, ranging from small, like winning free Kit Kat, to large, like winning an Android phone from the aforementioned Google partnership. With these various offers, fans of Kit Kat can get involved directly. Kit Kat, while making many of its very interesting advertisements, also at times displays user-generated content involving Kit Kat that is relevant to other users. Much like other Facebook pages, Kit Kat also responds to concerns and complaints, answering earnestly to their customers and providing solutions. With frequent updates of interesting Kit Kat images and Kit Kat-related statuses, Kit Kat creates what is ultimately a very interesting presence that definitely has a certain appeal and draw to keep their customers coming back. For a product already so delicious, Kit Kat effectively uses social media marketing to make their brand all the more interesting and their page all the more worth revisiting.
Victoria Bravo
I have been a Flamin’ Hot Cheetos enthusiast for at least
fifteen years, so when the time came to evaluate a commercial page I had to
choose the Cheetos Facebook page, that at a glance, seemed to be doing an
effective job at social media marketing with over a million likes. What I did
notice immediately was that there were no photo submissions from users, which I
would have expected from this particular brand. Instead, all content was posted
by the page itself and user-generated content came from a current promotion
called “Project TP,” which is a contest to “digitally TP something cheesy,”
that even had it’s own separate website that one could go on for more details
about the contest and information about prizes to whoever had the best
submission, which seems to be successful as many people have submitted entries
in the comment’s section of the statuses.
Another way they involved users was by promoting the carving
of a Chester Cheetos pumpkin. They provided a template that the user could
print out if they wanted, but as was mentioned before there were no
user-submitted photos of this carving.
After browsing the page for a few minutes, I did notice that
their content flow was extremely regular; statuses were updated at least daily,
and occasionally more. The statuses that they posted were witty, funny, and did
generate a good amount of responses from the public, who continued with the
jokes or sometimes went off on tangents. They also periodically posted pictures
that were clever, and usually featured the mascot or cheesy fingerprints
somewhere in the image. The more recent photos made references to baseball
because of playoffs, which showed that they seemed to keep up with popular
current events. Users were able to share opinions and interact on the page by
way of status updates that asked questions, or prompted them to “share” these
statuses. The dialogue was almost all positive, with the most negative comments
consisting of users being upset that bags are not filled with more product or
that they miss a discontinued flavor of Cheeto. Mostly, users interacted in a
light-hearted and comical way with Chester, who it seemed they thought they
were communicating with because of the effectiveness of the page and its
continuous flow of content. While the page was lacking in a very few areas, the
Cheetos Facebook page was effective in providing positive marketing for its
products.
Qiqi Zhen
Gaiaonline is an avatar based website, with 7 million unique visitors each month. It is free to use and the users will have an avatar which they can dress up. How does this website continuously bring back the users? The user can dress up their avatars with items from the regular shops, which cost gold. Gold is the currency, and can be generated when a user posts in the forums. This way, the website will make the user participate and get involved with the website and interact. This creates user generated content, categorized in the forums so the users can go to the forums and find topics that they like. For those who prefer to lurk, they are not excluded from interacting with the website due to games which earn you gold, too.
Aside from the regular gold shops, there are special items which can only be acquired through donations to the site or from other users, and new items come in at least twice a month, multiple items at a time. The constant update of new items will make the users not only come back to collect the new items, but also to interact with others if they cannot donate. The use of premiums also lure the user to check the website daily due to daily specials, such as watching a video to earn free rewards. However, it is during events when the forums explode with the most activity. This is because, during events, users get to participate in the event, whether by posting or engaging in some social game battle, and gain special currency to earn event items. The items are free and thus users will regularly check during a holiday for the event, and for free items
Tim Wang
As a poor college student, I am constantly on the lookout for foods that are cheap and easy to prepare, yet still cater to my tastes. It is for this reason that I follow the Hot Pocket Facebook Page in hopes of scoring premiums, like coupons, to save me every penny possible. For this assignment, I will be evaluating the Hot Pockets Facebook Page, which can be found at this link: https://www.facebook.com/hotpockets
Premiums: 3/5 This is the main motivation for which I follow the page. However, the Facebook Page doesn't seem to have a lot to offer in terms of giveaways or even coupons. A simple Ctrl + F search for the word "coupon" reveals two coupons in the current year, one in July and another in January. What I do like about their way of marketing the coupon is their use of interaction. To obtain the coupon in January, one had to share their New Years' Resolution.
