Pop Culture is the new mythology: branding, irony, recycling and distance httpwww.americaslibrary.govassetsshcowboysh_cowboy _branding_2_e.jpg Guy Lanoue, Universit de Montral, https://encrypted- tbn1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcS4YjpucpeUNVaF3aJRPT n_9cDTayFVO9ahqkeflPLxygpoDl4UbQ Four points: Classic myth seeks mediators between two sets of sign systems (brings them together thematically); new myth seeks to increase the semiotic and semantic distance between sign systems Classic myth and pop culture are both ritual fields with few components: in classic myth, traits are selected so they fit together with other signs in a rigid system (totemism); in pop culture, traits are simplified (stripped of their polysemic qualities) so they can be used to create new signs that fit together in a fluid, polysemic system In classic mythology, meaning is communicated by the mediator; story components are chosen to justify the choice of a mediator; in the new mythology, meanings are communicated in two ways: a) new combinations of old, stripped down and simplified components; b) blurring the semantic precision widens the distance between signified and signifier, allowing personal narratives to be projected onto old, familiar objects and their unclear representations Tribes and bands dominated by mythology have a relatively simple division of labour. Each persons capacity to act becomes a comparatively more important contribution to survival. Communities are weak , in the sense that they do not provide social capital to people as much as individuality does. In bands and tribes whose community orientation is undermined by the importance of individual action, myth uses a semiotic process that brings together distant signs to propose mediators that incorporate some semiotic and semantic qualities of the opposing signs: unity. In structurally complex societies, the division of labour creates interdependent and complementary networks. Individuality is overwhelmed by the complex institutional machinery (institutions, ideologies, political rituals) attached to these categories. Individuals react to a unitary and stultifying ideology and try to assert individuality. The ability to create individual narratives of society becomes important. People individualise and isolate symbols from one another: by simplification, by recycling, by referencing, processes that distance a sign from its normalised, ideologically-sanctioned referents. People can project individual narratives in these spaces. Problem: Im alive now, but what happens when Im dead? Myth does not function in terms of content, but has a particular structure of paradigmatic substitutions that successively weaken the opposition (here, between life and death) to find a mediator (a syntagmatic equation) that links the two. Sign 1 Sign 2 Sky/heavenCave/hell Mountain Valley Snow River SUBSTITUTION Birds Fish Rain Sign 1 Sign 2 SIMPLIFICATION / RECYCLING Sign 1 Sign 2 By increasing the distance, not only are there no mediators, it is increasingly difficult to link the sign and its referent. Paradoxically, it becomes easier to link one sign to another as each is simplified (stripped of its semantic richness). The links move from metaphor to metonymy. What happens in this new space ? CLASSIC MYTH NEW MYTH Distance: spatial distance is a metaphor for social distance, which is a trope that defines the sovereignty of Western countries: control boundaries means controlling society. The control of geographic distance allows the state to define rationality: by deciding where people live, the state imposes schedules and how the move from one point to another, from home to work. This forces people to adopt a system of rational decision making (the fastest route, the shortest route): they become rational decision makers, time accountants . This mirrors economic rationality in a capitalist environment: the best choice we make in deciding which bus to take is the same thought system that guides investment and market rationality. Distance has been an important framing device in the West since the 16th century. An example: central perspective in art (The Last Supper, Da Vince, 1498) Invented in 1413 by Filippo Brunelleschi, the background is distanced from the foreground by differences in size of the paintings components. Implicitly, people translate differences between big and small into a narrative about far and the near. This distance establishes that the spatial distance seperating high and low as just another subset of far and near: the real subject is the spectator who is actively interpreting far and near and validating his agency. Recently, beginning after WWII and accelerating rapidly, public discourse no longer seems so rational and linear. As larger frames of reference fail to provide tools for interpreting events, the distance between a thing and its sign has increased. People can and do project their own narratives into this space. In a sense, individuals now create their own unique thought universes because the link between a signfied and its signifier is no longer as precise as before. Examples of postmodern advertising: what is real and what is a trick? In other words, when the signfied is unclear, so