Week 5: Stormy Daniels, Round 2

Week 5: Stormy Daniels & Meme Narratives

     As established last week, I'd like to continue exploring the relatively-recent Stormy Daniels allegations against President Donald Trump, the subsequent media events detailing what ensued between the two, and the cultural implications of memes surrounding these events, specifically concerning gender.

     As previously mentioned, Stephanie Clifford (Stormy Daniels) came public with allegations of a sexual encounter between her and Donald Trump during a golf tournament in 2006, after which she paid $130,000 and forced into a non-disclosure agreement concerning that encounter (Parks, 2018). With other stories breaking on Trump's alleged sexual harassment, Clifford went public, suing the President and his then-lawyer, arguing the agreement was invalid, later appearing in rallies and television interviews. The three memes chosen were created after the media attention Clifford was given during the time of these lawsuits:

Figure 1

Figure 2

Figure 3

     Each of the three memes highlights certain stereotypical gender-related ideals regarding cultural expectations regarding Clifford's career choice, along with broader behavioral ascriptions to men and women. Figures 1 and 3, screenshots of random media attention both figures received as varying periods of time, are results of a conscious coupling of visual placement and text to elevate the status of one cultural group while, at the same time, denigrating the status of another. Trump, pictured in a close-up frame while mid-speech in a business suit fosters the perception that he is engaging in some business-related practice, such as a meeting or negotiation. Clifford, on the other hand, is framed with less of a focus on the face, and more on the chest, as she is wearing a piece of clothing much more revealing than her male counterpart. Whether or not a conscious choice of the meme creator(s), focusing on a broader view of the woman's body, while picturing an "action shot" of the man, highlights the historical cultural assumption that women are to be appreciated for the appearance, while men should be appreciated for the work.

     Secondly, the addition of text to these images does even more to reflect cultural ideologies on the social standing of men versus women. The text centered over Trump, either "misspeaks" in Figure 1, or "The Foundation of the U.S. Executive Branch" in Figure 2, stands in stark contrast to the text chosen for Clifford. Figure 1 exemplifies the notion that men, especially those in power positions, only make small mistakes over their daily lives--small mistakes on which audiences should not focus. Clifford, on the other hand, falls victim to a text/image combination that further disparages herself and the female gender as a whole. "Miss Peaks" fails to encapsulate any of the advocacy work in which she's engaging, along with the legal hardships she's currently focus to, again, focus on the physical attributions of her body; to focus on anything else other than the body would be placing Clifford in an elevated status only culturally acceptable for men. Similarly, the combination of image and text in Figure 3 regarding Clifford highlights the stereotypical idea that women are generally attractive, promiscuous individuals with no other 

     The creators of Figure 2 do not subject Clifford to the same damaging visual characteristics as those in Figures 1 and 3, yet the sole choosing of text in this meme highlights similar perceptions of both Clifford and the social standing of women as a whole. The image, a screen capture of the 60 Minutes interview in which Clifford highlighted the specific interactions between her and Trump, shows Clifford clothed much more than the image used for Figures 1 and 3; the choice of text making a joke of the interview and its questions regarding Clifford's contact with her lawyer seems to make light of the situation at hand, but underlying meaning of the language chosen implies solely business-related interactions between men and women cannot occur. The language chosen also promotes the same idea as Figure 3 regarding women and sexual promiscuity; Clifford, along with all women, cannot focus on important matters at hand when in the presence of the opposite sex. Replacing "pro bono" with "pro boner" does far more than elicit laughs from those in similar situations, influenced sexually by those in power. It makes light of her situations, negating any contextual information on the reason she is being interviewed to promote another idea of the promiscuous sex worker who cannot delineate between work and other important life occurrences or struggles.

  The creators of these memes have posted them to online channels with underlying motivations on subsequent audience behavior after viewing the images. While memes surround various individuals, occurrences, and media events with creative rhetorical approaches and calls to action and discussion creation (Shifman, 2014), Figures 1 through 3, along with the ones included in last week's discussion,  are established as a form of persuasion and preventing any public discussion from occurring. The images, highlighting the female form versus the powerful man in action, coupled with the text connoting sexual action from the woman, are meant to persuade the audience that any argument from Clifford is to be ignored; she is a sex worker and should not be regarded as anyone else. Sex workers are stigmatized as nonpersons in American culture; to picture her in positions of power in her legal battle would be giving her person status, which is not welcomed when paired with her career.

