Post Memes: Seizing the Memes of Production

by Alfie Bown (Editor), Dan Bristow (Editor), Roy Christopher (Contributor)

Art-form, send-up, farce, ironic disarticulation, pastiche, propaganda, trololololol, mode of critique, mode of production, means of politicisation, even of subjectivation - memes are the inner currency of the internet's circulatory system. Independent of any one set value, memes are famously the mode of conveyance for the alt-right, the irony left, and the apoliticos alike, and they are impervious to many economic valuations: the attempts made in co-opting their discourse in advertising and big business have made little headway, and have usually been derailed by retaliative meming. POST MEMES: SEIZING THE MEMES OF PRODUCTION takes advantage of the meme's subversive adaptability and ripeness for a focused, in-depth study. Pulling together the interrogative forces of a raft of thinkers at the forefront of tech theory and media dissection, this collection of essays paves a way to articulating the semiotic fabric of the early 21st century's most prevalent means of content posting, and aims at the very seizing of the memes of production for the imagining and creation of new political horizons.With contributions from Scott and McKenzie Wark, Patricia Reed, Jay Owens, Thomas Hobson and Kaajal Modi, Dominic Pettman, Bogna M. Konior, and Eric Wilson, among others, this essay volume offers the freshest approaches available in the field of memes studies and inaugurates a new kind of writing about the newest manifestations of the written online. The book aims to become the go-to resource for all students and scholars of memes, and will be of the utmost interest to anyone interested in the internet's most viral phenomenon.

ABOUT THE EDITORS

ALFIE BOWN is the author of several books including "The Playstation Dreamworld" (Polity, 2017) and "In the Event of Laughter: Psychoanalysis, Literature and Comedy" (Bloomsbury, 2018). He is also a journalist for the Guardian, the Paris Review, and other outlets.

DAN BRISTOW is a recovering academic, a bookseller, and author of "Joyce and Lacan: Reading, Writing, and Psychoanalysis" (Routledge, 2016) and "2001: A Space Odyssey and Lacanian Psychoanalytic Theory" (Palgrave, 2017). He is also the co-creator with Alfie Bown of Everyday Analysis, now based at New Socialist magazine.

Genres: Philosophy, Technology

422 pages, Paperback

Published November 5, 2019

Reviews

[Andrej Drapal · Rating 2 out of 5]

All authors in this book miss the difference between memes and artefacts. So calles internet memes are aretfacts, phenotypes; they are embodyments of memotypes or memes. For that reason all conclustions so so utterly wrong. But then, if you understand the difference between memes and artefacts, then some articles at least present some interesting versions of internet memes/artefacts, like that one of the Pepe the Frog that goes to China.
Another extremely repulsive dimension of this collections is their overt marxian/revolutionary intention. It is so annoying to observe hopeless tries to reestablish post second world war marxism in 21st century. All most all authors are utterly frustrated and are for that reason yelling to something that has evaporated long ago.

[Brandon Mickman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Essays are hit or miss but this is still worth reading for the good ones