is the signifier: distance is established, and people can create narratives to define how one is linked to the other. Metaphors are easily interpreted because there is little semitoic distance seperating the signified from its signifier. In texts, this is established by a normalised definition of the image; in art, people use frames to tell the spectator that somewhere in the image there is a code that establishes links between signified and signifier. When people step outside that visual frame, its semiotics are threatened: distance is established and individual narratives become possible interpretations. The frame (and its semiotic fragility) is the message This distancing can be accomplished by recycling: the real message is in identifying the absent original (Albert Einsteins 71st birthday in 1951) content/uploads/2011/03/FUNNY- LEGO-FILM-PARODIES-1.jpg etto-pubblicita/1.htmlpubblicita/1.html Irony dominates modern discourse, for 2 reasons : a) By linking the real message to a subtext rather than to a text, it allows people to double their interpretative agency, their semiopower; b) Denormalisation: Irony allows people to bypass state-sponsored idealogies without overtly rebelling. It is a form of semantic indirection that creates a protective cushion around overt declarations.State-sponsored technologies of hegemony (social control by manipulating culture) are left intact, but people become bilingual, adept at reading two codes, the text and the subtext. In other words, they become masters at establishing distance and reworking signifiers and signifieds into new configurations. Irony allows people to acquire semiotic power when other means to accessing power are blocked. Are you a fan of irony? I dont mean fake hipster irony like buying a vintage Capn Crunch t-shirt at Old Navy even though you werent allowed to and dont eat sugar cereals now. I mean real, life-puts-it- in- front-of-you-and-begs-you-to-make-sense-of-it irony. (http://just- startkidsandschools.com/2013/07/15/inspired-by-irony/; consult )http://just- startkidsandschools.com/2013/07/15/inspired-by-irony/ Postmodern space and its ironies: As semiotic distances between signified and signifier increase, political and spatial distances decrease with globalisation. These ads play on opposition: text and subtext, interior semiotic space and exterior uncontrolled semiotic space, the subject as a consuming commodity and the subject as master of an imaginary space. This is not new as such, but there recycled aspect of their components heightens the uncertainty and therefore the irony. These images are self- referential, which is possible only when the distance between signifier and signified is wide enough so that a signifer apparently floats freely, without a direct connection to its signified. The link between image and sign is no longer by defined by its semantic content. Before, the semantic load of a sign limited how it could be linked to other signs. Before, all conversations between people and signs were guided or controlled by these limits. Now, irony and individual narratives emerge when the distance between the object and its representation surpasses the symbolic capacity of the metaphor. See Linda Hutcheon, Ironys Edge, Routledge, 1994. Irony (and distance) in pop culture emerges with Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band, The ironic uniforms (a nod to militarism) are reinforced by the contrast between the traditional music suggested by the title and the innovative content of the album, not to mention the many pop culture references that are recycled: Jung to Bob Dylan, Dylan Thomas to Freud, Lewis Carroll to Einstein. The unusual and unexpected combinations and the ambiguity of the Beatles lyrics explicitly invite the question: what are the hidden messages? Reading these becomes a pop culture industry: referencing. Standard approaches are still about semantics (the product) product-centered approaches seek to embed the phenomenon within the context of global product networks and commodity biographies, shifting the focus from persons (consumers, producers) to worldly things, worldly because they are both physically present here and now and yet bear traces of their simultaneous existence elsewhere, over and beyond ones immediate horizons (Foster 2008, p. xvii), allowing the often incommensurable perspectives of diverse agents (brand producers and consumers) to be treated within a single framework (Paul Manning, The Semiotics of Brand, Annu. Rev. Anthropol :3349, p.41). Brands, does not function to identify the true origin of goods. It functions to obscure that origin, to cover it with a myth of origin (B. Beebe, The semiotic account of trademark doctrine and trademark culture, pp.42-64, in Dinwoodie & Jamis, Trademark Law and Theory: A Handbook of Contemporary Research,. