Every time I log into Facebook, I see so many people who are trying to be witty through their statuses. I’ve always found it humorous (and not in the way they are aiming for). So, I thought it was very interesting how Baron analyzed away messages on instant messengers. I definitely remember trying to be funny on my AIM profile, and saying that I was “away” just so I could talk to my closest friends without having to respond to anyone else.

Social media gives teenagers such a great tool to mold their appearance to the world, and as Baron writes, away messages provide “a platform for self-expression” (78). I think people often use humor to try and stand out from their peers, and to cover up their inadequacies. And at the same time, humor is a safety net for people to avoid talking about serious matters. Baron writes, “Several [teenagers] felt they had to justify themselves when their away messages were not funny or creative, typically explaining that they lacked time or energy to craft amusing postings” (79). One AIM member even posted a long list of away message tips, saying that “humor is the only way to go- i’m not looking for a deeper understand of life, or a little tug on the heart strings from my instant messenger” (Baron 80).

Davison’s essay about internet memes was also interesting, and made me think about how easy it is to be funny online. Davison writes that humor is passed along online at an “incredible” speed, and that nearly everyone in the world has access to the memes that are posted on public sites (123). Instead of having to tell a joke in person, someone can publish a meme or a funny Facebook status, and they get instant gratification through comments and shares. This makes humor easier and more accessible, but it also puts a greater pressure on people to be as funny as those around them.

Both of the readings for this week’s blog deal with the idea of language, emoticons and MEMEs on the internet. According to Davison, the word “meme” can be attributed to the 1979 works of Stephen Dawkins, who defined a meme as a learned behavior. The meme, as opposed to a gene, is something that outside forces can shape and inspire. I found this to be incredibly interesting, because I have always wondered why we refer to these random, sarcastic pictures as memes. It is even more interesting to learn that they are actually linked to the idea that the culture around you can influence who you are, just as much as your genes can.

A meme is defined, by Davison, as “a piece of culture, typically a joke, which gains influence through online transmission.” This definition is important, in my opinion, for two reasons. The first is that it specifies that a meme is typically a joke, and the second point is that a meme’s popularity depends solely on the frequency of its online transmission. Basically, the funnier the meme, the faster it will spread. I am sure there are hundreds of memes out there, but I am only familiar with a few – the extremely happy male baby, the advice dog, and of course, the Philsoraptor. The reason I am familiar with those particular memes is because my social group find these to be the most humorous. We see them, laugh at them and then forward them to each other. The funnier the meme is, the more likely it is to be frequently viewed. Just as long legs help the longevity of a zebra’s life, the humor of a meme helps it stay alive on the internet.

Language is constructed through symbols, and memes are rapidly changing cultural symbols that use compound layers of language such as composition, jargon and slang to create meaning (Davison, 127). Internet memes are often based around humor, but not necessarily. Humorous artifacts are more likely to recirculate, and thus become important features of our culture.

Davison wrote how behavior and culture can be inherited and learned through observation. Learned behavior is often transmitted through cultural artifacts. Internet memes are the fastest transmission of culture. Online and off, memes alter our language and style as we adopt bits and pieces of their influence. Everyone has a unique sense of style. Just take a look at the various differences in each of our blog posts. Even within the narrow form of a class blog, our style peeks through in our content and language.  We use our distinct style to express ourselves.  This is especially evident on social-media platforms, which exist as profiles that are supposed to represent our identity.

Both articles spoke of expression of identity through messages. Humor is the most widely acceptable form of self-expression. That is, it is the most likely to be noticed, approved, and enjoyed.  The examples mentioned in the articles are exaggerated display of face: we often present ourselves in the most favorable light to construct a flattering representation.  Humorous messages also help to maintain a light-hearted environment on the surface, which might increase the likelihood of a future conversation that could delve into deeper relationships. Humor acts a social buffer; it shows effort, appreciation of common culture, and social understanding.

In Barons’s readings about away messages she talked about the “best me” trying to portray the best self image of one self. Personally, have seen away messages, but not of that type. Usually the ones I have seen is just the icon that says your away, or online, or offline. I have not actually seen the type where you can post a message on your away message. However, a lot of the things some of the students said during the study made sense to me. For example, the person who posted the list of things they would be doing for that day or week. It made sense that it was used for a conversation starter, that way they could avoid the usual what are you doing? or what did you do? That persons friends could be updated and maybe if they needed them for whatever reason they could know exactly where they could find them. On the other hand, some people post things like cleaning my room when they are not actually doing that. That can actually go along with the messages that people post saying things like they are out taking salsa lessons, when in reality they are not. They are trying to portray themselves maybe as not lazy, or maybe like they are socially active. Some people do not want to appear boring and they lie. I have a Facebook, and I know I see a lot of people always posting things that makes them look like they are the next great adventures or like they are socially active, or like they always have something to do. Makes me feel like maybe my life is not that exiting. Yet, most time these people are not being completely truthful. They are trying to portray themselves as something else in public, maybe like adventurous, or exciting people. Also, away messages serve as maybe a way to ignore some messages and reply to the most important ones. It gives people the option to be selective and still be available to the people they prefer if they wish to. People have more options to be at two different places at the same time, even if they are really only at one place, but who will know?

