ASSIGNMENT #5 - "MEMES" and DIFFUSION of INTERNET TRENDS by Oda Herseth Noppi

 DOUBLE RAINBOW

WRITTEN BY: ODA HERSETH NOPPI, CE-STUDENT

This video was uploaded on YouTube January 2010. The video was unnoticed until July 3th. Jimmy Kimmel posted the YouTube link for the video on Twitter. About one hour later, a sports columnist, Bill Simmons retweeted the post. After a couple of hours, it was a lot of views on the video. Also, the Huffington Post wrote a short article about the video. This meme became so popular because the talk show host, Jimmy Kimmel, discovered the video on YouTube.

The video is about a man’s reaction to a double rainbow he sees in Yosemite National park. He is very excited about the double rainbow, and asks questions about what this mean. As the video progresses the man, Paul Vasquez aka Hungrybear9562 aka Yosemite Bear, get more and more passionate.

The video has 38 491 577 views on YouTube, and 179 983 likes, 11/27/13. From the video was discovered July 3th. 2010 Until July 22th 2010 Hungrybear9562 had been to an interview on Jimmy Kimmels talk show, and it had been created an Auto-Tuned version of the video. The song can be purchased on iTunes and the proceeds are split between Hungrybear9562 and Auto-Tune the News.

http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/double-rainbow

After this video became so popular, it has been created different songs, parodies and even Microsoft Windows released a promotional video where they used Yosemitebear as an actor in the video. He captured the double rainbow moment with a camera and edited it in Microsoft Live Photo Gallery. 

ASSIGNMENT #5 - "MEMES" and DIFFUSION of INTERNET TRENDS by Ingrid Rossnes

Internet meme – Leeroy Jenkins

In this assignment I have chosen to focus about the Internet meme called “Leeroy Jenkins”.

Description of the “Meme”

On May 11^th in 2005 a video was uploaded to World of Warcraft´s fansite called “Warcraft Movies”. Purpose of posting the video was to get criticism and perspectives from other players regarding a group´s gameplay. The video starts with the group discussion strategies of how to enter a dangerous zone where dragons are known to tear the players apart.

Suddenly one of the players says “alright, let’s do this” and runs into the dragon zone while yelling “Leeroy Jenkins”. Leeroy Jenkins is the name of the character running into the zone. The rest of the group are surprised and run after him, which result in all of them getting killed by the dragons. Ben Schultz is the man behind the Leeroy Jenkins character, and rumors say that he did not participate in the discussion about strategies because he was heating up KFC. At the end of the video, when every group member is dead and blaming Leeroy Jenkins, he says, “at least I have my chicken”.   

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkCNJRfSZBU

After releasing the video on the fansite, WoW players use Leeroy Jenkins as a term for actions that seem dangerous or are incredibly stupid.

When and Why it Got Popular

After being posted on the World of Warcraft fansite, the video also appeared on YouTube. It had two postings; one in November 2005 and the second one in August 2006. The video started gaining views after the second post, and in May 2012 it had 30 615 841 views. In addition to many views on YouTube, the name Leeroy Jenkins has 832 000 hits if you do a search on Google.

November 17 in 2005 the term was mainstreamed and used as a clue on the famous game show Jeopardy!. In 2009 Leeroy Jenkins was used in an article in Armed Forced Journal called “Let´s Do This!: Leeroy Jenkins and the American Way of Advising”. American approach to advising Iraq got compare to Leeroy Jenkins. In addition to Jeopardy! and the article in Armed Forces Journal, the way Ben Schultz yell his WoW character´s name has been referenced in many TV shows, games and films. I have added an example from the TV show called How I Met Your Mother:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6ZnbpOw0Mk

In my discussion about why the video has developed to an Internet meme, I will focus on two different explanations. The first explanation I want to emphasize is the fact that WoW players uses the term in relation to possibly dangerous or stupid actions done by themselves or other players. World of Warcraft has approximately 8 million players and is a worldwide social experience, thus the term spread quickly.

The second explanation I want to focus on is humor. It is funny to see how serious the players are in their discussion, and how frustrated they get when Leeroy runs in the dragons´ cave. The humor part is mainly caused by the element of surprise. WoW players are serious, and they use weeks or months playing the game. When looking at the video you don´t expect one of the characters to act like that.