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2008, p.52). Iwabuchi (2002, 2004) shows how some Japanese products (consumer technologies, comics and cartoons, and computer games) are marketed with a self-consciously cosmopolitan global strategy (mukokuseki no nationality), which specifically erases such distinctive cultural characteristics to produce culturally odorless commodities such as the Sony Walkman (K. Iwabuchi, Recentering Globalization: Popular Culture and Japanese Transnationalism, Durham: Duke Univ. Press, 2002, p.28). Although not quite what I suggest here, everyone more or less agrees that brands detach the product from its normalised symbolic apparatus, opening the door to secondary or even contradictory readings. This tendancy is encouraged by (and may even emerge from) the increasing domination of US commerce throughout the world after WWII: to facilitate advertising, Mad Men seek spatially uprooted symbols whose polysemic aspect can function as well in France as in Canada and Mexico. What does academia say? Branding vs. brand Traditional publicity underlines a quality of the product and tries to link the product to an allegedly natural or corporeal quality: Coke slakes your thirst, which becomes a synecdoque for the product. By contrast, branding does not refer to product attributes. It takes an unrelated attribute and links it to the product by repetition (massive advertising): Polar bears arent linked to Coke, but after this campaign, Polar bears make me thirsty. /10/The-Coke-Polar-Bear-coke-57341_1024_774.jpeg n:ANd9GcSEBfdwALfqpNnXWi0 YjXQWlRsUo46peCFWR9z9DPRry3 Rfp37sQx-mPsA Branding is so effective that it establishes powerful links that can become the subject of irony, because there is no natural link between the product and its image. One cant be ironic about thirst, but its easy to play with images of polar bears /files/bi-polar_ jpgproduct/wordplay-wildlife-theate r/ v8_225x225_Front.jpg In a classic totemic system, symbols (totems) are linked by a coherent but arbritrary logic (animals have hundreds of potential attributes but only one or two are selected tomake the sign fit into a tight, coherent system). The logical system is built of components that everyone understands and that are presented in myth. We can see the same tendancy in early ads, where Pepsi tries to distinguish itself from its rival but still identifies with the wider semiotic field (through cursive writing and young beautiful women) that both share. With branding, the two can afford to diverge because the symbol field attached to each product is arbitrary. From publicity to branding for Pepsi Cola When the 19th century working classes emerged into the middle classes of the 20th, the consumer was born. Whatever the label, these people have some access to the symbols of power but relatively little political power except by weight of numbers. Classic ads promise to reinforce individual power, especially centred on the body and corporality: Coke quenches your thirst, Chanel makes you more seductive. Classic advertising may have become more subtle over the years, but it is still linked to the body: drink Coke and stay young forever. Left, a classic (and real) ad for Britney Spears perfume, which appeals to young woman who identify with Britneys relatively tame sexuality. On the right, a (ficitve) branded interpretation of the same perfume. Here, the distance between the two sign sets is created by the opposing semantic valences of each: the man (David Bowie, from the 1983 video of China Girl) is selling classic masculine sexual domination, while the perfume is supposed to enhance a womans seductive power. Even if the branded ad is less overtly sexual than the original, it is more effective because it the image of (potential) male domination invites young women to oppose male power with their own. In the classic ad, male power is implied and not explicitly depicted, while in the second male power is revealed: it is not an innate biological quality but depends on the use of naked force.: the emperor has no clothes The projected narratives will reinforce female power much more: the enemy (male domination) is a straw man. Classic advertising versus branding Ironic messages Artist Mel Ramos (below) paints images that a 3rd (ironic) step in the evolution of greater distance from symbol to object. Unlike the 1st (which talked about the product), and the 2 nd (which seperated the image from the product: branding), the 3rd phase is a wink to the consumer-spectator by referencing the medium as the message: it sends a message that could not exist without the pre-existing publicity field. The subtext is that the message has shifted from real-world content to an imaginary world, with different rules: metonymy displaces metaphor. Mel Ramos, Doublemint twins, 2005 Le branding russi, qui amne limage le fantasme masculin dun rapport trois avec de jumelles; droite, The Candy With the Hole in the Middle, slogan de la marque LifeSavers. Les 2 images de Ramos jouent avec la marque et la transforme en brand avec les champs mtonymiques attachs au sexe. Publicit des annes 1970 pour la gomme mastiquer Doublemint Mel Ramos, Five Flavor Fannie, 2005 bf1e1549-1b aa6e-dd Sushirony: food is transformed into a vector of subtext, with references to pop culture: distance seperating sign and object is not only increased, it becomes ambguous. Third reading: is this an art exhibit or real food? Some insist that branding is an attempt to humanise (anthropomorphise?) a product to narrow the gap between product and consumer. Others (eg. The various authors of Brand Identity Now! ;Taschen, Cologne, 