Parks, M. (2018). Stormy Daniels shares graphic details about alleged affair with Trump. Retrieved         k  from https://www.npr.org/2018/03/25/596868354/stormy-daniels-shares-graphic-details-about-        kkalleged-affair-with-trump

Shifman, L. (2014). Memes in digital culture. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.

Week 4

 

Week 4- Media Events, Memes, and Humor

 

     This week's memes chosen center around the media spectacle concerning Stormy Daniels and her alleged encounter with Donald Trump. After going public with the events that transpired and a subsequent Non-Disclosure Agreement was made public by The Wall Street Journal in January of 2018, Stephanie Clifford (Daniels) sued Trump and his then-lawyer Michael Cohen arguing that the NDA was invalid, as Trump never signed it. The memes chosen highlight various aspects of the following media coverage of Clifford throughout her dispute with the President and his legal team. 

   

     The first meme is a screenshot one of the speeches from Clifford and her team during this dispute, as she speaks into the various microphones placed by multiple media outlets on the podium. This meme not only highlights the stigma against those in the sex-worker industry, but the general ideology regarding women in a male-dominated society as a whole. Clifford, caught mid-speech with her mouth open in the photograph from which this meme was remixed, is immediately equated to her performing oral sex on a man because of our general inability to separate her profession from personal life. If any other woman were captured in the same hegemonic ideology regarding man versus woman. In this photograph,  the lack of contextualization regarding her presence in front of a large crowd arguing for justice is diminished, and her stereotypical place as an individual solely present for the sexual gratification of a man is amplified.

   The second meme, a screen grab of a Saturday Night Live skit, follows a similar format. Rather than focusing on the issues that Clifford is fighting for, the meme chosen centers around her career and focuses on the scene where she slides her chair, legs in the air, toward Seth Meyers. In addition to focusing solely on the societal ideals regarding her career, the meme reinforces another gender-specific harmful stereotype: the woman as dirty and sexually-promiscuous. The general social idea shared here is that the woman is opening her legs, so it must have a sexual connotation and certain smell; on the other hand, when a man does that, the "man-spreading" is generally fine.

   Lastly, this meme seems to be made from the individuals supporting Clifford in her legal disputes. Instead of placing stereotypical social ideals on Clifford, the meme subverts these strong stereotypes to place them on the man photographed. As Shifman (2014) notes, flawed masculinity is a strong characteristic that can lead to memetic success. Placing Trump with the qualities that are generally placed on woman can garner the perception of humor, surprise, or positivity an individual strives for in positing online, so those online may be more prone to sharing memes of this nature, poking fun at a man who is not stereotypically strong.

   While all three of these memes exhibit Shifman's (2014) concept of superiority in humor, the firs two regarding Clifford and her behavior highlight the most damaging, socially-stereotypical ideas regarding gender. The conscious choosing of visual and its combination with text are enough to engage in "oneupmanship" between the male-female dichotomy in American society (p. 81). Whether or not a man is included in the picture, such as the absence of one in the first meme, the combination of the image and text generally follows a form of stereotypical ideology dependent on the creator and his or her inherent ideals and biases on various cultural groups, including gender. Because of this ever-present social ideal regarding men and women, another form of humor should be included in her work. While harmful, a form of stereotyping should be included as its present in a wide variety of memes, including those on Stormy Daniels and the Overly-Attached Girlfriend, seen in my previous blog posts. Stereotyping and objectification of the woman is commonly seen because men are unable to put themselves in a non-dominant position in society, including visually. Men avoid objectification in visual culture as a whole, so women must take his place (Mulvey, 1989).

Mulvey, L. (1989). Visual and other pleasures. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan.

Hey, I just met you . . .

 Overly-Attached Girlfriend, Viral vs. Memetic

This week, I chose three variations of the overly-attached girlfriend meme heralded as the most popular by various meme-related websites and blogs. The three are prominent examples of Shifman's (2014) ideas on what contributes to the success on viral content, yet still reach success in terms of variation and remix without fully adhering to the proposed definitions of memetic content.

 The three memes chosen highlight Shifman's (2014) ideas on positivity and humor. Typically, the overly-attached girlfriend memes are designed in two lines of text or more, with half positioned on the top of the photo and half positioned on the bottom. The top is typically an innocuous fragment of a statement or question, while the bottom fragments are what contributes to the humorous shock or surprise. The bottom segment of text, generally the most humorous, drives its virality through social networks because it is most interesting and shared to increase sharer perception of being "upbeat and entertaining" (Shifman, 2014, p. 67).

