Forums / Discussion / Meme Research

Hi folks!

There's been some discussions about our recent entries on 2012 election candidates (thread link), so here is an overdue announcement post that will hopefully help people understand our reasoning behind it. To keep it short & sweet, we will be working on Republican candidate person entries as part of our special U.S. election coverage in the coming months. And simliar to our special coverages before this, we would love to open up this opportunity to everyone else who is interested in tracking & following this topic. In the following weeks, we'll be working closely on the following list of items:

• Entries on the election candidates, election events (debates, primaries) & related memes
• Revisit and cover related entries from previous elections in the U.S. and elsewhere
• Launch a separate tab in /memes section & navigation bar for 2012 election-related entries

If you have any ideas or suggestions as to how we can best cover this topic from the Internet's point of view, please share in this thread. Also, if you're wondering how you can participate in this research experiment, it's easy! Just request editorship on any and all election-related entries and it will be granted as long as you express genuine interest on the topic.

*Updated (1/26/2012): Proceed to KYMdb – 2012 Republican Presidential Primary.

As for concerns about smear campaigns and bias, I'll be watching like a hawk on the tone of language & word choices to ensure that all candidate entries are covered in fairness from an objective point of view. I ask of others who are interested in this topic to do the same and please draw our attention to any hints of bias found in our future entries.

I'd like to know where to draw the line.

As you said, "previous elections in the U.S. and elsewhere". So at what point can I call a politician a legit candidate for a person entry?

This also counts for the timeline. Should the elections the persons participate in be from last year, or can we go back till the year 2000?

Not to forget the nationalities. Your politicians are completely unknown to me, but I'm sure that's likewise for you and politicians here. So how well known must the person be on the internet?

Though I wish there were fewer politically related topics posted recently, as I find it distracts from the otherwise lolzy feel of the site, I am atleast glad to hear that you'll be trying to keep a methodical approach to it, and as you said, restricting it to relevant meme or popularity interests rather than smear attempts.

I think this is the wrong direction for the site.

Although it's true that there is a lot of election-related stuff online, I don't think it fits well with the other content on the site. Attempting to cover the election's online presence without bias is a job better left to news sites, not to KYM.

To my understanding, KYM isn't about cataloguing internet users' opinions on the various candidates and issues, it's about cataloguing memes, sites, and people who have a large impact online. The electoral candidates are regularly derided online, but they don't account for very much memetic content, and therefore I don't think they belong here.

Just my thoughts.

I don't think KYM's opinions are important,but facts are important. There are news media sites, and fact checker sites like politifacts to take sources, etc. Maybe peoples reactions, which relate to important internet culture might be nice to have.

My opinion on the matter is somewhat distant from other peoples opinions in my opinion, I believe that the republican candidates are trying to become a public spectacle to sell books, or just blank out the media from other important events, but I'm not entirely sure what they are trying to achieve, but I do think they are not intending to win the presidential race.

We live in a scary world with corporations using money as a form of free speech.

I think we should cover how the election evolves online, like with memes an significant election related events on the internet.

I DO think this is the right direction.

Why? Because of the fact that this site documents memes. I've said this on more than one occasion, but memes are the result of language evolving. All those phrases our parents say, that to our personal understanding, make no sense, resulted in a similar manner to what we now call memes. Some new words and phrases have literally been invented as a result of the internet and the concept behind memes. An example would be "Santorum." While we here on KYM know the joke all too well, it stands to reason that, regardless of the circumstance, the word may actually be added to the dictionary, someday.

The site isn't aiming to influence the elections. It simply aims to collect and evaluate data. How each visitor interprets the data is up to them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nsz9ad5zeA
TRUTH

At first I was worried that this site couldn't possibly pull off any unbiased, informative coverage of a presidential election.

But then:

You passed up an opportunity to cover some half-wit Mexican Grand Warlock who claimed that Obama's re-election was doomed to failure.

You ignored an opportunity to troll Newt Gingrinch on his numerous inconsistencies on political issues.

You refrained from encouraging your many creative members to produce memes about Santorum, which you could have then covered.

And lastly…

You returned to form by mentioning Vermin Supreme and his grandstanding on behalf of long-shot and also-ran candidate Ron Paul.

Don't get me wrong, if I want biased coverage of the election process I know where to find Politico or Huffington Post. But at least do us the same favor both those sites extend its readers: don't pretend you aren't taking a side.