Participation: 5/5 The Hot Pockets Facebook Page has some pretty entertaining material, including Hot Pockets dressed as pop stars for this Halloween, or famous pop stars or rappers making a video with Hot Pockets. They also market their Instagram while posting pictures. The Page allows for Facebook users to comment on the content, and the admins usually ask questions to try to entertain the crowd.
User-Generated Content: 2/5 While some of the photos and videos may be made by users, the comments left on the Page are usually negative, such as one describing an occurence of mold in their Hot Pocket, or many others conveying dissatisfaction.
Customer Service "Portal": 1/5 Similar to above, there are many negative comments regarding the quality of the product. Yet there is no feedback from the admins of the page.
Content Flow: 4/5 The admins post new content on average once every 1-2 days, which is a pretty good frequency. However, there isn't much variety, which may make the content get a little old.
OVERALL RATING: 3/5 I feel that while the Hot Pockets Facebook Page admins do try to engage users with new content almost every day, areas such as variety in content, as well as a portal for dealing with and providing feedback can be improved on substantially. Overall, this page isn't the worst I've seen, as a lot of content actually seems to be quite interactive, but it has work to do before it becomes sufficient.
Autum Boulais
For this assignment I reviewed the Al Jazeera America twitter account. I recently started following them and they have become my primary news source. The information they provide is, in my opinion, less biased and sensationalized in comparison to traditional American news sources. They currently have over 130,000 followers, however I think their account is fairly new. The twitter account is used to give viewers “sneak peaks” of top stories, promote upcoming debates and program specials, and to share (retweet) news and events on partner channels. They do not offer any premiums, however their news is free to viewers and does not require a subscription, so there would not be much of a need for it. There is some degree of participation. They will tweet surveys about specific issues and users can reply to posts to have their voice heard in a debate. Additionally, users can favorite or retweet the stories that they enjoy to their own followers. There is not much user-generated content. An individual can attach a picture when they @/reply to Al Jazeera America’s twitter, however it won’t be viewed by others unless the administrators choose to retweet it. The @/reply ability on Twitter serves as a type of customer service portal. Users can give any kind of feedback they choose and it will go directly to the owners of the @ajam account holders. The perk for Al Jazeera America is that this feedback is not viewed unless a user clicks the tweet and chooses to see it. They also will ask questions about a specific topic with an email address to send responses to.
Perhaps the best feature of the Al Jazeera America twitter is its content flow. They tweet on average 1-4 tweets per hour. This keeps them constantly on my personal Twitter feed. They tweet interesting blurbs about a story in 140 characters or less. The blurb is just enough to perk my interest without giving the house away. If they have a big special news story coming up, they will tweet about different aspects of the story or debate throughout the day. For example, they were advertising a story on the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy. They tweeted different angles of the story-the impact on Haiti, the response of insurance companies, and the epidemic of respiratory infections from mold that was generated-over the course of the day. Each blurb had the potential to attract a different audience member to the same story. They include a link to the full story on the Al Jazeera America news website with every tweet. Their Twitter account serves as a direct portal to move traffic from Twitter to their news website and their partner sites. Overall, their twitter account is doing a fairly effective job of social media marketing. It did a good enough job to make me a user of their product and to share it with my friends.