2009) see it as the projection of a visual representation of one product onto other products. For example, using the same typeface in all communications, or harmonising the design of hotel bedrooms and the bathrooms on the ground floor to communicate the identity of the hotel. Here, high end designers venture into the luxury chocolate field. he/article_large/2010/10/16/designer-cafes-Bulgarichocolates1-m.jpg /imagecache/400x267/2010/10/16/designer -cafes-chanel-i3.jpg Chocolats Bulgari Bonbons Chanel ploads/2010/03/dove-chocolate.jpgcrdFq6k/TJdc5B74L0I/AAAAAAAAATE/Ow4jGkRGNJ0/s1600/Dove_Logo.jpg Left, two brands. They are unrelated. The chocolate maker started up in 1956, the soap brand was registered in The first is American, the second Anglo-Dutch. However, the Mars Company (which now owns Dove chocolates) started a very intensive ad campaign at the same time the Unilever launched (2006) its famous series, Dove Self- Esteem. My interpretation is more radical: by cancelling obvious references to the product and by attaching distant substitutes, especially for objects that are not consumables as such (eg, branded toilets), brands increase the distance between object and sign, and trasnform the metaphoric link into a metonym. The space defines a space where narratives are projected: the object becomes a polysemic sign (see J.N. Kapferer, Strategic Brand Management: New Approaches to Evaluating Brand Equity, 1992, who argues that brands are a reflection of the public facade (the persona, technically) that a person sishes to project: people dont wear Nikes because they are comfortable or because they are cool aesthetic objects, but only because their branding is visible). The brand, in this view, is a pure aesthetic sign that is totally controlled by the consumer. Branding transforms the consumer of a good into a manager of signs.nsuminginterests/blog/apple-logo1.jpg Brands allow the social signscape to be totally ritualised, where the Self can act because it is surrounded by signs that are stipped of their semantic references. Brands are hence the building blocks of popular culture. They allow people to launch an unending process of recycling, reinterpretation and self-reference.The original Mickey Mouse Club in the 1950s. Right, the updated cversion from the 1990s, with Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Ryan Gosling and Justin Timberlake. /archive/00786/mickey-mouse_786699i.jpg2009/09/full20metal20jacket20g.jpg Final scene of Stanley Kubricks Full Metal Jacket (1987). The platoon walks towards another useless battle singing the theme from the mickey Mouse Club: : Whos the leader of the Club thats made for you and me? M-I-C, K-E-Y, M-O-U-S-E./ss/06/09http://images.businessweek.com /ss/06/09/popular_toys/image/mouse _ears.jpg Brands are powerful semiotic motors because they strip the sign system of objects of their semantic content and transform them into elementary semiotic particles with which the individual can build virtually any sign system he or she desires. Brands become a source of reinforcement for fragile Selfs adrift in porous communities. Brands are powerful sources of semiopower.[cliquez] Branding works for images and for real products. Even a relatively unimportant brand such as Alvin and the Chipmunks made 500m dollars for its producers. Transformers, Lord of the Rings, Jaws, Back to the Future, James Bond, Harry Potter, Pirates of the Caribbean, Star Wars all produced branded sequels that made billions for Hollywood, which today controls 60% of world film revenues. 1)Brands are established by repetition: repetition over time in fact creates a timeless product. 2)Brands are easily vectored by multimedia; its generic, metonymic signs allows easy transitions from one medium to another (film creates toy spinoffs). 3)Branded products are established by advertising, ad budgets often are greater than production costs (see YdzX5I/AAAAAAAAAh4/emwPHe5BDLo/s160 0/james-bond.jpg From Bond, James Bond to Shaken, not stirred . To Austin Powers, to an Austin Powers constume. Brands are so divorced of content that they can easily become parodies and fuel the creation of ironic subtexts.imdb.com/images/M/MV5BMTU4MTY0NTk1MF5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcontent/uploads/2011/05/Austin-Powers- Costumes.jpg It includes typical English teeth, which was a meme in the movies. Recycling In 1986 Arjun Appadurai (The Social Life of Things) described the circulation ( diversion ) of objects from one domain to another. When objects circulate, so do their sign systems. I would add that recycling an object from one sign-system to another increases the distance between the object and its original or primary sign system. This has the same effect as irony: by taking an object and its signs out of one domain and placing into another (e.g., like upper middle class hipsters do with grunge clothes), people signal that they master two sign systems, the original and the new. When someone decorates their urban loft with industrial tools, they signal their mastery of these two sign systems, and something more: tools have a special significance of submission to the assembly line, of building things for someone else. This design