A second piece contributing to its viral success are the meme's packaging (Shifman, 2014). The few sentences in the picture, coupled with the facial expressions of the woman is simple and clear enough to understand the humorous aspect intended. No outside contextual knowledge of the woman, where she gained her famous status, or any other aspects of her personal life is necessary in understanding the message in each photograph.

Lastly, while some aspects of overly-attached girlfriend's characteristics fit memetic definitions proposed by Shifman, (2014) many of the categories detailed must be updated and retooled when considering Laina's success in meme format. She fits Shifman's (2014) argument of memes as ordinary individuals contributing to memetic success as production and fitting the background in the original video is easy. Also, she is considered more of a peer within the online community, especially between others who have had success in meme format. Laina falls into several other memetic characteristics through her shocking, humorous bottom line, as previously mentioned. In the orignal video from which the meme originates, Laina is taking part in comic playfulness, inviting users to take part in the "game" she proposes through her crazy-girlfriend persona. Because of this, each of the memes relate in some way to the persona Laina crafted through her YouTube video.

Relating to design aspects, overly-attached girlfriend takes part in the simplicity precursor to memetics (Shifman, 2014). In the original video, Laina is situated in front of a blank, white wall with a few pictures posted on it. In subsequent remixes or repostings of the meme, each follows the same design cues, including an individual in a plain, light-blue shirt in front of a white wall with photographs. While Laina completely goes against any ideas of masculinity that Shifman (2014) proposes, she highlights the notion that Shifman (2014) fails to encapsulate a large amount of successful memes of the last few years. Perhaps a retooling of this characteristic is needed; while flawed masculinity is present in some memes, overly-attached girlfriend encapsulates stereotypical ideas of femininity in her reinforcement of the "crazy girlfriend."

Week 2

Week 2- Gender & Memes

In continuing with last week's established theme of the irrational, crazy woman, I wanted to find the backgrounds of these two well-known, woman-centered memes, "Big Red," (left) and "Overly-Attached Girlfriend" (right). Big Red is typically remixed as an ultra-feminist, misandrist meme regarding how anything that even has the letters "men" in it triggers her into an angry tirade. She is a photo of Chanty Binx, taken from a video posted to YouTube of her confronting a men's rights protestor in Canada with her stance on feminism. In April of 2013, a video of her yelling to these protestors while reading off of a sheet of paper with responses was posted highlighting the event at the University of Toronto, and the meme began from there.

The overly-attached girlfriend meme is considered an offshoot of the advice animals memes we examined in class this week. The photo stems from a YouTube video submission to Justin Bieber's online sing-off contest where the singer, Laina Morris, parodies his song "boyfriend" to her clingy, fun lyrics of "girlfriend." Less than one day later, a Reddit link was posted to Laina's video and the meme began circulation.

Both of these memes and their remixes and variants build upon the themes presented in the videos. Feminism has been culturally re-appropriated in previous years to equate the term with man-hating. Chanty was in a public space arguing feminism with a group of men's rights protestors, so Chanty was immediately turned into a misandrist in meme form. Similarly, Laina's video on a funny, clingy-girlfriend turned into her being the extreme, possibly mentally-unstable girlfriend. In studying these memes, it's important to examine the context from which they originated to see what themes are present in the original photo or picture, and how they are possibly appropriated and amplified in a male-dominated culture. One can be argued as innocent and fun while the other tends to demean a cultural group, but they both signify a cultural elevation of one gender while negating the importance or mental stability of another.

In taking the time to find the original meme from which remixes and parodies are born, we can fully understand how memes are considered "interconnected content units which share common characteristics," (Shiffman, 2014, p. 53). They may be shared and remixed in certain ways, but there is always the characteristic of theme and the form of the same content, form, and stance (Shiffman, 2014). 

First Meme Post

The First Post

     For my first post, I wanted to go back to a relatively-ancient meme that you could not go one day without seeing on Facebook, the Overly Attached Girlfriend. A lot of my research over the last few years has focused on visual rhetoric regarding the portrayal of gender through social networks and this meme packages my findings through that pretty well. It highlights perfectly how we make snap judgments on an individual, especially a woman, based on pretty basic facial cues and body positioning. Her wide eyes and smile, barring any information regarding personality or context, immediately means "overly-attached" or "psychotic." I look forward to digging deeper into memes similar to this throughout the semester.