All your memes are belong to us

Quick! There’s a half an hour left in the week – I KNOW I CAN DO THIS. Someone fortify me with an appropriate meme. A cat at a desk. Maybe keyboard cat? It’s not that kind of keyboard. DON’T CARE.

 

This was going to be a long post, but I decided against that in favour of some more entertaining youtube videos that say a lot of what I would try to, in such a way as to hopefully retain your attention! I care more than is necessary about copyright law. And when I say I care more than is necessary, what I mean is I care more than most people do about the fact that it is MESSED UP, jacked in a way that favours corporate interests over cultural expression, when the whole purpose of copyright legislation in the first place (fair, justifiable copyright legislation) was to encourage creators and artists and smart people of all disciplines to share their work with the world. Many people blame Mickey Mouse. I know, I know, but he’s so loveable. “Don’t hate the player,” he said to me once.  

That video was skewed to the US, but you get my drift. It’s also worth noting that copyright got tighter as it became easier for people to copy things. We don’t do it like this anymore:

 

But collaborative culture, that’s what people do best. That’s what keeps us going. Cover songs, homages, adaptations, “based upon a true story”. We take things and we spin them around in a slightly different way. It’s how we build culture and it’s how we communicate. So much so, that copyright law had to account for it at least a little bit, with fair dealing clauses. But even more so, in the way that people are recognising the cultural and social value of collaboration and sharing. Things like Creative Commons, Copyleft, wikis of all sorts. We make great things when we let people fiddle around with them.

LIKE MEMES! Ooooh, I brought it around, full circle. (15 minutes left!) Meme culture, aside from being silly, ridiculous, often smart and always weird, is an almost perfect example of collaborative culture and identity building, online expression and even maybe art? Memes are the folk songs of our times, our schoolyard rhymes and campfire songs. Who knows who made them, we all made them. They are for all of us. All your memes are belong to us.

And finally, a wordle of this post. I don't know why it's so small! Why is it so small? I am not sure. It's 4:58!