Download or read book She Memes Well written by Quinta Brunson and published by Mariner Books. This book was released on 2021 with total page 317 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From comedian Quinta Brunson comes a deeply personal and funny collection of essays featuring anecdotes about trying to make it when you're broke, overcoming self-doubt and depression, and how she's used humor to navigate her career in unusual directions. Quinta Brunson is a master of viral Internet content: without any traditional background in media, her humorous videos were the first to break through on Instagram's platform, receiving millions of views. From there, Brunson's wryly observant POV attracted the attention of BuzzFeed's motion picture development department, leading her to produce viral videos there about topics like interracial dating, millennial malaise, and seeing your ex in public. Now, Brunson is bringing her comedic chops to the page in She Memes Well, an earnest, laugh-out-loud collection about her weird road to Internet notoriety. In her debut essay collection, Quinta applies her trademark humor and heart to discuss what it was like to go from student loan debt-broke to "halfway recognizable--'don't I know you somewhere?'" level-of-fame. With anecdotes that range from the funny and zany--like her experience trying to find her signature hairstyle--to more grounded material about living with depression, Brunson's voice is entirely authentic and eminently readable. Perfect for fans of Phoebe Robinson's You Can't Touch My Hair, Samantha Irby's We Are Never Meeting in Real Life, and Issa Rae's The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl, She Memes Well will charm and entertain a growing, engaged audience.
Download or read book Memes in Digital Culture written by Limor Shifman and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2013-10-04 with total page 211 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Taking “Gangnam Style” seriously: what Internet memes can tell us about digital culture. In December 2012, the exuberant video “Gangnam Style” became the first YouTube clip to be viewed more than one billion times. Thousands of its viewers responded by creating and posting their own variations of the video—“Mitt Romney Style,” “NASA Johnson Style,” “Egyptian Style,” and many others. “Gangnam Style” (and its attendant parodies, imitations, and derivations) is one of the most famous examples of an Internet meme: a piece of digital content that spreads quickly around the web in various iterations and becomes a shared cultural experience. In this book, Limor Shifman investigates Internet memes and what they tell us about digital culture. Shifman discusses a series of well-known Internet memes—including “Leave Britney Alone,” the pepper-spraying cop, LOLCats, Scumbag Steve, and Occupy Wall Street's “We Are the 99 Percent.” She offers a novel definition of Internet memes: digital content units with common characteristics, created with awareness of each other, and circulated, imitated, and transformed via the Internet by many users. She differentiates memes from virals; analyzes what makes memes and virals successful; describes popular meme genres; discusses memes as new modes of political participation in democratic and nondemocratic regimes; and examines memes as agents of globalization. Memes, Shifman argues, encapsulate some of the most fundamental aspects of the Internet in general and of the participatory Web 2.0 culture in particular. Internet memes may be entertaining, but in this book Limor Shifman makes a compelling argument for taking them seriously.
Download or read book Survival of the Thickest written by Michelle Buteau and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2022-02 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: *Soon to be a comedy series on Netflix!* From the stand-up comedian, actress, and host beloved for her cheeky swagger, unique voice, and unapologetic frankness comes a book of “zesty and hilarious” (Publishers Weekly) essays for fans of Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me by Mindy Kaling and We’re Going to Need More Wine by Gabrielle Union. If you’ve watched television or movies in the past couple of years, you’ve seen Michelle Buteau. With scene-stealing roles in Always Be My Maybe, First Wives Club, Someone Great, Russian Doll, and Tales of the City; a reality TV show and breakthrough stand-up specials, including her headlining show Welcome to Buteaupia on Netflix; and two podcasts (Late Night Whenever and Adulting), Michelle’s star is on the rise. You’d be forgiven for thinking the road to success—or adulthood or financial stability or self-acceptance or marriage or motherhood—has been easy, but you’d be wrong. Now, in Survival of the Thickest, Michelle reflects on growing up Caribbean, Catholic, and thick in New Jersey, going to college in Miami (where everyone smells like pineapple), her many friendship and dating disasters, working as a newsroom editor during 9/11, getting started in stand-up opening for male strippers, marrying into her husband’s Dutch family, IVF and surrogacy, motherhood, chosen family, and what it feels like to have a full heart, tight jeans, and stardom finally in her grasp.
Download or read book The Meme Machine written by Susan Blackmore and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2000-03-16 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Humans are extraordinary creatures, with the unique ability among animals to imitate and so copy from one another ideas, habits, skills, behaviours, inventions, songs, and stories. These are all memes, a term first coined by Richard Dawkins in 1976 in his book The Selfish Gene. Memes, like genes, are replicators, and this enthralling book is an investigation of whether this link between genes and memes can lead to important discoveries about the nature of the inner self. Confronting the deepest questions about our inner selves, with all our emotions, memories, beliefs, and decisions, Susan Blackmore makes a compelling case for the theory that the inner self is merely an illusion created by the memes for the sake of replication.
