After a brief sojourn in Toronto, I am back to the world of digital history. Reading my fellow classmates entries I am quite impressed with the range of insights and interests being discussed through these web forums. For me, studying history has always evoked a broad range of personal reactions and I find it very refreshing to have this less formal place for thoughtful conversation.
As a new and, some would argue, somewhat democratic medium, the web is a unique space for cultural exchange. A giant bedroom where, as Matt Ridley once uniquely put it, ideas can have sex (check out his TEDtalk here). From all this sexy sharing of ideas, images, etc. certain cultural units resonant stronger than others and rapidly spread. Things go "viral". That ultimate behemoth of knowledge on the web, Wikipedia, defines an internet meme as "a concept that spreads swiftly via the internet", a digital file or hyperlink which ultimately functions as "an inside joke, that a large number of Internet users are in on". Of course as many of us know all too well these global collaborations can be pretty juvenile to say the least, however their mass appeal speaks to a common (albeit rather temporary) cultural consciousness that is both incredible in scope and nearly unpredictable in nature.
So how does this relate to history?
In last week's Digital History class we looked at a variety of websites that were examples of online history. One of the websites was Drunk History. This page contained embedded videos of various people getting drunk and recounting a favourite story from the past with famous actors and actresses acting out the hiccuping narration. As we discussed in class, these skits are far from historically accurate, but they can still be useful pieces of digital history. Yes, the concept of an inebriated storyteller is novel, but beyond that, these earnest, impassioned rantings are surprisingly appealing because their narrators seem to care so genuinely about the subject. An original concept and big stars helped launch this meme, but the audience still learned something about history. Perhaps they could get a could get a couple grad student interns to create a "pop-up video" type feature that corrects blatantly wrong information or fills in missing gaps; getting to see how accurate these drunks are might even add to the humour. The basic stories at least are there and what their accounts lack in accuracy they make up for in sheer passion for the subject. Because Drunk History became an internet meme that passion reached many viewers. If there had been no hiccuping, or forgetting of pants or muddled names and slurred, curse-filled speech, if all the facts had been presented in an impartial, dry, and, may I even say, academic, style the site would have joined the legion of other well-meaning but less web-culture literate pages that litter the internet. Though most definitely imperfect from a historian's point of view, Drunk History at least puts the subject on the cultural radar at large. The question of whether this presence is more beneficial than harmful is a difficult question to answer.
To explore the appeal and dangers of historical memes, I wanted to take a brief look at two other sites. The first is Historic LOL a site hosted by the infamous cheezburger.com, a site pivotal in launching the LOLcats phenomenon. Being connected to such a powerful meme-maker, Historic LOL has the potential to disseminate history to the masses. In reality the results are mixed.
The images are, for the most part, older photographs and paintings of major historic events or of historic significance, however most of the captions rely on pop culture or references to other memes for humour as with this example:
see more Historic LOL
Clearly these are inside jokes for the internet at large, not just the PHD crowd.
Some of these LOLs do rely on and reinforce a certain amount of very basic historic knowledge as with this take on Marxist theory:
see more Historic LOL
But, as I said, this is pretty darn basic.
In terms of promoting historical consciousness on the web it seems to me that the real strength of the site is the regular postings of interesting historical photo collections such as this one, linking to a series of civil war photographs:
see more Historic LOL
Because these carefully chosen collections appear on a popular meme website they are viewed by an extraordinary number of people. Traditional archives simply do not have this audience. If the site did not attract internet users through its funny juxtapositions of pop culture and historic image these colections would not be seen; the fact that such collections are shared on facebook just as many times if not more than the average (less historic) Historic LOL, indicates that the site's viewers and contributors are indeed interested in such documents. By tapping into a meme-based site, these genuine primary sources are seen by those who wouldn't necessarily go out and look for interesting collections on their own.
Additionally, this website would also be a great source of information for future academics wishing to study how internet users in the early 21st century related to and understood history, but that's a whole other can of worms and I won't get into it here.
The last meme I wanted to mention is an animation put out by the Neely brothers a few years ago:
It's a very strange and crudely animated short that makes the case (in song form!) that JFK was in fact a robot created by American scientists to defeat communism. Historically accurate? Not a chance. Oddly amusing? You bet. This video has nearly half a million views. Another clip done by the same folks on George Washington has over 2 million. I wonder if this animation would have been as popular if it had contained more actual history. What if JFK was still a robot but more details of his actual presidency were rapped about? Would the absurdity still draw people in so they could learn something? As it is, the JFK animation doesn't convey mush actual information however I do see potential there for digital history as long as there is a balance between the amusement factor and facts.
In order to disseminate historical knowledge to a general audience online (ie. an audience that is not specifically looking for or interested in historical knowledge), there must be a certain amount of humour or contemporary relevance, some kind of meme-making quality. Though I can understand why most academics scorn these memes I believe some do contribute to increasing historic consciousness and can convey the appeal and relevance of studying history. Perhaps most importantly, I believe it is impossible to ignore how the internet-hype-machine works and how modern internet users consume and spread cultural knowledge. While we must remain conscientious about what knowledge is being transmitted, denying these forms of communication would render history far less relevant on the web.
Memes are how more and more people are learning about interesting and amusing bytes of cultural knowledge. Without embracing them in some form I fear this Historic LOL might be proven true:
see more Historic LOL
