TL;DR

1 Memetics as the instigator of a new artistic movement

Mikhel Maes AS 4 Bachelor thesis

Table of Contents
Glossary Foreword Introduction to Memetics Slenderman; a case study Internet Art Memetics as Art Meme Artworks Grass Ecce Homo Mud Horse
Art memes Meme art

Conclusion Sources

Glossary
4chan: An English-language imageboard website. Users generally post anonymously, with the most recent posts appearing above the rest. 4chan is split into various boards with their own specific content and guidelines. 9Gag: An image-based social media website which centres around user-uploaded, comical images. The website is mainly known for recurring use of internet memes. Advice Animal: A type of image macro series featuring animals of some kind (including humans) that are accompanied by captioned text to represent a character trait or an archetype that fits the role of a stock character Creepypasta: Urban legends or scary stories circulating on the Internet. Digital campfire stories Emoji: The Japanese term for the picture characters or emoticons used in Japanese electronic messages and webpages. Although typically only available in Japan, the characters and code required to use emoji are, thanks to the nature of software compatibility, often present in many phones software. Image Macro: An image superimposed with text for humorous effect. Internet Meme: An image, hyperlink, video, picture, website, or hashtag that rapidly spreads from person to person via the Internet. Lolcat: An image combining a photograph of a cat with text. The text is often idiosyncratic and grammatically incorrect, and its use in this way is known as lolspeak. Millennial: The generation following Generation X. Born from the early 1980s to the early 2000s. Rage Comics: A series of web comics with characters, sometimes referred to as rage faces, that are often created with simple drawing software such as MS Paint. Remix culture: A society that allows and encourages derivative works by combining or editing existing materials to produce a new product

Reddit: A social news and entertainment website where rusers submit content in the form of either a link or a text. Other users then vote the submission up or down, which is used to rank the post and determine its position on the sites pages and front page. Slenderman: A creepypasta meme and urban-legend tale created on June 8, 2009 by user Victor Surge on the Something Awful forums. Something Awful: A comedy website including blog entries, forums, feature articles, digitally edited pictures, and media reviews. Tl;dr: Too long; didnt read., meaning a post, article, or anything with words was too long, and whoever used the phrase didnt read it for that reason. Also used by someone who wrote a large posts or article/to show a brief summary of their post as it might be too long.

Foreword
During my time as both an art school student and a member of the Teletekst is dood collective, the internet has been a big influence in my research and work. Especially the exchange between physical and virtual is something that I really enjoy studying. The shift from consumer to prosumer is one that I find extremely interesting. The internet offers both accessible tools and an open platform for creativity. This makes it not only easy to get work out there, but also offers incredible ease for collaboration. Probably one of the most noticeable outcomes of the internet as a creative platform are the so called memes. Easily shareable images, videos or stories that grow, mutate and evolve. Small pieces of culture that trigger people to add, change and remix in order to communicate their own message. Memetics are strongly interconnected with my graduation work about the Creepypasta community. A community of (often anonymous) short horror writers and creators of internet legends. Or modern day campfire stories, as they sometimes describe it. Often, these stories become memes by themselves, such as for instance the Slenderman, the Rake and Lavender Town Syndrome. The memetic theory has offered me excellent insights in how and why these stories spread and grow the way that they do, helping me not only with collecting and analyzing the stories, but also in writing a few of my own. Recently, there has been a lot of buzz on the internet about the artistic value of memetics. (setup.nl, huffington post, the verge et al) Since most memes are definitely about creative expression, this is a very interesting discussion. The new possibilities for collaborative work and the ease of sharing and editing gives us a whole new dimension of creative output. As both a researcher and an artist, I am extremely interested in this new wave of internet artists. Therefore, the main question I ask myself in this thesis is: What is the influence of memetics on the world of art and what are its possibilities of shaping the art world in the future?

TL;DR: Im an artist that likes the internet and memes and I write about this because it gives me a chance to look at funny pictures on the internet and call it research

Introduction to Memetics

Wikipedia offers us the following explanation of the memetic theory: Memetics is a theory of mental content based on an analogy with Darwinian evolution, originating from the popularization of Richard Dawkins 1976 book The Selfish Gene. It purports to be an approach to evolutionary models of cultural information transfer. The meme, analogous to a gene, was conceived as a unit of culture (an idea, belief, pattern of behaviour, etc.) which is hosted in one or more individual minds, and which can reproduce itself, thereby jumping from mind to mind. Thus what would otherwise be regarded as one individual influencing another to adopt a belief is seenwhen adopting the intentional stanceas an idea-replicator reproducing itself in a new host. As with genetics, particularly under a Dawkinsian interpretation, a memes success may be due to its contribution to the effectiveness of its host. (...)
Condescending Wonka, a typical internet meme.

