A global exploration of the internet meme as an agent of pop culture, politics, protest, and propaganda on and offline, and how they will save or destroy us all.
INTRODUCTION
Hands Up, Umbrellas Up
CHAPTER 1
The Revolution of the Cat
CHAPTER 2
All About the Feels
2.1: Hoist High the Profile Picture
2.2: Behold, the Llamas
CHAPTER 3
Ahem, Attention Please
3.1: From Spain to Uganda and Back Again
3.2: Enter the Pandaman
3.3: The Hoodie That Sparked a Movement
CHAPTER 4
Narrating Our Way to Power
4.1: Attention to Narrative
4.2: Stories and Histories
4.3: Symbols of Iteration
CHAPTER 5
Chaos Magic
5.1: The Meme Election
5.2: Bodies and Minds
5.3: Fake, Fake, Fake, Fake
CHAPTER 6
A Contest of Memes
6.1: Where the Wind Blows
6.2: The State of Affairs
6.3: Power Play
CHAPTER 7
Fields
7.1: The Rise of the Goat
7.2: Signs and Seeds
Acknowledgements
Notes
Index
An Xiao Mina is an American technologist, researcher, and artist. She served as a contributing editor for the book Ai Weiwei- Spatial Matters, and her own work has been exhibited in museums and galleries across the US and around the world. Her writing has appeared in the Atlantic, Wired, the New Inquiry, the Los Angeles Review of Books, Al Jazeera English, and Hyperallergic. A 2016-17 research fellow at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University and product director at the technology company Meedan, her home is wherever the Wi-Fi is.
“Shows how memes are so much more than an internet phenomenon . . .
Incisive and illuminating”
—Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review
“This is a thoughtful and engaging look at the complex role and
power of memes in global politics and social movements and a worthy
addition to media and internet studies collections.”
—Booklist
“This work is a first purchase that provides a thought-provoking
examination of an important aspect of social media and digital
communication.”
—Library Journal
“Memes to Movements is essential reading. . . . An’s work
demonstrates why we should be taking [memes] seriously.”
—Jonny Sun, author and illustrator of everyone’s a aliebn when ur a
aliebn too
“Brilliantly reveals how internet culture, social movements, and
political agendas are intimately entwined . . . [Memes to
Movements] offers a critical intervention at a moment when the
public is anxious about technology and political life.”
—danah boyd, author of It’s Complicated: The Social Lives of
Networked Teens
“A visionary and sweeping history of the internet phenomenon. . . .
Whatever your thoughts about our digitized world, this brilliant
and original book will challenge them to evolve.”
—Paul D. Miller, aka DJ Spooky, author of Rhythm Science
“No one does a better job than An Xiao Mina of tracing the deep
connections between the inventive and playful culture of memes . .
. and political conversations among people who often lack other
outlets for public speech.”
—Clay Shirky, author of Cognitive Surplus and Here Comes
Everybody
“Internet sleuth An Xiao Mina takes readers on a journey around the
social media globe. Memes to Movements is the quintessential guide
for understanding the how and why of this social media phenomena.
Mina is a voice for social change—and a voice of reason—in this
visually overwhelming world.”
—Alicia Eler, visual art critic/reporter at the Minneapolis Star
Tribune and author of The Selfie Generation
“An Xiao Mina is a wide-ranging explorer of the frontier where
technology meets social change. Her keen understanding of the
contrasting ways that social media operate in different countries
means she is ideally placed to offer a global perspective on their
growing social and political impact.”
—Tom Standage, deputy editor of The Economist and author of Writing
on the Wall: Social Media—The First 2,000 Years and The Victorian
Internet
“As internet culture has moved from niche to mainstream, and as it
has developed into an unprecedented global force, we’re evermore in
need of incisive, clarifying work about what exactly we mean when
we say ‘internet culture.’ It’s a rare thinker who can look at the
internet as it actually is—a spectrum that runs from memes and
image macros to social movements and sophisticated forms of
political speech—and draw conclusions that include the richness of
that spectrum without shying away from the humor and playfulness of
the web. But An Xiao Mina is just such a thinker. To truly attempt
to understand internet culture, one must occupy many places at
once. Mina lives across digital spaces and cultures, and she brings
that perspective and authenticity to all her work and now, finally,
in book form with Memes to Movements.”
—Scott Lamb, VP of International, BuzzFeed
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