I Can Haz Memes

Uncanny Valley | WIRED

WIRED

Technology

4.1 • 571 Ratings

🗓️ 6 August 2021

⏱️ 40 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Internet memes seem harmless enough. A few pictures of cats with some grammatically incorrect text—what could go wrong? Well, memes have come a long way since the early days of the internet. For more than a decade, memes have been deployed as a weapon in culture wars. And they’re even more persuasive than most people realize. A well-placed meme on somebody’s social media timeline can lead them down a rabbit hole of radicalization, misinformation, and extremism.

This week on Gadget Lab, we talk with Emily Dreyfuss, a senior editor at Harvard’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics, and Public Policy about how memes have shaped politics and culture.

Show Notes:

Read more about all kinds of disinformation at Harvard Shorenstein Center’s Media Manipulation Casebook. Here’s Emily’s story about her life as a robot. Read Angela Watercutter’s story about the Bernie Sanders mittens memes.

Recommendations:

Emily recommends that you look up what happens to an artichoke if you let it flower, and also American Nations by Colin Woodard. Mike recommends r/random, which takes you to a different subreddit every time you click. Lauren recommends the HBO show White Lotus.

Emily Dreyfuss can be found on Twitter @EmilyDreyfuss. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Mike.
0:01.0	Lauren.
0:02.1	Mike, if you had to describe what a meme was to someone who just didn't quite get it, how would you define a meme?
0:09.1	Um, well, it's like an idea, usually a humorous joke.
0:13.8	It's something that gets passed around to a lot of people and becomes its own cultural touchstone?
0:22.6	I don't know.
0:23.1	How am I doing?
0:24.3	I think that's pretty nebulous, but we're bringing someone on the show who I hope can
0:29.0	clear it up for us.
0:30.2	Good.
0:30.6	We need an expert.
0:41.7	Welcome to Gadget Lab. I'm Lauren Good. I'm a senior writer at Wired.
0:44.8	And I am Michael Collory. I'm a senior editor at Wired.
0:51.8	And this week we're joined by Emily Dreyfus. Emily is a senior editor at Harvard-Schorenstein Center on media, politics, and public policy. And she also happens to be our former wired colleague, where she
0:55.6	wrote about the M-Bot and Alexa and cybersecurity issues and much, much more. Emily, welcome back to
1:02.5	Gadget Lab. I'm so happy to be here, you guys. I feel like I'm returning home for a minute.
1:07.6	Aw. And in many ways you are because, you know, you were known for the M-Bot story in which
1:12.6	you appeared virtually in a bunch of wired meetings, like courtesy of a robot. And so now
1:17.1	we don't have the M-Bot with us, but we have you on Zoom. Yeah, I feel like I was kind of an early
1:22.4	adopter of the virtual workspace situation when everyone was freaking out in the beginning of coronavirus.
1:28.3	Like, how are we all going to get this done? I was thinking, man, you know, I've actually
1:32.9	been working remotely alone in my home for going on a decade now. Wow. So Emily's been living
	...

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