            Based on the readings between Baron’s findings and Davison’s summaries, I believe that the same basic message is stressed. The style and language used on the internet resemble a deformed version of modern English. This may be an attempt to save time in blogs or chats between two or more individuals. While successful in saving time, it has had repercussions on English outside of the internet. For example, some people use text lingo even when speaking to each other face-to-face.

            Humor has a significant role in today’s world. According to Baron, humor can be used to hide or lower someone’s stress level. Some people use it whenever possible in order to possibly form new friendships or maintain long-lasting ones. For instance, as Baron stated, some one used their blog to describe the library as the “bowels of hell”. The common use of humor can help individuals to see what other people think about a certain place, person, or life event. However, as expressed in Davidson’s findings, those jokes can be very offensive towards other people, especially when profanity is used within those jokes. The possibility of people taking jokes the wrong way must be taken into consideration before posting something that can be seen by everyone with an account. Otherwise, disastrous results, such as friendships ending and lifelong hatreds beginning, could easily follow.

In the ch 5 exerpt by Baron she discussed the evolving style of presenting one’s self through online  communication via AOL’s IM away messages. He details the results of his case study of 5 away messages from 38 students. He points out that the overall objective of away messages is to leave a self presence online even if you are or are not at your computer. The use of away message was broken into four categories by Baron; “I am away, initiate discussion, or social encounter, convey personal info, and convey info about others. The away message  represents the author as well as giving insight to the persons mood or persona. Memes like away messages are content constructed with the intention to convey a message by an author. Usually the message contains humorous elements. As discusses in the reading Davidson explains that unlike away messages authors are often anonymous. This can lead to misinterpretation or cloudy understanding of the language used for the concept of the meme. The problem was solved with the use of emoticons in the tittle of memes to let the audience know its emotion such as sad :( or  funny : -). Memes also exemplify the notion  of  content manifesting  thier  away across the internet. People view the image read the content and send share with friends and other online communities who then decided to create their own.

In these two readings both Baron and Davison presented research on one-to-many communication on the internet. The difference between their works is the specific type of messages on which they concentrated. Though not to the same extent, they both included the role of humor or entertainment in their study. 

Baron concentrated on the characteristics of away messages in online communication. He found that presentation in this media resulted from the traditional need of human beings to present an image of themselves to others. As he studied the messages presented during away messaging he found that message length was related to gender. He also discovered that these messages were clustered in two main categories, to convey information or start a conversation, or provide entertainment (humor). 

Davison, on the other hand, chose to concentrate on internet meme, which he described as learned behaviors which are different to those behaviors that are genetically inherited. Meme writers tend to adopt ideas from others. He however, conceded the existence of individualism even in the realm of memes. He pointed out, however, that individuals who use memes to communicate are more likely to utilize the “unrestricted web”. 

Both authors agreed that humor is a significant part of internet mediated communication. Baron asserted that “some away messages are primarily posted to entertain, using humor, quotations, or even song lyrics”. This, he demonstrated, was based on the expectation of entertainment among those using social media to communicate. Davison found that in the world of memes, humor also plays an important function. It uses a unique and effective tool, humor, to influence others and ensure a presentation that will be easily received and retained for an extended period.

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.

One interesting thing I was struck by in Davison’s article was the comparison he made between the Genes and Meme to introduce the definition of the internet Meme as “a piece of culture, typically a joke, which gains influence through online transmission,” (Davison122).He explains that the speed of the Meme transmission and the fidelity of their form what makes it unique. For example, if a joke was stored on a website it can be viewed by many people as many as they want to, and as quickly as they can request it. Contrary, a spoken joke, or a printed joke cannot be viewed or transmitted as many and quickly as the one exists on the Internet. Davison also explains the Emotion Meme that serve a number of functions in the transmission of information such as to frame content as positive or negative, serious of or joking. He gives the example of the “Hamster Dance” which its function is to entertain. “The Advice Dog” is another example of Internet Memes that is used which can be used to communicate humor or offer various kinds of advice.

On the other article “My Best Day,” Baron, at virtual platforms such as IM and social networking sites ( Facebook or MySpace) are good sources for socializing and conveying information, and that online sites are places for constructing images in how persons wish others to perceive them. In “The IM Away-Messages Study,” Baron, found out that people us the IM away- messages to covey information or start a conversation, or to provide entertainment. Some examples of information IM are: Itinerary (posting out the activities a person will be doing), randomly selected Message, and remaining in the loop – which function is similar to telephone voicemail; for example, “I can’t take your call now. Please leave a message.”Baron also explains other ways messages can be used to convey personal information, opinions, or sense of humor by saying “More often than not, if there’s an opportunity for humor, the user takes it.” One of his examples is “this chick needs filla,” (Baron 77).

Over all, I found both of the articles very informative and interesting to read. I use the one word style of writing to comment on my friends’ posts on Facebook because I am always too busy and do not have much time to write more. I think that this way I won’t hurt anybody’s feeling by not writing anything at all and they will understand that I really care even if I wrote only one word. In the end, I do agree with Baron that ,today, Facebook is the best socializing site where we can  use it for entertainment, post the latest jokes, inspiring quotes, family pictures, and lyrics.