Resources

http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/leeroy-jenkins

http://www.wowwiki.com/Leeroy_Jenkins

Assignment #4 - Spotted: at UC Berkeley

ASSIGNMENT #5 - "MEMES" and DIFFUSION of INTERNET TRENDS - Juyoung Jeon

- The meme is mainly about Kim Jong Un, the current leader of North Korea, in North Korea's propaganda photos. In those photos, his poses are awkward and look staged. Also, there is a gap between the real North Korea in which people are tortured and mistreated and the KJU's North Korea in which he smiles and seems to care about people. I guess internet find the photos ironical. the irony is the point of 'Kim Jong Un Looking at Things' meme. 

- To look at the popularity and spread of this meme, we have to reference 'Kim Jong Il Looking at Things' meme, which is a range of photos in which North Korea's late former leader Kim Jong Il inspects the nation's major facilities and also looks awkward. 'Kim Jong Il Looking at Things' meme caught on in october 2010 on Tumblr. Its popularity reached its peak in december 2011 following his death. 'Kim Jong Un Looking at Things' memes and its derivatives first started in January 2011 and also caught on in December 2011, after Kim Jong Il's death. 

- As mentioned above, there are many forms of derivatives of the meme. One of the more popular ones is 'Hungry Kim Jong Un'. They are all captioned with funny and derisive phrases, making fun of  Kim Jong Un and North Korean governments' greediness and ignorance as well as the nation's dogmatic foreign policies. Below are examples of 'Hungry Kim Jong Un' meme. 

Assignment #3 - Social Media Marketing Analysis by Juyoung Jeon

 The social media marketing webpage that I'll be evaluating for my assignment is The Ellen Degeneres Show facebook page. The Ellen Degeneres Show is an American television talk show hosted by Ellen Degeneres and distributed by Warner Bros. Since a television talk show is not a conventional commodity such as clothes, foods, or other objects, its marketing webpage of course differs from those of other conventional commercial commodities. Television talks shows, and their marketing webpages in these days not only entertain their viewers, but also promote products and companies which sponsor their show in direct, or indirect ways. 
 I thought The Ellen Degeneres show was doing a great job on marketing considering some of criteria which we covered in the class. Although The Ellen Degeneres Show has has other social network pages (its own website, www.ellentv.com, Instagram account, etc) to communicate with their current and potential viewers I will be focusing on the purpose and content of its facebook page. (www.facebook.com/ellentv).


Entertainment
 First, The Ellen Degeneres Show facebook page is doing a great job on entertaining people with diverse and 'trendy' contents, which I think is the key to success in social media marketing. As Dr. King emphasized during his lecture, mass media communication and interpersonal communication differ in their nature. We don't want to feel like we're being approached by a huge, gigantic commercial enterprise when we want to chill out and have fun on facebook. The Ellen Degeneres Show facebook page, by posting humorous and funny contents, does not 'repel' their viewers and followers but rather, entertain them. Entertaining, in my opinion is a goal of the most importance a TV show should work on to maintain and expand its viewership, which can huge influence other purposes. (such as promoting products and companies)

User-generated Content 
Second point I want to stress is that TEDS facebook page (TEDS is acronym for The Ellen Degeneres Show, by the way!) encourages user-committed contents from people. One remarkable fact that I observed was that, the way TEDS facebook page carry out their 'entertainment' purpose, is combined with 'user-generated content' part. below is the example of the example of entertaining people at the same time encouraging participation. 
 

another remarkable thing is that, the producers of TEDS actually reference the user-generated photos. TEDS often pick the funniest photos and Ellen Degeneres, the TV show host introduce and show the photos on her show! 
Premium & Participation
 Third, in relation to 'premium' and also 'participation'
 TEDS also does a fairly good job. For example, TEDS webpage co-hosted a web-video contest in which winner can win $10,000 Technically, the example I'm giving also combines a technique of attracting viewers and followers by giving $10,000 prize and also creating use-generated content venue. 

In addition, there is a 'GIVEAWAY' category page dedicated to carry out this function.


Content Flow
 In terms of content flow, there are almost 3-4 updates per day, which is fair amount considering how people these days are always online on facebook. As I mentioned above, facebook is not the only venue where the producers of the show and viewers, followers can communicate. 
below is the list of webpages which is administered by the TEDS show makers.


Customer Service Portal
 Although TEDS facebook page does a great job on other categories, It seems like it is not the most optimized venue to post complaints, compliments or other opinions. It is closely related to the nature of facebook. First of all, It does not allow categorizing the content. Even if you can comment your opinions of the show, there are just too many. (Remember there are a lot of people posting their 'ThrowBackThursday' or 'Catphotoweek' photos...)

