To give you a flavor of it without downloading, here's the introductory paragraph:
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The rise of ‘Web 2.0’ (O’Reilly, 2007) has changed the way that people interact with theworld and with each other. Developments in ICT have enabled changes in commerce, politics, and interpersonal communication. Widespread consumption and creation of user-generated content (UGC) has ushered us into an era of participatory culture, breaking down the barriers between producer and consumer (Bruns, 2007), and allowing us to “take media into our own hands” (Jenkins et al., 2009: 29). This has contributed to the election of the first African-American President (Painter, 2009), and provided new tools for fighting governmental corruption (Shirky, 2010a). It has also given us Peanut Butter Jelly Time.
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Is it not worth studying such a pervasive aspect of our culture, especially if it says something novel about ourselves?
I'm also quite interested in the rise of Rage Comics as a new medium and what it might evolve into. Certainly people love telling and listening to short stories, but today's tools are quite crude, yet still addictive (much like very early video games). I'd love to see the successor to Rage Comics 10 years from now.
Having seen so many amazing cultural events appear and disappear over the course of the internet timeline, I'm very happy that we are finally starting to get internet culture historians such as KnowYourMeme popping up to record and analyze these events for posterity.
As for rage comics, I'm confident that their crudeness is an important feature that let's ordinary people feel comfortable telling their ordinary stories without feeling they are required to be extraordinarily polished and professional just to have a voice.
Here is a wonderful rage comic that was made by an 86 year old man which has been viewed 2.8 million times. http://imgur.com/Cpdaq I doubt that his story would have ever been told without an MSPaint-based storytelling movement to work within. I doubt that many people would have the patience to read a professionally illustrated and typeset remake of the story even if it existed.
First time I've seen that rage comic. Thanks for linking :)
Rage comics have always fascinated me. Simple and intentionally 'bad', but more relatable than anything I've seen prior. That's a great example of how effective they can be in communication - both for producing and consuming.
It's disheartening to see the strong negative reactions to this. If human society and culture is worth studying, then "internet culture" is a necessary part of the story. I know from experience that there are multiple distinct communities that orbit the lolcat universe. There's more than enough depth here to warrant academic study.
I also wonder how many people have read it at all, let alone the entire thing. It would seem evident that when you have as many people online as we do, and a rather large chunk finds LOLcats and the like really funny, than studying the phenomenon shouldn't be this off putting to so many people.
On a more serious note, I used to puzzle about this when I was in Grad. School. There used to be people whose research I personally (at that time) thought to be trivial and used to think it was unfair that they were publishing papers and stuff. I recall what a mentor told me at that time: 99% of research is garbage but this is what we find post factum. We do it anyways so as to be able to take the 1% which drives progress. Also, the nature of cutting edge research is that progress goes slowly, which means that polished results from say 50 years ago are going to look amazing. As I went deeper into research, I was able to appreciate this more: There are things we do, ideas we derive that help us make things more rigorous but sometimes we have to explore other less thought off avenues.
The only requirement for my MA was to stay alive for two years after graduating my BA (seriously) - needless to say I've never bothered to collect on that offer, but if I had it would certainly be worth less (if there is a metric for value of academic theses) than one issued on the basis of a thesis about Lolcats.
My view on a dissertation -- whether it be for a masters degree or a Ph.D. -- is that the contribution is not the important part. Instead, the goal is to demonstrate an ability to do "good research" (TM). People find very narrow topics because thesis advisors prefer it. If you had an already well-studied topic, it is more difficult to access as original work. Yes, ideally you want to find something novel, narrow, and practically useful, but grad students primarily want their degree first.
Really? Are you also angry about SIRC's guide to British pubs? http://www.sirc.org/publik/pub.html The abstract of this lolcats paper says The research revealed that the LOLCat audience is comprised of three separate groups that interact with and appreciate LOLCats for different reasons. The study also confirmed that LOLCats are operating as a genre, and that the appropriate execution of that genre is central to their enjoyment. That's not obvious stuff, and it looks like some real research was done.
Yes, and it certainly isn't the first. Here are a few more, all of which reference lolcat at some point (all of these I believe are PhD dissertations, assuming I set the filter correctly):
Frigiola, H. N. (2009). The meanings of dogs and cats in U.S. american culture based on movies, cartoons, and consumer goods. Purdue University). ProQuest Dissertations and Theses, http://search.proquest.com/docview/304990738?accountid=12725
The "earning them a master's" doesn't ruffle my feathers. A master's thesis in itself doesn't mean much; it doesn't have to present new results nor have any impact. Presumably this student had to complete the coursework required for the degree, and his adviser let him wank around with lolcats for the thesis. The thesis alone didn't earn him the degree, and given that the bar isn't that high for master's theses anyway, it's not that big of a deal.
I think it's wonderful. Whether you think it's inane or not (and it is), internet culture is a major part of the cultural knowledge of a large amount of people. I think we can learn a lot of new things about human psychology by investigating how memes are created and proliferate on the internet.
Should we let all internet culture go to waste because it is childish, stupid or bizarre?
On the first point, I might say, "Don't sweat it so much", especially if it yields some new previously undiscovered trend that wasn't widely known prior to the research(i.e. "People who enjoy LOLcats, on average, are immune to the common cold"), but if this were real I would definitely be upset.
The majority of me feels that this is satire strictly meant to explain LOLcats in a way that strongly resembles Master's thesis(especially the manner in which the acknowledgments are written), but another tiny part of me feels compelled to email Ms. Powell and ask if she's aware of this paper.
Meh, don't let it stress you too much. I very much doubt you'll be competing against them in the job market anytime soon. Besides, just imagine how upset you'll be when someone writes a dissertation on "the internets reaction to academies observation of the LOLcats, and it's cross cultural implications of how it widens the chasm between the arts and the sciences".
While I think that the rise of internet subculture is very interesting from a sociological point of view, I doubt the phenomena is researched enough to warrant a study as narrow and specific as this.
<quote> The rise of ‘Web 2.0’ (O’Reilly, 2007) has changed the way that people interact with theworld and with each other. Developments in ICT have enabled changes in commerce, politics, and interpersonal communication. Widespread consumption and creation of user-generated content (UGC) has ushered us into an era of participatory culture, breaking down the barriers between producer and consumer (Bruns, 2007), and allowing us to “take media into our own hands” (Jenkins et al., 2009: 29). This has contributed to the election of the first African-American President (Painter, 2009), and provided new tools for fighting governmental corruption (Shirky, 2010a). It has also given us Peanut Butter Jelly Time. </quote>