decision is is a potent political message of individuality and rebellion in a capitalist system.Decorative sheep, without the smell C. Dionne, S. Mariniello, W. Moser (eds.), Recyclages. conomies de lappropriation culturelle, Recycling or referencing an original creates a subtext, which can criticise or even subvert the overt meaning attached to the sign system. Postmodern texts especially are full of allusions, citations, referencing and intertextuality (when a text is interpreted using the filter of the text it is referencing; see Umberto Eco, Innovation and Repetition: Between Modern and Post- Modern Aesthetics , Daedalus 114(4):161-84)). The meaning of a text is no longer constrained by the words but emerges from the act of reading.work_orange.jpg (see Julia Kristeva, Semeiotik. Recherches pour une smanalyse, 1969). Neither Eco nor Kristeva consider that the enrichment of a text by including references heightens agency and individuality. When you have a lot to say, sometimes the best act of creativity is not to innovate but recycle: remove a sign system from one context to add new meanings. Subtextual recycling Recycling is enabled by branding: the Live From CNN changes this ridiculous image into a serious parody and commentary on how allegedly world news is also local propaganda. This can only achieved by irony. People work the gap between two domains to reinforce the Self and create a new virtual community. Unfortunately for them, this mini society is limited to the number of people who can code-switch (which explains the Hipster and Millenial with Retro and Nostalgia). Its a lonely world. Branding Ironie Recyclage Ambiguit = +Smiopouvoir Recycling and the statusquoRecycling the The Selfish Gene, avec Banana Man (Dancing Banana; 2001), Rick Astley ( Rickroll ; Never gonna give you up , 1987) and Moarcat (2006; a version of Lolcat who utters Catspeak [ I can haz cheezburgers? , as if a cat had sat on a keyboard]); from 4chan/b/. Pop culture is sometimes seen as subversive because it allegedly allows people to ignore the ideological restrictions that are vectored by the technologies of hegemony. People can rework signs according to their own creativity. Nonetheless, there is a political economy of recycling that reproduces the status quo: images are never recycled without being reworked. This varies according to the quantity of high culture baggage each erson carries or to which they have access: recycling and pop culture reproduces the idea of generational hierarchy, which references all forms of hierarchy. Edvard Munch, The Scream, 1893, an icon of psychic pain Stencil-art, Europe de lEst, 2007 Original Right, a meme from 4chan/b/, after a policeman gassed some protesters of the Occupy movement in San Francisco on The meme appeared on , Lots of parodies here:on?page=gallery&cid=85 ouon?page=gallery&cid= /12-parodies-of-edvard- munchs-the-screamhttp://www.pophangover.com/13 799/12-parodies-of-edvard- munchs-the-scream/ A meme has 3 traits: its underlying image is well-known; it is relatively old; it transforms the original images semantic content into a metonym.src/ jpgtoragev12/650500/ _c63d_625x625.jpgb/ s.jpg Left, the feels meme from 4chan. How memes are created according to Anonymous (of Occupy fame) from 4Chan ( ): they arise on the site and are diffused through social networks. This is illustrated by another meme made famous by a film that no one has seen but that became an internet sensation, The Human Centipede, Tom Mix, n-centipede-discipline.jpg Pour crer vos propres memes: 4chan asks: Which meme are you? The answer is ironic, because it depends not on choice but on the last two digits of a bloggers identifier, chosen at random by a computer: people dont choose their meme but are chosen by the meme. The bloggers creativity is not how they memefy themselves byt how they use the free-floating signifier to signify their thoughts by attaching their meme to other memes. The original meme-brand: Andy Warhols iconic Campbells Soup Can (1962) Here, branding launches both irony and recycling because the real reference is how the anonymity of mass production becomes the anonymity of mass consumption and hence the anonymity of the mass Self (at least, thats how Warhol saw it). a af6bd998.jpg Jump to the 2014 exhibit by Lindsey Wohlman, ''Warhol Soup Cans Naked & Unlabeled'', Kickstarter.com ( ). After more than 50 years, Warhols ironic commentary is so well-known as an art object that it can be ironically recycled: time has increased the distance seperating signifier and signified, between banal object and iconic art statement instant metonymy. contenhttp://www.supertouchart.com/wp- content/uploads/2008/06/life-is-beaut iful-brainwash-4.jpg Perhaps the most well-known example of recycling in contemporary pop culture is Mr Brainwash (MBW), Thierry Guetta (a French immigrant to Los Angeles; another form of recycling), whose public identity, art and persona could be ironic creations by Banksy, the famous though anonymous street artist (see Exit Through the Gift Shop [click], 2010). Mr Brainwash seems to have no talent, nuance or creativity. However, he has become just as famous as Banksy, but as an example of recycling another persons work. It used to be