Susan Blackmore (2002) re-stated the definition of meme as: whatever is copied from one person to another person, whether habits, skills, songs, stories, or any other kind of information. Further she said that memes, like genes, are replicators in the sense as defined by Dawkins. That is, they are information that is copied. Memes are copied by imitation, teaching and other methods. The copies are not perfect: memes are copied with variation; moreover, they compete for space in our memories and for the chance to be copied again. Only some of the variants can survive. The combination of these three elements (copies; variation; competition for survival) forms precisely the condition for Darwinian evolution, and so memes (and hence human cultures) evolve. The focus on memetics this thesis however lays on the way the internet and its remix culture are creating an ideal environment for memes to spread and grow:

Lolcats , one of the biggest an longest running memes on the internet

Remix means to take cultural artifacts and combine and manipulate them into new kinds of creative blends. () Recently remix has been expanded to include music and sound, as well as moving and static images take from films, television, the Internet, personal archives and elsewhere. (Knobel and Lankshear - Remix: The Art and Craft of Endless Hybridization)

What we see here is a very important shift in not only observing creativity, but also in the creating process. Where at first, a work was usually simply done when it was ready to go to out in the world, what we see now are a lot of creative expressions that are either unfinished and dependent on the community or works that are meant to be open source and added to, changed, remixed or otherwise tampered with. This last bit is especially true for memes. Like genes, memes undergo variation, selection and retention. However only memes suited to their sociocultural environment will spread successfully; the others will become extinct. (Limor Shifman - Anatomy of a Youtube Meme) Due to its open source character, most memes are heavily dependent on quality control by the community. While this is on the one hand one of the strengths of memes, its also contradictory enough its greatest weakness. A good example of how a meme can devolve as well as evolve is offered in the following chapter.

Mr T. ate my balls , one of the first internet memes, dating back to 1996

TL;DR: Memes are the genes of culture and often pictures of funny cats.

Meme expert meme

Slenderman
a case study

On June 8th, 2009, a photoshop contest was launched on the Something Awful Forums.The contest required participants to turn ordinary photographs into creepy-looking images through digital manipulation and then pass them on as authentic photographs on a number of paranormal forums. On June 10th, SA user Victor Surge posted two black and white photographs of unnamed children accompanied by two messages, one of which mentions the Slenderman: We didnt want to go, we didnt want to kill them, but its persistent silence and outstretched arms horrified and comforted us at the same time 1983, photographer unknown, presumed dead. One of two recovered photographs from the Stirling City Library blaze. Notable for being taken the day which fourteen children vanished and for what is referred to as The Slender Man. Deformities cited as film defects by officials. Fire at library occurred one week later. Actual photograph confiscated as evidence. 1986, photographer: Mary Thomas, missing since June 13th, 1986. Slenderman quickly became a hugely successful meme, spawning dozens of stories, fan art, Youtube channels and video games. The popularity of the legend and its clear origin make this meme very traceable, giving us insights in how the story spread:

One of the first two original Slenderman pictures. Slenderman can be seen in the background between two buildings.

Because of its widespread interest and popularity, the Slenderman became somewhat of a Creepypasta (short internet horror stories) posterboy. When we look at the search interest for Slenderman and that for Creepypasta we see that there is a significant rise in interest for the latter after the Slenderman hype took off. We might be able to conclude that the story of Slenderman actually kickstarted the Creepypasta community into what it is now:

Blue: Search interest for Slenderman Red: Search interest for Creepypasta

The following fragment from an interview with the creator of Slenderman offers some interesting statements: It was amazing to see people create their own little part of Slender Man in order to perpetuate his existence. I didnt expect it to move beyond the SA forums. And when it did, I found it interesting to watch as sort of an accelerated version of an urban legend. It differs from the prior concept of the urban legend in that it is on the Internet, and this both helps and harms the status of the Slender Man as one. In my personal opinion, an urban legend requires an audience ignorant of the origin of the legend. It needs unverifiable third and fourth hand (or more) accounts to perpetuate the myth. On the Internet, anyone is privy to its origins as evidenced by the very public SomethingAwful thread. But what is funny is that despite this, it still spreads. Internet memes are finicky things and by making something at the right place and time it can swell into an Internet Urban Legend. -Victor Surge As stated, with online content it is easy to follow the acceleration of a myth. And even though everybody can find out through a thourough Google search where the myth originated, people are still accepting it as an urban legend and willing to believe. But why did Slenderman become so immensely popular, besides him being created at the right place and time? Why are people willing to let themselves get scared by something obviously fictional? One of the reasons is that the strong archetypical and ambigious nature of the original legend perfectly lends itself to speculation and imagination. Since its form and mystique draws upon a form that weve considered threatening since before written history,it is no big surprise that a vague story like this got picked up and grew into something much bigger. Robin Swope, a.k.a the Paranormal Pastor, author, acclaimed excorcist and practicing Christian minister offers us a rather sinister explanation for the above in his book Slenderman, From Fiction to Fact: Some say the Slenderman myth is inspired by archaic archetypes of folklore, like death stalking the plague riddled inhabitants of Medieval Europe as depicted in Hans Holbeins 16th century woodcuts of the Dance of Death. But recently the mythos and folklore has begun to manifest itself into real life.

Slenderman is often connected to the German myths of der Ritter and der Gromann.

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(..) Is Slenderman nothing but a mythos made up on a website on June 10, 2009? Or is it an archetypical vision of death which stalks us all, and only a few can perceive it? Or is it a real demonic presence taking on the mythic form or formed by the mass conscience of internet readers? In his book, Pastor Swope offers us a series of personal experiences and written accounts of real world Slenderman sightings and keeps elaborating on the possibility of Slenderman actually being a demonic entity brought to life by our collective fears. While I am not a believer of this theory per se (if at all) it does illustrate the power of our collective beliefs. Even though I do not believe in a real Slenderman, I do believe without a doubt that other people do, and actually believe so strongly that they envision him. The ambiguity of the Slenderman myth also leaves enough space for own interpretations and continuation of the mythology. Another reason for its popularity, but also a reason for the possible downfall of Slenderman as a harbringer of fear. For there ever was a case of A camel is a horse designed by a committee its Slenderman. Within four years, the mythos has been degraded from a strong, fear instilling short story to whole sites dedicated to badly written fanfiction and amateuristic fan-art. This overkill of Slenderman stories threatens to neuter what was once one of the most iconic stories out Typical Slenderman fan art. there, leaving an overly descriptive cardboard parody of itself. Because the Slenderman fanfiction community is so big and so vocal, it has managed to actually put the quality works to the background, proving that memes can not only evolve, but also devolve, and illustrating how collective quality control is easily surpassed. This is of the biggest flaws of memetics, the moment when group selection fails and only mediocre content surfaces.

Tl;dr Slenderman was scary then the fancommunity killed him with crappy spinoff stories. Also, maybe actually a real demon.

Memetics as art

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Returning focus to the main question how memes are already influencing the art world, and sometimes even becoming works of art themselves. This chapter and its subchapters deal with the influence memes and art are having on eachother. In an online video from PBSs Idea Channel (Are Lolcats and Memes Art?) host Mike Rugnetta states the following: Creating images and sharing them with strangers for the purpose of communicating personal experiences? That, my friends, is art. After which he proceeds to explain how Russian writer Leo Tolstoy wrote something similar in his essay What Is Art: To evoke in oneself a feeling one has once experienced, and having evoked it in oneself, then, by means of movements, lines, colors, sounds, or forms expressed in words, so to transmit that feeling that others may experience the same feeling - this is the activity of art. What weve got here is a very clear defence of memetics as a form of art. Logically, statements like this cause reaction. Its no surprise that a discussion is happening about the legitimity of memetics as art form. Internet user Mikes_phone_and_tab offers us the following rebuke: Saying a meme is a work of art is like saying whatever is trending on Twitter is a work of art. Most memes stem from whats popular in society at the time, not from any aesthetic, aural, or any other sensory type of enjoyment. To which internet user bmputz replies: Memes are in fact art, they are ways to allow for different thoughts and expressions to be conveyed in different ways. The internet has merely accelerated the rate at which this style of art is created.
y u no (why dont you) guy, a popular Rage comic character.