Shane McDonough
As an avid gum chewer, Trident Gum’s Facebook page is exactly the type of social media page I was born to evaluate. Trident does a very good job of interacting with those who “like” it’s page, asking questions of them and commenting back on their responses thus creating dialogue between supplier and consumer. The page include premiums in the form of a coupon tab at the top of the page, though, at the moment no coupons are available. Other premiums include contests such as the recent contest for page likers to enter to win VIP access to VOODOO music Festival (October 16th, New Orleans) and serve as Trident’s official “Social Media Correspondent” there. Going back to September, the page offered a free streaming concert of Jason Derulo, sponsored by Trident. The info on how to access this event was on a Facebook event created by the page. Essentially everything the page posts on it’s wall is participatory in nature. They post a lot of gum themed pictures and ask silly, humorous questions of page likers. For example, there is one picture of trident gums packs dressed as wolves and it has a heading “Want to be part of the Wolfpack?” clearly referencing the Hangover and making a pun about packs of gum. Then the caption says, “Comment with your favorite flavor and we’ll see what we can do.” People did comment their favorite flavor and Trident responded back to them. In fact it seems that they respond to every comment or posting on the page, sometimes with words and sometimes with picture of words spelled out in gum, saying things like “Oh you “ or “We you too”. Though there isn’t a ton of page regulated avenues for fans to post user generated content (say for a contest or something) there are a lot of wall postings with pictures of gum or statuses about gum, all of which Trident replies to. In the about section there are links to Trident’s website and it’s Oral health website as well (because a big selling point is that it’s good for your teeth). But even in response to comments on the page, this page engages in customer service with fans. For example of the Wolfpack picture I spoke of earlier, one comment reads “Can I have my Vitality back? Then I'll gladly join your pack!”, referring to a discontinued flavor of gum. The page responds: “Teresa- We always enjoy hearing about people's love for some of our flavors that aren't currently in production! We'll be sure to share your feedback with our Marketing team and let them know about your interest in bringing Vitality back. We can't make any promises, but it's always a possibility. Thanks for reaching out!” Finally, the content flow on this page is very up-to date and fast pace. The page posts every day with new statuses, pictures, surveys, and puns.
Qiqi Zhen
Gaiaonline is an avatar based website, with 7 million unique visitors each month. It is free to use and the users will have an avatar which they can dress up. How does this website continuously bring back the users? The user can dress up their avatars with items from the regular shops, which cost gold. Gold is the currency, and can be generated when a user posts in the forums. This way, the website will make the user participate and get involved with the website and interact. This creates user generated content, categorized in the forums so the users can go to the forums and find topics that they like. For those who prefer to lurk, they are not excluded from interacting with the website due to games which earn you gold, too.
Aside from the regular gold shops, there are special items which can only be acquired through donations to the site or from other users, and new items come in at least twice a month, multiple items at a time. The constant update of new items will make the users not only come back to collect the new items, but also to interact with others if they cannot donate. The use of premiums also lure the user to check the website daily due to daily specials, such as watching a video to earn free rewards. However, it is during events when the forums explode with the most activity. This is because, during events, users get to participate in the event, whether by posting or engaging in some social game battle, and gain special currency to earn event items. The items are free and thus users will regularly check during a holiday for the event, and for free items
Tim Wang
As a poor college student, I am constantly on the lookout for foods that are cheap and easy to prepare, yet still cater to my tastes. It is for this reason that I follow the Hot Pocket Facebook Page in hopes of scoring premiums, like coupons, to save me every penny possible. For this assignment, I will be evaluating the Hot Pockets Facebook Page, which can be found at this link: https://www.facebook.com/hotpockets
Premiums: 3/5 This is the main motivation for which I follow the page. However, the Facebook Page doesn't seem to have a lot to offer in terms of giveaways or even coupons. A simple Ctrl + F search for the word "coupon" reveals two coupons in the current year, one in July and another in January. What I do like about their way of marketing the coupon is their use of interaction. To obtain the coupon in January, one had to share their New Years' Resolution.
Participation: 5/5 The Hot Pockets Facebook Page has some pretty entertaining material, including Hot Pockets dressed as pop stars for this Halloween, or famous pop stars or rappers making a video with Hot Pockets. They also market their Instagram while posting pictures. The Page allows for Facebook users to comment on the content, and the admins usually ask questions to try to entertain the crowd.
User-Generated Content: 2/5 While some of the photos and videos may be made by users, the comments left on the Page are usually negative, such as one describing an occurence of mold in their Hot Pocket, or many others conveying dissatisfaction.
Customer Service "Portal": 1/5 Similar to above, there are many negative comments regarding the quality of the product. Yet there is no feedback from the admins of the page.
Content Flow: 4/5 The admins post new content on average once every 1-2 days, which is a pretty good frequency. However, there isn't much variety, which may make the content get a little old.
OVERALL RATING: 3/5 I feel that while the Hot Pockets Facebook Page admins do try to engage users with new content almost every day, areas such as variety in content, as well as a portal for dealing with and providing feedback can be improved on substantially. Overall, this page isn't the worst I've seen, as a lot of content actually seems to be quite interactive, but it has work to do before it becomes sufficient.
