Adam N. Walko
Rhetoric of Criticism
The meme to which I have chosen for
this class is the Keanu Reeves meme where he plays as Ted in "Bill
and Ted's excellent Adventure". The reason being is that it is
quite ambiguous and can be recognized in this generation as a very
nostalgic source considering the time frame of the social media people
involved. My primary source is the meme presented here. It
incorporates the "tin foil hat" aspect of the consperacy
theorists but simultaneously adds humor to it.
I believe that the origin of this meme
which is simply a perplexed California looking individual, lays in
the fact that since the beginning of his career and until The Matrix,
Keanu has been tight casted as a West Coast stoner moron with the
catch phrase even included in The Matrix "Woah".
Considering the fact that he is stereotyped as consistently being
fact blasted and "flabbergasted", without even engaging in
reading the context of any of his memes he seems to set the agenda of
"What's going on?" or "That just blew my mind".
There is a constant on all of the
Keanu Reeves memes that is consistent in being "mind blown"
or "Woah". However, he can appeal to every genre of viewer,
and no matter how stupid the context it still appeals to a general
audience. For instance this meme you already associate that he is
either confused or perplexed in whatever you are about to observe it
is still up to the verbiage to corner in on the receiver of that
message. In the first example The correlation of Walter White in
breaking bad is plausible, it is clearly not intended which makes the
meme funny. However if one was to really sit down and think, it would
indeed be a possibility. That would be the low-brow approach to this
meme being as that it would apply to people that watch too much
television. But on the other side, given the second meme there is a
same conspiracy theme associated with the exact same prospective
"idiot" which can be stapled to string theory in which is
by far more complex and beyond provable. This is what brought my
intention to the meme in the first place because I enjoy playful
thought and felt it appropriate to our project.
How can one simple frame in time be
able to send such a diverse message? It is fascinating how someone so
mundane and irrelevant to all of these messages from over a decade
ago can bring forth such dialogue in 2015. Perhaps it's the
Matrix, perhaps it's the goofy face that he's making, most likely
it's the new generation's parents making children watch "Bill and
Ted's Excellent Adventure" in order to learn at least one thing
about our media history. Regardless the application is absolutely ambiguous
and has been embedded as "get ready to have your mind blown".
Of all of the memes I would not necessarily put this in the
category of the "tin foil hat" arena but it's quite close.
It's attracted people's attention on the mere fact that once you see
this you know you're going to question your current knowledge and
will keep you asking for more.