Conspiracy Keanu, a reaction face meme, often used to mock online conspiracy theorists

Now there is an interesting statement. The internet has merely accelerated the rate at which this style of art is created. In the video Are Lolcats and Memes Art? Rugnetta also states that we could describe the meme community as Andy Warhols Factory in Overdrive

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The current way we create and share images could indeed be the start of a new artistic movement. A movement where quantity, speed and community judgement are key factors. A movement freed from galleries, curated by blogs, tumblrs and other online social media users. Hennessey Youngman, from the popular Youtube series Art Thoughtz gives us the following example: Millennials don't want to come to a museum to just look at shit, they want to actively sculpt their experience. Maybe a static ass oil painting was something for older generations to gawk at (..) but that shit don't mean nothing to millennials. The new canvas is the lcd flatscreen, the new paintbrush is a smartphone. Millennials is a culture that's used to perpetual commentary. Millennials live knowing that their input has value. Perhaps a museum could create audio tours that aren't composed of art historians or curators talking about the work, but maybe these audio tours could be composed of viewer responses, removing the expert and allowing the people's voice to shine unhindered. Interesting point is how he uses the example of a static oil painting to illustrate the old ways, just like internet culture experts like Clay Shirky like to use examples of the printing press versus ebooks and how the newspaper industry underestimated the digital age. Acknowledging often amateuristic user generated content as art might be a scary thing for the established art world. But so was Duchamps Fountain. Its easy to dismiss something if it threatens to break a status quo that is profitable for a large group of people. But the freedom and autonomy the internet gives its users to create, share and even get successful without needing the conventional systems might have just as much impact on the art world as it has on other established industries such as the music business. I will speak more of the debate about whether memes are art in the final chapter. Tl;dr: Memetics are art. No, memetics are not art. But maybe they are.

HENNESSY YOUNGMAN, AKA MR. AKAs, AKA THE PHARAOH HENNESSY, AKA HENROCK THE MONARCH AKA MR MUSEUMS.

Internet Art

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When we talk about the possibility of memetics as an art form, or at least as an influence on the art world, we do need to take a quick look at Internet art in general. Internet art (often referred to as net art) is a form of digital artwork distributed via the Internet. This form of art has circumvented the traditional dominance of the gallery and museum system, delivering aesthetic experiences via the Internet. In many cases, the viewer is drawn into some kind of interaction with the work of art. Artists working in this manner are sometimes referred to as net artists. Internet art can happen outside the technical structure of the Internet, such as when artists use specific social or cultural Internet traditions in a project outside of it. Internet art is oftenbut not alwaysinteractive, participatory, and multimedia-based. Internet art can be used to spread a message, either political or social, using human interactions. The term Internet art typically does not refer to art that has been simply digitized and uploaded to be viewable over the Internet. This can be done through a web browser, such as images of paintings uploaded for viewing in an online gallery. Rather, this genre relies intrinsically on the Internet to exist, taking advantage of such aspects as an interactive interface and connectivity to multiple social and economic cultures and micro-cultures. It refers to the Internet as a whole, not only to web-based works. -Wikipedia on internet art. Internet art is a relatively new movement, and more importantly, the internet is a relatively new medium so it still needs to find its place and establish itself. But I still think it is odd that we use a medium as an art form. It would be equally absurd to simply consider both Picasso and Van Gogh as canvas art instead of cubist or impressionist art. This confusion is understandable though, because the internet is often both the medium as well as the location of the work at the same time. Since we are dealing with the actual birth of a medium, its very interesting to see genres or styles evolve. The internet art movement has given us some great artworks already, dealing with collective effort, virtual sculptures, user generated art and the use of data to create visual or interactive experiences. For now though, these are all filed under the same nomenclature. Hopefully in the future, the internet and virtual environments will be just as accepted as marble or canvas.

