May 07, 2017
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In the past, I’ve given ’columbia buy sell memes’ a lot of shit for normalizing bad student life choices. In this assignment, which I wrote… like… 3 days ago for University Writing, I complained about another aspect of cbsm I don’t like: people from outside the community that butt in with their own agendas.
As some context, a few weeks ago, Martin Shkreli (click that), reared his head over at cbsm. Relevant bwog article.
More recently, sweetgreen (that salad place), held a meme competition on cbsm.
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With almost 30,000 members, it is hard to believe the beloved Facebook group, ‘Columbia Buy Sell Memes’, stylized as ‘columbia buy sell memes’, is only one semester old. While people down in Williamsburg have been busy creating poke-burritos and rainbow bagels, our resident ‘Morningside Memers’ have given the classic ‘meme’ (low quality image + scattered lines of text) a price. Equipped with this new and refreshing take on a classic narrative technique, resident ‘meme lords’ have successfully laid bare the image of a student body precariously and perpetually see-sawing between procrastination and tits-up hedonism. However, while ‘columbia buy sell memes’ has enjoyed unprecedented growth alongside fellow ‘university meme pages’ , it is clear an impending bubble could see our beloved ‘memexchange’ falling to the shitters.
Jokes aside, although our local ‘memeries’ have done, and are doing, a commendable job at normalizing self-destructive campus living, something truly nefarious lies ahead. It is something we have taken pride in. Ironically, it is something we have all made fun of. It’s as David Gilmour wails in the 1973 hit single from ‘Dark Side of the Moon’. ‘Money’. ‘It’s a crime’. At least, a part of me feels victimized. In all my years as a master of social failure, I’ve developed a deep attachment to all things ‘meme’. I’ve seen ‘maymays’ from ‘rage comics’ to ‘dolan’. I’ve seen ‘memempires’ from ‘lolcats’ to ‘the_donald’ fall off the deep end that is ‘subculture’. It is my fear that money will push ‘columbia buy sell memes’ down the same path as these other once-great ‘meme groups’. It is my fear that ‘columbia buy sell memes’ will fall victim to advertising.
Simply put, ‘memitorries’ as big as ‘columbia buy sell memes’ are prime targets for investors and shills. Often times, I hear people talk about how powerful the media is. After all, since the media is what moves information, it has power in determining what news gets where, as well as how it gets interpreted. The only thing that really puts a damper on that power is our willingness to question the things we read - to look further into the context of these stories. I may be wrong, but I believe that one of the appeals of ‘meme groups’ is the expected inclusivity of the group. We expect everybody to be somewhat like us when we read posts in ‘columbia buy sell memes’. Because of that, we ‘trust’ the ‘memes’ more than we would ‘trust’ the news articles we have been taught to question. If we truly are less critical of ‘meme’ posts, then, even if we don’t take them as seriously… we still make up a vulnerable audience.
When some company, or some service wants to buy ads, they usually pay for two metrics: eyeballs and engagement. ‘columbia buy sell memes’ has a metric ton of both. In addition, the bulk of ‘columbia buy sell memes’ consists of a niche group of teens in their formative spending years. With all of these buzzwords flying around, how could advertising agencies resist selling their services on our beloved ‘memesterpiece’. In fact, one could almost imagine something as ridiculous as a certain salad chop shop advertizing on ‘columbia buy sell memes’ (sweetgreen).
Here is some proof to back that up. Remember I mentioned ‘lolcats’? In 2007, ‘lolcats’ hit gold with the creation of the website ‘cheezburger.com’. It has been a long time, and ‘cheezburger.com’ is but a mere ‘memery’ of the ‘memepire’ it once was; however, even though the website has an aged tang to it, advertisers have indulged. Among other commonly known brand names, ‘cheezburger.com’ lists ‘Ford’ and ‘General Mills’ among its advertisers.
The thing is, while companies had to pay money to put ads up on ‘cheezburger.com’, there is nothing stopping them from freely having a go at ‘columbia buy sell memes’. With a small team of shills, it is quite possible advertisers will find good results.
Up until now, we’ve talked about companies ‘memeing’ their goods and services to us. Unfortunately, the rabbit hole goes deeper than previously thought. Some individuals nowadays find success advertizing themselves with ‘memes’. Perhaps they don’t have an obvious product or service they are selling, but they hope to use ‘memes’ in order to open conversation and change their image. For example, many people would argue that much of ‘thedonald’s growth could be attributed to the way Trump was turned into a ‘meme’, something for people to chuckle at rather than criticize. I would agree. I would also argue ‘columbia buy sell memes’ has to be wary of following the same path. After all, it seems that ‘columbia buy sell memes’ is just as capable as ‘thedonald’ at going gaga over a morally questionable wealthy person, considering how quickly we welcomed Martin Shkreli and his Mel’s night. I believe we need to respect how effectively ‘memes’ could be used to mess with our views. Even though ‘reddit.com’, the site where ‘the_donald’ is hosted, is fairly liberal, Trump was able to garner a huge following, one that followed a more unconventional light hearted vibe. In what can only be called image control, Trump got his own jokes, got his own ‘memes’, and found a large group of people eager to share them. I think it is fair to say that ‘memes’ hold sway over public image. If another famous, loaded fellow were to make his way to ‘columbia buy sell memes’, even if we all hate him, we would give him the time of day to explain his presence. If he seems cool and charismatic… if he seems to be just another ‘memer’… just thinking that means he has the power to fix his image in our eyes - our valuable niche-teen-formative-eyes.
As ‘columbia buy sell memes’ continues to grow bigger, we need to keep in mind that other groups of people will look at our meme group and see it as way of advancing their own personal goals. If we turn a critical eye to our own ‘memes’, perhaps we will be able to keep the page free of mindless advertizing. Perhaps we could avoid giving criminals more attention than they deserve. Then, perhaps we will preserve ‘columbia buy sell memes’ for years to come.