What’s the Message?!

I knew there was content in which viewers or audiences are left wondering, interpreting, and/or asking questions, but never did I know it to be a trending topic in which audiences would share and expand on unfinished and/or interpretive content with each other in order to expand on the contents meaning/message

From the Burger King “Dancing Chicken”, Witchery clothing’s “Heidi” video, and John Tyler’s airport security controversy, content such as these can gain an audience to experience their views, interpretations, opinions, and much more.

“Users wanted to push against the limits of the ad to see what flaws they could locate in its execution.”

“Mysteries about the origins of media texts have proliferated in the age of spreadable media, in part because content moves so fluidly from context to context, often stripping away the original motives behind its production.”

“Astroturf: commercially produced content which seeks to pass itself off as grassroots media, often in ways to mask the commercial and political motives of those who have produced it. “

For more information on spreadibility, click this link to the books website, http://spreadablemedia.org/.

Spreadability: Fantasies, Humor, and Parodies

The more I read into how spreadability works, the more it feels like I don’t understand or losing track as these new facts on how spreadability works seems like its drifting away from what defines it, to other aspects of how it works, even though these categories feel like its shifting away from spreadiability itself, here they are.
In terms of fantasies, I don’t quite understand if these refers to commercial culture producing ‘fantasies’ for potential consumers or individuals producing there own content in their own use of spreadability. “Creating individualized fantasies makes sense within an impressions model, in which audience members are understood as atomized individuals.” This does mention two themes in discussing fantasies in terms of spreadability, nostalgia and modernism.
With humor, there’s “the very thin line separating a joke from an insult: a joke expresses something a community is ready to hear; an insult expresses something it doesn’t want to consider.”
Using parodies can be an effective way of spreading content for possible consumption. Using exaggerations of humor with certain content (depending on target audience), it can be enough to spread and gain attention, depending on how effectively laughable it is. I even remember seeing that Leroy Jenkins WOW (World of Warcraft) bit from over a decade ago, but that truck commercials seems more recent, and the name “Leroy Jenkins” isn’t mentioned at all, except the same cocky attitude of rushing in first with no plan (HA HA HA HA HA).

Here are both Leroy Jenkins Videos

Original video
The Toyota Tacoma commercial (or draft?)

For more information on spreadibility, click this link to the books website, http://spreadablemedia.org/.

Spreadibility ACT II

If some things no longer matter in a product, such as a media text, then why is it more and more people are spreading it around/sharing what is being spread with their friends and such?
Which material/content is considered popular by the masses and which isn’t? How do distributors figure out or learn what the current or potential ‘hot topic’ is or may be based on mass consumption, given that the masses consume just about everything? Which types of content/material can bring friends, family, even strangers together, forming connections?
“If the cultural commodities or texts do not contain resources out of which the people can make their own meanings of their social relations and identities, they will be rejected and will fail in the marketplace.”
“messages are encoded into content; meanings are decoded from a text.” Definitely might need to look further into this fact
Why is it some companies don’t want their audiences to interpret their content? If they limit its potential spreadability, won’t that lose them money

For more information on spreadibility, click this link to the books website, http://spreadablemedia.org/.

OH CRAP, almost forgot to present this producerly text; while I’m not 100% sure if this fits the description of producerly text, this scene from “Mullholland Drive” is open to a variety of interpretations.

How Can We Spread the Stuff We Want?!?!?!?!?

There are different kinds of media content that are spread throughout and made available to everyone (depending on what content and what visual device; TV, film, or internet). While much content is easily more accessible to everyone with today’s technology than it was decades ago, not everyone else is interested in the same type of content.
While most content is aimed at certain groups of people, there’s always an individual in that group of people who are not that interested is it doesn’t appeal to that person’s interest. Most of the assumptions on what content to spread is all based on pop-culture related topics, both current and occasionally old fashioned.
I know that people find their interest in whatever type of genre, sports, or shows they love the most based on aimed product advertising, but why is it they try so hard to create and spread, and aim content at just about every single person, not very well that not everybody will like or consume it (depending on content and how it is presented to the public)?
Key fact in how spreading content works: “Successful creators understand the strategic and technical aspects they need to master in order to create content more likely to spread, and they think about what motivates participants to share information and to build relationships with the communities shaping its circulation.”
Though not looked at with much of a certain social outlook, in this day and age everybody shares just about everything on their iPhone, which is what many conversations are about, continue, or how it starts, especially a new topic of discussion in order to kill the silence, making things less awkward.
For more information on the topic of this post, feel free to check out the books site, http://spreadablemedia.org/.

Music That Explains Why “It Ain’t Fair” for A LOT of us!

Songs have a way of affecting us; make us happy, excite us, send a serious message, speak out, motivate us, etc. In the last several decades, musicians, singers, bands, and others who conduct and play music to a variety of effects have played songs of certain political and social issues. The contents in these songs over the last several years are those that have been often ignored and/or not been paid much attention; racism, war, corporate influence on politics, corruption, economic and gender inequality, sexual harassment, etc.

The Roots, the hip hop band famously known for their work with tonight show host Jimmy Fallon, have released many songs over the years, but none have had a greater impact than It Ain’t Fair (https://youtu.be/3uXV62u9odY), also sung by independent singer Bilal, whom they collaborated with. This piece was released to promote and during the end credits of the 2017 period crime drama film “Detroit”.

The film, set in Detroit Michigan, is based on the racial-motivated hate crime committed by white police officers against several African Americans that took place during the Algiers Motel Incident which coincided with the summer of 67’ riots. These officers killed three people and beat and humiliated the rest who were present. The song is a reminder of how racial injustice was a frequent during this time and how it continues to this day, despite what we have learned about racial inequality and oppression.

The song is sung in two verses; Bilal in a slow, steady pace, the second being The Roots, speeding things up in a fast paced hip hop tone. Bilal’s verse echoes how cops always rush to the worst conclusion about people based on physical appearance and treat them as suspects/criminals today just like they did decades ago. The Roots fast-paced half is done with a serious tone of anger towards injustice and unfair treatment by those in position of authority. This is a song that, when listened to, cannot be ignored and must be heard in order to understand and address the issue head on.