SparkNotes

About

The SparkNotes Twitter account is a real meme machine, that is in perfect conjunction of what SparkNotes, as a service, is known for. They are an online company known for providing easy-to-read summaries of classic literature, as well as translations of old plays and books into plain English. They also have character and theme breakdowns. They are known to be used by high school students when they don't want to be bothered to read the whole book they were assigned. Over the past couple years, they've gained a lot of attention on their Twitter account, as it centers around posting jokes concerning classic literature, specifically those iconic books that inevitably everyone was forced to read in high school English class. It explains the essence of a story or of a character through a meme. It takes a universally known character like Romeo or Gatsby, and either through the use of word, image, gif, or video, makes a statement about something that this character would say or react to. It is often in relation to what happens to them in the book that they belong to. The image or video used is itself a stand-alone meme that has been circulating around the meme-verse for a while, but combining it by pairing it with a literary character is what makes the whole meme so specific to SparkNotes. They assign memes to explain the essence of a character or of a book.

In mid-2017, Courtney Gortner took over the account, and she is the one who introduced the format of the meme for which the account has become famous for. She did it to up the follower and like count, trying to make their social media presence more relatable and enjoyable to their audience. There was no real set strategy before she took over, but she had noticed that the few times they had posted a meme, the response had been positive, so she decided to indulge in it and have fun. She says that her "goal was to make it the kind of Twitter account that (she) personally would want to follow."

In September of that same year, Chelsea Aaron, a senior editor at SparkNotes, took over the company's Instagram account. She started borrowing memes from the Twitter, and as it seemed it got the most amount of likes, she started making her own separate from the one's being created on Twitter. This helped the account grow from 5,000 to 134,000 followers.

In June of 2017, the SparkNotes Twitter account was at about 15,000 followers, and in two years, it went up to 110,000 followers, and its tweets regularly getting over 5,000 likes. Today, as of February of 2020, it has 259,700 followers, and getting anywhere between 5,000-35,000 likes per post.

This meme's primary habitats are on Twitter and Instagram. They are retweeted or screenshotted and shared on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.

This meme is noteworthy because it takes these epic stories that we are often forced to read in school, and puts a layer of humor on it that everyone can then relate to. It connects to an experience that everyone in the US has had to go through, that being sitting in English class re-hashing some old classic novel. The meme takes these complex stories, and simplifies it in a very humorous way. It encompasses the essence of characters, and often makes fun of them for whatever fatal flaw they have. Same goes for the general plots of the books.

Origin

On June 21st, 2017, Courtney Gortner, who took over the Twitter account of famous company, SparkNotes, posted a tweet making up dialogue between Jay Gatsby and Daisy Buchanan, two characters from the novel "The Great Gatsby," by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Gatsby says something, Daisy replies, and then Gatsby's response is represented in a gif of a gymnast doing flips in the air. It only received nineteen likes and twelve retweets. She then posted again on June 29, 2017, this time using two characters from "Hamlet," by William Shakespeare, where Laertes says something, then Hamlet, then Laertes response is a screen capture from the famous TV show, "The Office." It only received six likes and three retweets.

The first viral one was April 16, 2018, with the tweet text "Claudius asking Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to spy on Hamlet" and then an image attached of a scene from the hit TV show, Parks and Recreation. This post received 690 likes and 170 retweets.

Spread

The first one to really explode was with a gif, on November 2, 2018. This one was jab at Friar John in the famed play, "Romeo and Juliet," and it got 3,200 thousand likes, with 638 retweets. It spread through retweets and people leaving their own comments on it. One account, @JulietheFoodie replied with another meme, suggesting the Friar should have gone "GOT style," and then added a gif to further explain her point. This was mimicking the format of the SparkNotes memes.

Chelsea Aaron, who was managing SparkNote's Instagram account, also started taking those memes and posting it on Instagram. That helped spread a lot, and in turn, she started making more original ones specifically meant for the Instagram account.

Various Examples

Image 1 Twitter text:

Juliet: So Romeo's been exiled from Verona and my dad's forcing me to marry Paris. What should we do?

Friar Laurence:

Image 2 Twitter text:

Nick: Why would you invite Tom? Aren't you having an affair with his wife?

Gatsby:

Image 3 Twitter text:

Darcy when Bingley forces him to attend the Meryton ball

Search Interest

h2.External References