Assignment #3 - Social Media Marketing Analysis by Iselin Roberg

Analysis of Dunkin´Donuts´ page on Facebook

I have chosen Dunkin' Donuts' Facebook page as the object of study for this assignment. Their fan page has over ten million likes. In class last week, we learned about the attractive content a company could have on their social media site. This included content that is interactive, participatory, entertaining, meaningful, give away free stuff and regular flow. A lot of these things happen on the Facebook page of Dunkin' Donuts.

https://www.facebook.com/DunkinDonutsUS

Premiums

The Dunkin' Donuts' Facebook page does not provide free things. They promote an DD-app where people can get free coffee or discounts on donuts, but this is not connected to a 'like' on their Facebook page.

Participation

Dunkin' Donuts promote a lot of sporting events, and link their page to a Ustream live Gronk chat. This is a way for DD-fans to be in direct contact with a famous football player. This is a way for the unhealthy donuts company to look healthier by promoting sports. Their promotion text for this is: “Join us for a live Facebook Q&A with Rob “Gronk” Gronkowski of the New England Patriots hosted by Scott Zolak of 98.5 SportsHub on Tuesday, November 5, 7-7:30 p.m. Submit your questions for Gronk to @DunkinBoston and listen in to see if YOUR question is answered by #87!”

User-Generated Content

They have linked their facebook page with instagram, and encourage fans to share stories and pictures with #mydunkin, creating a gallery of fan submitted content. They also have the “fan of the week” gallery, where people can post a picture of them selves with something DD related and the winner will have their photo posted on the Facebook page and on their digital billboard on Times Square. This is probably an attractive element for Dunkin' Donut fans and something unique you can't get elsewhere.

Customer Service “Portal”

Their customer service 'portal' will be where the people write to them. These stories are usually negative, with a campaign going on to make Dunkin' Donuts stop using palm oil in their products. A few of the people REALLY LOVE DUNKIN' DONUTS, but positive comments like that is usually written under the pictures they post.

Content flow

They have at least one post per day, and very often with a picture of a delicious snack or drink, which is a good flow of content. The possible customers are reminded every day of the products they can get at Dunkin' Donut. However, on October 22^nd they posted eight pictures and five of them were of the same product with slightly different text on. A person who likes their page might find that a bit over the top and unlike if it isn't really that interesting. There is a thing called too much content flow and it feels a lot like spam.

I think Dunkin' Donuts' Facebook fan page is an attractive page for costumers and donut lovers in general. Especially the way they get people to post their on fan pictures is great for their brand.

Iselin Roberg

Assignment #3 - Social Media Marketing Analysis by Anine Jorstad Paulsen

Analysis of Build Pizzeria´s page on Facebook

Social media has the last years become a popular platform for businesses to promote their services and products. They create their own page, where they can publish information and communicate with their costumers. In other words, it’s perfect for marketing, but it has to be done in the right way; it’s not about the medium, it’s about the message. I will now look into the Facebook page of a restaurant in Berkeley called Build, and evaluate if it is doing an effective job of social media marketing.

https://www.facebook.com/buildpizzeria?fref=ts

Premiums

On their Facebook page they don’t really give away free things, unless it’s in association of a contest. An example is an Instagram contest they had, where customers were supposed to post pictures of their own pizzas and tag them as #MyBUILDPizza. The winner of the competition got a free pizza next time he/she went there.

Participation (creating events, venues, games, surveys to involve users)

Quite often they post happenings that will take place at Build a few days before it’s happening. An example is “Come watch the Golden Bears play the Beavers tomorrow at BUILD on our Big Screen at 7:30pm.” This doesn’t involve users to participate online on their page, but it might attract more customers to their restaurant.

User-Generated Content

They do showcase user-submitted materials sometimes, like with the Instagram contest mentioned earlier, where they published a picture of the winner’s pizza. They also post pictures of customers on the page from time to time, often associated with special deals. An example is a picture they posted of kids eating pizza at Build, with the following text: “Mondays have never looked so fun! Join us at BUILD, where kids 10 and under receive FREE Pizzette for dinner every Monday in October! Limit 2 pizzette per family.”

Customer Service "Portal"

They do provide a dialogue with their users, where customers have the opportunity to give comments. A lot of people comment on their experience after going to Build, and pretty much all of them are positive.

Content Flow

Their page gets updated almost everyday, with special deals, events coming up, pictures of customers, in addition to information about their restaurant in general.

Based on the features mentioned above, I think that Build is doing a good job marketing themselves on social media. They publish new things everyday, offers special deals and have contests, which attract a lot of users.

Anine Jorstad Paulsen