called stealing.Exit Through the Gift Shop Michael Jackson, filtered by MBW though Andy Warhols iconic omage of Marilyn Monroe (1962), which itself is based on a 1952 photo. ploads/2010/02/MrBrainwashMadonna.jpg Madonna-Marilyn WarholAndy Monroe-Warhol m/production/451085/ /fi les/2009/07/mr-brainwash-marily n-warhol.jpg Mr Spock Monroe-Warhol om/Images/mm_01.jpg Marilyn-Marilyn Manson-Warhol MBW Warhol In 2009, to mark Barbies 50th birthday, French artist Jocelyne Grivaud (http://www.barbiemamuse.com/barbie_pourquoi.php) created a site dedicated to recycling this pop icon.http://www.barbiemamuse.com/barbie_pourquoi.php Barbie Vermeer (her name is unknown, but painted by Johannes Vermeer, c.1665) Barbie Warhol /foto/icone_del_pop_nei_classici_simpson_e_darth_v ader_nell_arte /1/?ref=HRESS-22#1 David Barton (a.k.a. Limpfish, except for the image of Lenny Van Gogh; unknown artist) recycles The Simpsons: as Van Gogh (self portrait, 1889), as Salvador Dali (photographed by Philippe Halsman, 1954) and as Vermeer (1665). Willie Van Gogh and his cousin Lenny Van Gogh), Apu Dali ( Thank you. Come again! ), Marg Vermeer. In contrast, the image of Homer Simpson as Rembrandt (Self portrait, 1657) doesnt work as recycling because there not enough copies of the original in circulation to allow people to see this Limpfish product as recycled (except for art historians and other culture snobs). Homer van Rijn isnt ironic since, with no reference to an original, there is no opportunity to exercise individual semiopower; the spectator cant deploy two codes, text and subtext. Yes, the image looks funny, since we recognise Homer in an unusual setting (see Henri Bergson on humour, or Mary Douglas on impurity: matter out of place ). Marg Vermeer (previous page) works since the recent film with Scarlett Johannson put the original in circulation, allowing parody to become irony. Without the pop culture version, there would be no subsequent recycling. Parody, irony or recycling? This 1960s ad seems ironic when it appears on nostalgia sites. But its fake: a parody, but so is its critique: Tee-hee! The pants are extra-reinforced in the crotch, which is called THE ACTION ZONE! This could be placed unironically in a mainstream magazine ad because crotch jokes were not invented until 1974! Yeah, not so much. The image itself was a 2010 parody published on the blog How to be a Dapper Gent, adapted from a real vintage ad that ran in Esquire sometime in the 60s. (http://consumerist.com/2014/01/23/no- that-sansabelt-action-pants-ad-you-saw-on- facebook-is-not-real/, )a 2010 parody published on the blog How to be a Dapper Genthttp://consumerist.com/2014/01/23/no- that-sansabelt-action-pants-ad-you-saw-on- facebook-is-not-real/ John Ueland (a.k.a. Link Worthington III, Esq), is the creator of this ironic site dedicated to the 1960s says the ad is fake, but others say its real: https://www.pinterest.com/widgeywo o/ads-you-ll-never-see-again-i-can-t- believe-they-go/, ). Its fake: the original doesnt have the snack pack and action zone reference. https://www.pinterest.com/widgeywo o/ads-you-ll-never-see-again-i-can-t- believe-they-go/ /commons/e/e9/A_Trip_to_the_Moon_poster.jpgcuts/man-in-the-moon_288x288.jpg A French avant-garde film from 1902 by the Mlis brothers, Le voyage dans la lune, based on Jules Verne From the Earth to the Moon (1865) and H.G. Wells First men on the moon (1901) popularised this image of the moon landing. On the right, Futuramas Bender strikes Crater Face, a security agent who works in a lunar amusemant park, with a bottle the agent tried to confiscate (The Series has Landed, episode 8, year 1, 4 April 1999). Here, the recycling is doubly potent, because the original image has been forgotten except by film buffs, yet people suspect something is recycled: its too elaborate not to be a reference. This is an example of the semiotic simplification typical of pop culture, where an erudite reference is uprooted, stripped of its reference to high culture, and recycled.commons/f/f7/Le_Voyage_dans_la_lune_2.jpg[cliquez] In December 2010 Burger King (Home of the Whopper) introduces a new spicy product the Whiplash Whopper. The ad is called Whiplash Whopper Paralegal (click). A client gives his lawyer the hamburger. The lawyer, who is Afro-American, talks in an excited manner, exactly like Jackie Chiles does in Seinfeld when he represents Kramer against a luxury coffee chain (a parody of Starbucks). The fictional lawyer loses it when he hears the name of the product, the whiplash. This is a shot for shot copy of the Seinfeld scene when Chiles represents Kramer. The Seinfeld original was itself a reference to a real 1994 case against McDonalds, which led to chain to put warning labels on its cups. Multiple recycling alert: Chiles is based on Johnny Cochrane, who represented O.J. Simpson in The Trial of the Century in 1995.Whiplash Whopper Paralegal icles/news/ /burgerking.body_lead.jpg s/2010/11/Seinfeld_Jackie-Chiles.jpg The Seinfeld episode is broadcast only weeks after the end of the spectacular trial when Cochrane challenges the prosecution to place a blood- soaked glove left at the murder scene of Nicole Simpson: If it doesnt fit, you must acquit. Cochrane also represented Michael Jackson in 1993 against his first round of accusations of pedophilia. s.com/index.htg/00004/cochran.jpg Chiles Cochrane En 1998, Cochrane also appears in Chef Aid in South Park. He challenges with the Chewbacca defense (Chewbacca defense).Chewbacca defense ge/chewbaccadefense.jpg?