@RandomMan, indeed, drawing lines are important:

Definition of Notability: If the politician / candidate has been talked about on the Internet (of your respective region), it's worthy of submitting an entry. If there are parody acts, a trending topic, blog coverage, photoshop meme, slang associated with the subject, a good start.

Timeline: I think this has more to do with findability of evidence (as with the rest of KYM entries) but 2000 might be just where about the timeline starts for most Internets in the world.

Nationality: It is the job of research staff & passion of community to learn something new every day and as long as "internet notable" by our standard, internet-relevant candidate of any nationality is welcome. Of course, the more information OP provides for others to start on, sooner the entry will be researched towards a decent state.

But at least do us the same favor both those sites extend its readers: don’t pretend you aren’t taking a side.

It's like picking out a piece of candy, but you can only have one, make it count.

As long as we're translating (also known as "skewing", in this case) what someone else has said, allow me a turn:

"I like it when KYM skewers the right. I enjoy not having to listen to logical arguments. I'm only interested in things that I find enjoyable, and it's ok if those things offend other people who frequent the same site."

See? I can do it, too.

Though my translation isn't entirely untrue: I'm actually not offended if someone here skewers the right. The offense is presented when the left does the same dumb shit and it goes unnoticed (White House Alice in Wonderland party,anyone?)

I know, I know. The internet is inherently left, yes?

No. No more than it is inherently nationalistic, or socialistic, or communistic, or theocratic, the list goes on. Opposite viewpoints can always be found, if you look for them…
IF you LOOK for them…

Most people on the internet are left, actually.
People generally lean left if they're not selfish or deluded, but it's hard for people to be misinformed or deluded on the internet because of its nature. More information is available.

I'm just saying for those of us who don't pick a side because they are both wrong, by using satire.
The Republicans are bashed on more so then the Democrats in my opinion.

Here's a brief description of suggested outline & headings when researching "candidate" entries. For general tips, please read KYM Styleguide and use <h2 /> heading for all sections listed:

• About: Provide a succinct summary of the candidate's profile information, including his name, date of birth in ellipses and history of offices held throughout political career. It'd be great if there is a sentence or two pointing to the significance of the subject in the context of Internet culture & news media.

• Online History: This section is main substance of the entry. Construct a coherent timeline of events involving the subject. Include excerpted quotes, images/videos and use h4. subheadings as separators when necessary.

• Reputation: This section concerns the public image of the candidate, include any notable gossips, controversies, criticisms, online popularity (in comparison to opponents). Please include any relevant data analysis or public opinion polls. When dealing with speculative information like scandals, be sure to include footnotes to relevant article links. Include images/videos and h4. subheadings as separators when necessary.

• Personal Life: Include all notable facts about the subject's personal life, including family members or interesting background information. Include excerpted quotes, images/videos and h4. subheadings as separators when necessary.

• Search Interest: Use Google Insights search interest graph as the roadmap to your entry. Look closely into the time periods when search interest peaked and corresponding news events that may have caused them.

• External References: Please include relevant links to back up your research or claims.

Suggestions?

Hmm, just saw this; must give my two cents.

Although I don't think it's entirely inappropriate for KYM to follow the election, I think we need to do so keeping in mind our main purpose: documenting memes. It's inevitable that the candidates, as public figures, will inspire memetic content on the Internet, and we should document that. What I do not think we should do is enter into political analysis or judgment of character, and because of this, I think the articles should be cleared of all but the minimal information needed to understand anything memetic related to the candidate.

As an example, the article on Newt Gingrich as it now stands is, in my opinion, inappropriate. Don't get me wrong, I think Gingrich is huge douchebag, but that's not our place to say. The article mentions his various affairs and divorces, and since there are clearly a lot of jokes out there on the subject:

[photo:238581]

…I think it belongs in the article to give background. On the other hand, mentioning his ethics violation charges, while important in understanding Gingrich within the political arena, is not related to any meme I am aware of, and doesn't belong in this article. There are plenty of other news sites and wikis out there for information of that nature.

Now, aside from that issue creating more of an appearance of bias than we want to (even though as many have pointed out, it no doubt exists) I'd like to say that I don't think we should worry too much about overly-ridiculing GOP candidates, since Obama will start getting his share once the GOP primaries are over and he starts campaigning in earnest.

@Accusations that we are biased:
This site isn't documenting the election. It's documenting memes. Naturally, these memes mostly are in the form of mocking the various candidates and parties. However, seeing as the democrats are currently basically just Obama running, and the Republicans have much more candidates, the Republicans are mocked proportionately more. Because there's more to mock.
Math makes everything fun.