The Sheep Market - Aaron Coblin A collection of 10,000 sheep made by workers on Amazons Mechanical Turk. Workers were paid 0.02 ($USD) to draw a sheep facing to the left. Animations of each sheeps creation are archived on thesheepmarket.com

Untitled by totti.toni99 God has been good to me in my affliction, and sent me a blessed comforter. with others. with others.
Spam Poetry Institute An organization dedicated to collecting and preserving the most poetic email spam messages, or, as they call them: Gems of imaginative composition

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If we consider memetics a genre by itself, a part of the internet art movement but with its separate characteristics, we need to define these characteristics. What separates Meme art from internet art as a whole are a few key features. Firstly, meme art is strongly reliant on rapid sharing and evolving. When a meme is created, it wont launch off until people start making their own variations on the theme. This involvement from the community is extremely important. Memes are also all about quantity. The more the better. The more popular a meme gets, the more opportunity it has to enter the collective mind, up to a point where some image macros dont even need text anymore for people to understand what they are meaning to communicate. Its all about quick messages and emotions. Lastly, since memes are made to be shared, their curation is done by everybody that uses memes. Their exhibition is on social network sites. So, we could say meme art is defined by: Internet as a medium Sharing Remixing User generated content Speed Quantity Social Network as a gallery Collective memory/conscience
Avatar DNA, a data sculpture in Second Life - Annabeth Robinson Using the Key (UUID) of the Avatar, a unique hex based number representing assests on Second Lifes servers, the numbers are translated to virtual base pairs of a dna molecule and constructed live in front of the user.

Tl;dr: Internet is a medium. We call a medium an art form which is stupid. I define the characteristics of meme art.

A Tool to Deceive and Slaughter - Caleb Larsen A sculpture that sells itself via EBay. The cube has a cord that connects it to the internet, and comes with a a contract stating that the person (listed as The Collector) who purchases it must keep it plugged in at all times and sell it whenever the cube is won at auction.

Meme Artworks
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For their eight year anniversary, Gallery 1988 is honoring their favorite works with "Memes," an art exhibition opening today which features over 100 artists devoting artworks to the internet phenomenons that made them LOL, ROLF or LMFAO. While they may not be the most high-brow relics of contemporary culture, memes are fascinating, and because of their powerful imagery and impact on the collective consciousness, they have recently started to receive recognition as an art form. And now Gallery 1988 is out to show that just because memes are not serious does not mean we shouldn't take their powers seriously! -Huffington Post - 05/04/2012 As the above announcement for a Meme artshow at gallery 1888 illustrates, the art world and memetics are already intertwined. Art influences memes, memes influence art. This influence can also be seen in Memes that communicate about art, as well as actual artworks based on popular memes. Two of these meme artworks are described in detail in the next two pages. Following are a selection of other examples where the world of art and memetics come together.

Flyer for a Meme art show in Gallery 1988, based on the PTSD Clarinet Boy meme.

Ecce Homo
80-year-old Cecilia Jimnez wished to restore a damaged fresco created by Spanish painter Elas Garca Martnez named Ecce Homo, which was donated to the Santuario de Misericordia Church in the Spanish town of Borja. Having no previous experience in restoration of any kind, she unknowingly and unwillingly created one of the most influential works of art of 2012 according to online art magazine Artinfo: By far the biggest art meme of the year, and quite possibly the greatest meme of all 2012, was triggered by an admittedly very unfortunate accident: Amateur Spanish art restorer Cecilia Gmenezs attempt to fix a damaged 19th-century Ecce Homo fresco at her local church in Boria spawned Beast Jesus, an incomprehensibly cartoonish, childlike, monkey-ish, terrifying, and vaguely vegetable-shaped likeness of the Christian savior. The ensuing propagation of Beast Jesus images, videos, merchandise, and pop cultural crossovers quickly made Gmenezs accidental masterpiece one of the single most iconic artworks of the recent past. On August 22nd, a Change.org petition was created, urging officials not to remove Jimnezs restoration, calling the botched painting daring and looking at it as an example of the Expressionism art movement. As the images popularity grew, helped by this online petition in support of Gimnezs work, thousands of visiters have been to the church to see Beast Jesus for themselves, financially supporting the church by doing so. Budget airline Ryanair even got in on the act, laying on a special flight to Zaragoza airport: El responsable del departamento de Marketing y Ventas para Espaa de Ryanair, Luis Fernndez Mellado, asegura que la compaa est encantada de lanzar una oferta especial Eccehomo para viajar a Zaragoza a partir de 12 euros en los meses de octubre y noviembre. - La Vanguardia
Dolan is an MS Paint web comic series featuring a variety of poorly drawn Disney cartoon characters
From the original to the restored Ecce Homo.