__SQUARES PACE_CACHEVERSION= Hitler Chic Nazisms normal associations are totally decontextualised. On the left, neo-Nazis cannot master irony, since without the uniforms their pathetic performance becomes an inadvertent parody. Recycling is not copying.Pokemon Hitlerult/files/imagecache/inline_imag e_240x240/2012/02/14/nazi_chic _promo_0.jpg John Galliano Hitler; the designer was fired from the House of Dior for his antisemitic comments in psnqMBcTKd8/TgJulM5QeLI/AAAAAAAACaQ/8 PXuiIL8EZM/s1600/John+Galliano+I+Love+Hitler +Humor+Chic+by+aleXsandro+Palombo.jpghe/inline_image_300x400/2012/02/14/hitler_shirt_ 1.jpg Critics blame it on ignorancenngo.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/inlin Ronald McHitler, Bangkok Hugo Hitler; Boss made uniforms for NazisFdO2wc/Tn31HX8QkVI/AAAAAAAACp o/0hFk- 86X94Q/s1600/Adolf+Hitler+I+Love+Na zi+Hugo+Boss+Humor+Chic+by+aleXsan dro+Palombo.jpg The Producers (1968) by Mel Brooks is one of the first pop culture references to Hitler. He got away with it, according to the popular press at the time, because Brooks is Jewish: he owns the Jewish version of the N-word.cers68_de_imgs/producers68_de_02.jpg Right, Ilsa She Wolf of the SS (1975), which used Nazi culture as an excuse to present spicy shots of a female dominatrix. Not the first, but it became a cult classic. Ilsa was inspired by the Tough Women in Prison genre of the late 1950s and 1960s (the female equivalent of the Hard Boiled Dick, Phillip Marlowe, Sam Spade, Mike Hammer). Kommandant Ilsa is based on Ilsa Koch, the sadistic and sadly real wife of Buchenwalds commandant, but it was the urban gay subculture who adopted her (the hypersexual Ilsa tortures straight men, an ironic critique by proxy). These recycled images appeared on 4chan /b/ two days after Osama bin Laden was killed on 2 May 2011 (http://boards.4chan.org/b/res/ ). References are recent and historic.http://boards.4chan.org/b/res/ Albert Einstein, 1950s Frank Zappa, 1970s Bob Ross, 1980s Borat, 2000 Charlie Manson, 1960s Che Guevara, 1960s Josef Fritzl, 2008 Chris Hansen, 2000 Dr. House, 2000s Hulk Hogan, 1980s Captain Picard, 1990sDumb and dumber, 1994 Larry King, 1990s Mr Sulu, 1960sThe Shining, 1980 Orson Welles, 1970s Rambo, 1982 Terminator, 1984 Mr Bean, 1990 Steve McQueen, 1970s Yoda, 1980 Mr Worf, 1987 Super Mario, 1983 Spiderman, 1962 Abbey Road, 1969 Birth of Adam,Michelangelo, 1511 These memes appeared on 4chan /b/ (http://boards.4chan.org/b/res/ , ) only one day after the San Francisco policeman gassed Occupy protesters on http://boards.4chan.org/b/res/ Iwo Jima, 1945 Vietnam, 1968 The Wizard of Oz, 1939 John and Yoko, Montral, 1969 The Last Supper, 1490 Sometimes memes go nowhere. In August 2012, an elderly women restored this fresco without permission. The portait, titled Ecce homo was renamed Ecce mono , heres the monkey in Spanish. There was an immediate reaction, but 4chan, Tumbler and Reddit bloggers did not pick it up (though they did reproduce it). It attained meme status only in Spain. Despite its Spanish limits, this meme recycled international images. These parodies appeared in El Pais (Barcelone), 7 September 2012 after a spontaneous initiative by a collective named Wallpeople (http://cultura.elpais.com/cultura/2012/09/07/actualida d/ _ html, ). Note that the Spaniards recycled pop culture icons.http://cultura.elpais.com/cultura/2012/09/07/actualida d/ _ html Douchebag irony: when a person sabotages another persons attempt to be ironic by not recognising the subtext and its ironic references.img/comics/irony/6.png The new creativity You wont see these at the Grammys or Peoples Choice, or MTV awards, becaaause they dont exist! This was an experiment, or a challenge, run on 4chan /b/ (random) (http://boards.4chan.org/b/; ).http://boards.4chan.org/b/ Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullocks_to_Stan [click]; ), referencing in an episode of American Dad chosen at random (Season 1, episode ; figures in parentheses are the age of the reference)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullocks_to_Stan Cultural references One of the stalls at the CIA fair holds the game "WMD Hunt". This is a reference to the hunt for WMDs in Iraq, a main justification for the 2003 Invasion of Iraq and the perceived unfairness of carnival games. No contestant is able to find a WMD. (3)hunt for WMDs in Iraq 2003 Invasion of Iraqperceived unfairness of carnival games Dick's quote "I got the stapler!" is a subtle joke: Dick is voiced by actor Stephen Root, who played Milton in the movie Office Space, a character who is obsessed about his missing stapler. (6)Stephen RootOffice Space When Stan, Francine, and Roger are folding napkins into swans Roger makes a man and explains that it is "Metrosexual soccer icon David Beckham; I can't do swans - I don't know why". (5)StanFrancineRogerMetrosexualsoccerDavid Beckham Stan refers to Hayley as "Squeaky Fromme". This is a reference to Lynette