Baron (2008) looked at how away messages in instant messaging are used. He talks about how messages have evolved from boards to the internet. Through a study he discovered that away messages where used for self-expression in many different ways. Although Instant message have preset away messages some people used humor, quotes and even lying in order to obtain a response from other viewers. Technology today such as Facebook, twitter and even answer tone or custom text on phones are similar to Baron’s results. These technologies allow people to communicate in order to get a response without actually communicating. Our away messages and status updates displays our self-expression of our identity of who we want others to see us as.
Davidson (2012) talks about memes and how they develop and why it is so common. Three characteristic of memes are speed, ease of replication and lack of attribution. Technology is prevalent that data, photos etc. can go viral in seconds. This is a major problem that children do not realize that one simple post could be seen across the world and you will have to live with it forever. Then one the data or photo is retrieve it can be replicated into anything anyone want it to be. With the use of technology we can make a photo look so real when it actually never happened.
Although both of these articles talked about two different things they had something in common humor. Barron talked about how away messages are used to express humor and obtain responses from other people. Barron (2008) states “if there’s an opportunity for humor, the user takes it” (77). Davison talks about humor and how emoticons are used to help express humor. Davison (2012) states “Emoticons are a meme that serve a number of functions…….They can be used to frame content as positive or negative, serious or joking or any number of things” (125). Humor helps with self-expression such as releasing stress (laughing to keep from crying), get through an awkward moment or just to make someone else day. Internet messages are hard to understand without humor or emoticon which helps to express our self with language since cues are message with the absence of face to face interactions.
Clearly, CMC is very conducive to the development of memes. It’s all about speed, replication, and lack of attribution. But are there other examples of memes before the rise of the internet? Some examples that come to mind stem from marketing and advertising. For instance, the Visa Matercard “priceless” commercials might be an example of a pre-internet era meme.
I also thought humor was an interesting topic. The articles mentioned that we use humor for self expression purposes. Do you think we use humor moreso on the internet than we do face-to-face? Any ideas why?
Memes are certainly pre-internet (currently reviewing research for my paper) but the internet gave them a platform to expand and become the prevalent entity they are now. I think humor is certainly used more prevalently online than in person because messages posted online can be thought over for a period of time, planning just the right words to convey a joke. In person exchanges are people’s immediate reactions and humor is not everyone’s knee jerk reaction.
I think that the topic of humor is boad. It depends in the person and how he or she can express their feelings and thoughts. Also what I think is funny maybe it is not for you, people are different and have different reaction. A lot of people think that I have high sense of humor but I see myself normal or maybe I have it naturally because whatever I say they laugh and say you are a comedian. Some people can express their feeling by writing more than talking to somebody face-to-face. I prefer to post an image with a quote on it that would match with my mood that day on Facebook rather than calling somebody and tell them how I feel. Therefore, I think that Facebook or Twitter can be a stress relief for some people who don’t have time in their real life to socialize but can do it online because it is more conveniet to their lifestyle.
I really enjoyed the way you compared Baron and Davison in your piece. Initially, I felt like the subject matter of these two studies, away messages and memes, were completely different and difficult to compare. But I realized that both of these features are generally used to communicate humor, and that was the main similarity. Obviously, the humor element of a meme is its most important feature. The funnier the meme, the faster it will spread and gain notoriety. Away messages, although designed for a completely different purpose than a meme, are also contingent on the humor in them. In order to have the best online persona, a person needs to cultivate the best away message. I have never designed an away message, but based on the time it takes me to leave the right voicemail, I bet it would take me forever.
I strongly agree with both you and Baron in that humor can be expressed in any type of message. Even away messages can show the author’s sense of humor, whether it is harsh towards another group of people or not. I also agree that without humor, internet messages would often be hard to fully understand. They would also be unbearably boring. Now, where would be the fun in that? I am conducting a study of online humor for my paper and hope to make some worthwhile points in it.
You bring up a good point about how the interest immortalizes everything we post! I know that many computers had it set up to record all AIM transcripts, and you have to wonder if kids knew that the offensive or secret things they were saying could be shown to the world through a simple computer hack. With all of our social media, people can spread news worldwide in a matter of minutes, and it’s hard to take things back once they’ve been re-tweeted or even screen-captured.
You have a very good point about how we make sure anything we post is pretty much safe. Identity theft and everything is being taken away from people so AIM and facebook are great ways to get things taken from you. Emoticons are definitely a bonus in conversation because one smiley face can say a thousand words.