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Tl;dr: Old Spanish woman messes up Jesus paining. Internet proclaims it art.

Happy Bob Ross meme featuring the Ecce Homo

Grass Mud Horse

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Gangnam Style is a hit single by Korean pop artist Psy which became a hugely popular meme, up to the extent where the original video was the first one ever to get over a billion views on Youtube, inspiring thousands of parody videos. One of the Gangnam Style parodists is notable Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, who made a Youtube video dancing to the song and renaming the work Grass Mud Horse. The term Grass Mud Horse is a Chinese Internet meme widely used as a form of symbolic defiance of the widespread Internet censorship in China. It is a play on the Mandarin language words co ni m, literally, "fuck your mother" (Wikipedia) When we look at Weiweis earlier works, also often having something with Grass Mud Horse in the title, it is easy to consider his parody as another protest to Chinese censorship. However, Beijing based author Anthony Tao offers us the following critique: One might be tempted to argue that Ai Weiwei, meta genius that he is, is giving the middle finger to Chinese authorities who desperately want to push soft power. By not creating substance, even though he is in a prime position to do so, he is telling viewers that creativity cannot be forced, and certainly cannot be pushed by the government.
A still from the original Gangnam Style movie

The combined sign for Grass Mud Horse

But then why is it only on YouTube, broadcast to everyone except those in China? No, Ai Weiwei is not saying F-U to Chinese authorities, or censors, or anyone here. Hes merely refilling his cache of cool with the Western world, reminding his Western fans and Western journalists that hes a good guy who gets it. He gets it because he knows how to dance on an invisible horse, and hey, thats something you like, right? Hereby illustrating another issue encountered in meme-art. Can a silly joke, even if performed by a well known artist, be considered art?

A still from Weiweis version of Gangnam Style.

Tl;dr: Meaningful parody or just Weiwei having fun? Also, Chinese censorship.

Art Memes
Art School Owl A Meme functioning as a platform for art school students to share experiences about life on the academy

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2deep4u Used to indicate that the content in question may be too profound or obscure in nature for its audience to appreciate. It is often used as an indictment of arrogance and pretension in the hipster subculture, or as a sarcastic defense of a particular genre in music or visual art

Junior Art Director A meme originally created by designer Jamie Gurnell, making fun of social media strategists

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#EmojiArtHistory This meme (..) launched after Brooklyn-based artist Man Bartlett saw a Tumblr post of texts recreating the work of famous artists out of emoji. Inspired, he posted his own emoji version of artist Chris Burdens Shoot (..) on Twitter on Monday (the 11th of Februari 2013) night, adding the hashtag and sparking a new art-geek meme. Soon serious art-world types like the J. Paul Getty Museum , the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Tate were getting in on the action, sending their own emoji-filled tweets. (..) The instant popularity definitely surprised Bartlett, but he adds that the speedy nature of Twitter as opposed to Tumblr mixed with the new(ish) art form of emoji storytelling created a lightning-in-abottle moment. -Angela Watercutter - Wired Magazine

Meme Art
Jim McKenzie - Willy Visual artist Jim McKenzie in front of his painting Willy, in which Condescending Wonka makes fun of the painting he is in. This sort of meta-humor is popular in well established memes.

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Bud Caddell - Keyboard Cat Acrylic painting of Charly Schmids Keyboard Cat, a video uploaded to YouTube in 2007, which to this date has nearly 30 million views and spawned numerous memes.

Ryan OSullivan - Nyan Cat Acrylic painting of the Nyan Cat meme by American painter Ryan OSullivan. Nyan Cat is another cat oriented YouTuve video with over 30 million views.

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Joanna Zhou - Ecce Homo KidRobot Kidrobot is a designer toys company that sells vinyl figurines. Often notable artists, mainly from the graffiti/street art scene (such as Shepherd Fairy and Jamie Hewlett) contribute paint-jobs for these figures, making them well sought after collectibles. This one depicts the Ecce Homo in its restored form.

Aled Lewis - First World Problems In this canvas artist Aled Lewis combines the First World Problems meme with the well known visual style of Roy Lichtenstein.

RagePaints - Socially Awkward Penguin Etsy user RagePaints does commissioned paintings of memes, such as this Socially Awkward Penguin.