Fromme, former member of the Charles Manson "family" who attempted to assassinate President Gerald Ford in September (30)Lynette FrommeCharles MansonGerald Ford The scene where Stan is trying to make Jeff more assertive by telling him a banana is an apple is a reference to the Red Dwarf episode "Camille", when Lister tries to teach Kryten to lie. It is also reminiscent of the famous 2+2 = 5 torture scene in George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, and the Cardassian torture scene from Star Trek: The Next Generation. (14)Red DwarfGeorge OrwellNineteen Eighty-FourStar Trek: The Next Generation The scene where Stan and Bullock are trying to hunt Jeff is a reference to the story The Most Dangerous Game. (81)The Most Dangerous Game The name and logo of the TV network where Bullock is about to announce Stan's promotion is C-Spin, a spoof off of the real network C- Span, including a portmanteau with spin. (0)C- Spanspin The lyrics sung by Bullock ("I love little girls...") and Hayley's ringtone when she calls Bullock are from the Oingo Boingo song "Little Girls." (25)Oingo Boingo Stan asks Jeff if they are familiar with a TV show Fear Factor, and asks him to take a ride with Joe Rogan. (4)Fear FactorJoe Rogan At the cleaners, Stan is seen murmuring the song "Africa" by 1980s stadium rockers Toto, changing the famous "I bless the rains down in Africa" line to "I crash the planes down in Africa." (23)StanAfricaToto When Jeff offers to perform "a blistering flute solo", this is a reference to hard rock band Jethro Tull, whose lead singer, Ian Anderson is known for playing a flute. (33)Jethro TullIan Anderson The song Roger is listening to when Steve arrives is "Sous le ciel de Paris", sung by Edith Piaf. (54) Edith Piaf When Stan has his dream about killing Bullock, the killing of the passer-by is parodying Fargo, or possibly Mulholland Drive. Additionally, the blind man witnessing the bystander's murder (who in turn witnessed Bullock's murder) is a possible reference to the Twilight Zone episode Love Is Blind. (9)FargoMulholland DriveTwilight ZoneLove Is Blind The song at the end of the episode is Don't Dream It's Over by Crowded House. (15)Don't Dream It's OverCrowded House erican_dad.jpg American Dad (2005): Seth McFarlane, 1973 (30) Mike Barker, 1968 (37) Matt Weitzman, 1967 (38) Robot Chicken (2005): Seth Green, 1974 (31) Mathew Senreich, 1974 (31) Mike Fasolo, 1969 (36) Family Guy (2002): Seth McFarlane, 1973 (25) Simpsons (1987): Matt Groening, 1954 (33) South Park (1997): Matt Stone, 1971 (26) Trey Parker, 1969 (28) Moral Orel (2005): Dino Stamatopoulos, 1964 (41) Metalocalypse (2006): Brendan Small, 1975 (31) Tommy Blacha, 1962 (44) Futurama (1999): Matt Groening, 1954 (45) David X. Cohen, 1966 (33) If we omit the literary reference (which is not pop culture as such) and the reference to Edith Piaf (for the same reason), the average of the reference is 14 years. The average of the producers of the shows on the left is 31 years old at the time they launched their shows. They are young. I doubt these references are nostalgia for when they were 17 (31-14). This means they studied pop culture, that recycling is a conscious narrative and a semiotic strategy.Moral Orel I sell propane and propane accessories , Hank Hill, King of the Hill: Like Seinfeld characters are given complex back stories to generate material for recycling and referencing. Being more intellectually secure than me, my wife can watch truly lowbrow television programmes without any embarrassment: Wife Swap, Embarrassing Bodies, Too Fat for 15 You name it, she can handle it, and apparently enjoy it, without even having to pretend her interest is ironic. Nigel Farndale, The Telegraph, Frederic Jameson, in Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism (Durham, 1991), has suggested that the postmodern condition is dominated by what he calls pastiche, which emerges from a crisis in historicity. This, however, confuses irony with imitation. Jameson criticises recycling (my term, not his)and sees contemporary culture as basically the negative result of confusion and chaos when large- scale historical narratives no longer frame events (again these are my words, not his; I am using J-F Lyotards vocabulary). Imitation without respecting the original source (this time, this is his word) leads to parody, and this makes no sense, says Jameson. It is a humourless dead language (dead format; again this Jameson writing). While it is true that Jameson accurately describes postmodern condition has no normative framework that acts as a structural (and, says Jameson, hegemonic) underpinning designed to make people receptive to the subtextual rationality of historical texts, he fails to see how irony and recycling reinforce agency. He still believes that the current crisis in history (people no longer accept it wholeheartedly) has bien destabilised people (a Cartesian argument). He and others also fail to see that the rational framework behind historical texts can easily be projected onto other, non empirical domains such as religious ideology, but thats another story. Discussion: parody, pastiche, recycling, irony and the power of the active subject or Is the culture going to hell?