Autum Boulais
For this assignment I reviewed the Al Jazeera America twitter account. I recently started following them and they have become my primary news source. The information they provide is, in my opinion, less biased and sensationalized in comparison to traditional American news sources. They currently have over 130,000 followers, however I think their account is fairly new. The twitter account is used to give viewers “sneak peaks” of top stories, promote upcoming debates and program specials, and to share (retweet) news and events on partner channels. They do not offer any premiums, however their news is free to viewers and does not require a subscription, so there would not be much of a need for it. There is some degree of participation. They will tweet surveys about specific issues and users can reply to posts to have their voice heard in a debate. Additionally, users can favorite or retweet the stories that they enjoy to their own followers. There is not much user-generated content. An individual can attach a picture when they @/reply to Al Jazeera America’s twitter, however it won’t be viewed by others unless the administrators choose to retweet it. The @/reply ability on Twitter serves as a type of customer service portal. Users can give any kind of feedback they choose and it will go directly to the owners of the @ajam account holders. The perk for Al Jazeera America is that this feedback is not viewed unless a user clicks the tweet and chooses to see it. They also will ask questions about a specific topic with an email address to send responses to.
Perhaps the best feature of the Al Jazeera America twitter is its content flow. They tweet on average 1-4 tweets per hour. This keeps them constantly on my personal Twitter feed. They tweet interesting blurbs about a story in 140 characters or less. The blurb is just enough to perk my interest without giving the house away. If they have a big special news story coming up, they will tweet about different aspects of the story or debate throughout the day. For example, they were advertising a story on the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy. They tweeted different angles of the story-the impact on Haiti, the response of insurance companies, and the epidemic of respiratory infections from mold that was generated-over the course of the day. Each blurb had the potential to attract a different audience member to the same story. They include a link to the full story on the Al Jazeera America news website with every tweet. Their Twitter account serves as a direct portal to move traffic from Twitter to their news website and their partner sites. Overall, their twitter account is doing a fairly effective job of social media marketing. It did a good enough job to make me a user of their product and to share it with my friends.
Shane McDonough
As an avid gum chewer, Trident Gum’s Facebook page is exactly the type of social media page I was born to evaluate. Trident does a very good job of interacting with those who “like” it’s page, asking questions of them and commenting back on their responses thus creating dialogue between supplier and consumer. The page include premiums in the form of a coupon tab at the top of the page, though, at the moment no coupons are available. Other premiums include contests such as the recent contest for page likers to enter to win VIP access to VOODOO music Festival (October 16th, New Orleans) and serve as Trident’s official “Social Media Correspondent” there. Going back to September, the page offered a free streaming concert of Jason Derulo, sponsored by Trident. The info on how to access this event was on a Facebook event created by the page. Essentially everything the page posts on it’s wall is participatory in nature. They post a lot of gum themed pictures and ask silly, humorous questions of page likers. For example, there is one picture of trident gums packs dressed as wolves and it has a heading “Want to be part of the Wolfpack?” clearly referencing the Hangover and making a pun about packs of gum. Then the caption says, “Comment with your favorite flavor and we’ll see what we can do.” People did comment their favorite flavor and Trident responded back to them. In fact it seems that they respond to every comment or posting on the page, sometimes with words and sometimes with picture of words spelled out in gum, saying things like “Oh you “ or “We you too”. Though there isn’t a ton of page regulated avenues for fans to post user generated content (say for a contest or something) there are a lot of wall postings with pictures of gum or statuses about gum, all of which Trident replies to. In the about section there are links to Trident’s website and it’s Oral health website as well (because a big selling point is that it’s good for your teeth). But even in response to comments on the page, this page engages in customer service with fans. For example of the Wolfpack picture I spoke of earlier, one comment reads “Can I have my Vitality back? Then I'll gladly join your pack!”, referring to a discontinued flavor of gum. The page responds: “Teresa- We always enjoy hearing about people's love for some of our flavors that aren't currently in production! We'll be sure to share your feedback with our Marketing team and let them know about your interest in bringing Vitality back. We can't make any promises, but it's always a possibility. Thanks for reaching out!” Finally, the content flow on this page is very up-to date and fast pace. The page posts every day with new statuses, pictures, surveys, and puns.
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