Conclusion
In this thesis Ive tried to give a clear picture of the influence of memes outside of the internet. But we still need to answer the question whether memes could be considered a legitimate form of art. Of course, it is not up to me to answer this question, but during my research I did come upon quite a few cases for, and against, memes being an artform. For now, some of the most valuable points against memes being art are its lack of quality control, the lack of artistic vision in most of its creators (since communication is the focal point instead of artistic expression) and a strong lack of exclusivity and tactile feedback. A meme, even if its really clever, is still accessible for everybody. Nobody owns it. You can print a copy of your favorite Lolcat and frame it, but that does not make you the sole owner, or even the owner of a limited edition of the work. But is limitation a definition of art? Especially in this time, where more and more goods are virtual, how important is having a physical copy of something you like? When I purchase works of art (mostly photography) I do it because I like to support the artist. Because I want that person to make more beautiful works. And of course I immensely enjoy having these works on my wall. But being the only one that owns it? I couldnt care less. For me, owning a good book, a great record or a beautiful painting are the same things. I like to look at those possessions I own which are manifestations of creative output and enjoy the feeling that by buying something I really enjoy Ive also supported the maker. There is also the aspect of objects being conversation piece. It pleases me greatly to talk with guests about my collection of photography, books and records. But I also enjoy talking with people about the things I virtually curate on social media such as Facebook and Tumblr. The difference between these things that the latter is a fleeting collection. But thats typical of the world wide web, everything goes fast, you blink and you miss it. However, with 3D printing on the rise, a whole new level of collaborative and customized creativity is accessible. In just a few years, it will be possible to download and print sculptures at home for example. With the likes of Jeff Koons paving the way for reproductions of objects as an art form, it is easy to envision consumer 3D printers becoming a big influence on the art world.

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Acrylic paintings of poplular advice animals

A 3D print of the highly popular Nyan Cat meme.

A 3D print of Forever Alone Guy

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Business Cat, an Advice Animal

I am sure there are still a lot of people who get great satisfaction from owning a strongly limited item. But I cant help but think that the Millennial generation, and especially the generation after it, will pay less attention to exclusivity and more to actual appreciation. The generations that not only grew up in the physical world, but also in the virtual world. That world where everything is accessible. Where you own everything yet nothing. So, are memes a new art form? In their current form, perhaps not. However, the whole concept is based on making it easy for people to express themselves in a creative manner. Training people to read and express emotions with as little words possible. The medium is the message never was any more true, the same goes for a picture is worth a thousand words. A whole generation is being rewired into a state where collaboration, collective effort, editing, adding, reimagining and remixing is a second nature. I would be surprised if this state of mind would not be the birth of at least one new art form, with current memes as its raw first sketches. And as is the case with the birth of most new art forms, the discussion is already happening. There are people agreeing and disagreeing. Some people are revolted by the idea, others embrace it. This factor alone gives me high hope for the next step in memetics. Hope for an artform that uses internet as a medium instead of a tool. Curated by the masses, yet keeping its artistic value, even if that artistic value is a rewritten one. I for one will keep a close eye on the world of internet memes and where it might lead us. Tl;dr: Memes are not an established artform yet, but might be. The internet is awesome and is redefining the way we percieve things, including art.

The Batman slapping Robin meme, perfectly illustrating that weve come to the end of this thesis.

Sources
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memetics Richard Dawkin - The Selfish Gene Michele Knobel & Colin Lankshear. Remix: The Art and Craft of Endless Hybridization Limor Shifman - An Anatomy of a YouTube Meme Kate Miltner - SRSLY PHENOMENAL: An Investigation Into The Appeal Of LOLCATS http://knowyourmeme.com/ http://www.somethingawful.com Pastor Robin Swope - Slenderman, From Fiction to Fact PBSs Idea Channel - Are Lolcats and Memes Art? (video) Hennessey Youngman - Art Thoughtz, How To Catch a Millennial (Video) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_art Art Info - YEAR IN REVIEW: 2012s Best Art Memes, From Beast Jesus to #ArtBaselProblems La Vanguarida - Ryanair oferta vuelos a partir de 12 euros para visitar el eccehomo de Borja Anthony Tao - Ai Weiweis Gangnam Style Video Is Called Grass Mud Horse Style, And Its Just As Bad As Chinas Other Parodies Max Fisher - Explaining Ai Weiweis grass mud horse obsession (Washington Post)

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