Download or read book The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl written by Issa Rae and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2016-07-12 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An introvert braves the cybersex, the pitfalls of eating out alone, the difficulties of weight gain, and other hurdles faced by shy people living in a world that urges us to be cool as "J" humorously recounts her life in all its awkward glory.
Download or read book Well That Escalated Quickly written by Franchesca Ramsey and published by Grand Central Publishing. This book was released on 2018-05-22 with total page 243 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A sharp and timely exploration of race, online activism, and real communication in the age of social media rants, trolls, and call-out wars, from veteran video blogger and star of MTV's Decoded Franchesca Ramsey. Franchesca Ramsey didn't set out to be an activist. Or a comedian. Or a commentator on identity, race, and culture, really. But then her YouTube video "What White Girls Say . . . to Black Girls" went viral. Twelve million views viral. Faced with an avalanche of media requests, fan letters, and hate mail, she had two choices: Jump in and make her voice heard or step back and let others frame the conversation. After a crash course in social justice and more than a few foot-in-mouth moments, she realized she had a unique talent and passion for breaking down injustice in America in ways that could make people listen and engage. In her first book, Ramsey uses her own experiences as an accidental activist to explore the many ways we communicate with each other--from the highs of bridging gaps and making connections to the many pitfalls that accompany talking about race, power, sexuality, and gender in an unpredictable public space...the internet. Well, that Escalated Quickly includes Ramsey's advice on dealing with internet trolls and low-key racists, confessions about being a former online hater herself, and her personal hits and misses in activist debates with everyone from bigoted Facebook friends and misguided relatives to mainstream celebrities and YouTube influencers. With sharp humor and her trademark candor, Ramsey shows readers we can have tough conversations that move the dialogue forward, rather than backward, if we just approach them in the right way.
Download or read book I Don t Belong to You written by Keke Palmer and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2017-01-31 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The "singer and actress in Scream Queens, Akeelah and the Bee, and Grease: Live, writes a ... guide for young women, with color illustrations throughout, on such topics as identity, anxiety, peer pressure, and body image ... and encourages them towards greater confidence and freedom"--
Download or read book Memes to Movements written by An Xiao Mina and published by Beacon Press. This book was released on 2019-01-08 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A global exploration of internet memes as agents of pop culture, politics, protest, and propaganda on- and offline, and how they will save or destroy us all. Memes are the street art of the social web. Using social media–driven movements as her guide, technologist and digital media scholar An Xiao Mina unpacks the mechanics of memes and how they operate to reinforce, amplify, and shape today’s politics. She finds that the “silly” stuff of meme culture—the photo remixes, the selfies, the YouTube songs, and the pun-tastic hashtags—are fundamentally intertwined with how we find and affirm one another, direct attention to human rights and social justice issues, build narratives, and make culture. Mina finds parallels, for example, between a photo of Black Lives Matter protestors in Ferguson, Missouri, raising their hands in a gesture of resistance and one from eight thousand miles away, in Hong Kong, of Umbrella Movement activists raising yellow umbrellas as they fight for voting rights. She shows how a viral video of then presidential nominee Donald Trump laid the groundwork for pink pussyhats, a meme come to life as the widely recognized symbol for the international Women’s March. Crucially, Mina reveals how, in parts of the world where public dissent is downright dangerous, memes can belie contentious political opinions that would incur drastic consequences if expressed outright. Activists in China evade censorship by critiquing their government with grass mud horse pictures online. Meanwhile, governments and hate groups are also beginning to utilize memes to spread propaganda, xenophobia, and misinformation. Botnets and state-sponsored agents spread them to confuse and distract internet communities. On the long, winding road from innocuous cat photos, internet memes have become a central practice for political contention and civic engagement. Memes to Movements unveils the transformative power of memes, for better and for worse. At a time when our movements are growing more complex and open-ended—when governments are learning to wield the internet as effectively as protestors—Mina brings a fresh and sharply innovative take to the media discourse.
Download or read book The Millennial Mentality written by Elan M Carson and published by Elan Carson. This book was released on 2016-02-10 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Millennials have heard all of the cultural criticisms and backlash; we are bemoaned a generation of entitlement and nicknamed monikers such as Gen Why?, Internet Generation, MyPod Generation, and the Boomerang Generation. As a Millennial, I can tell you that yes, our value systems have changed, our beliefs have expanded to be more inclusive, and our career goals have shifted to prioritize happiness and self-fulfillment over workplace cubicles in gray-scale offices. We may not be homeowners with 2.5 children grasping mid-rung on a corporate ladder, but we are cat owners and we are adaptable to change, creatively crowdfunding ways to support our projects and goals. In this book learn about the mentality of Millennials and where we stand when it comes to racism, LGBT+ rights, body image, and other divisive issues all while surviving as delayed adults.
Download or read book Mind over Memes written by Diana Senechal and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2018-10-15 with total page 198 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Too often our use of language has become lazy, frivolous, and even counterproductive. We rely on clichés and bromides to communicate in such a way that our intentions are lost or misinterpreted. In a culture of “takeaways” and buzzwords, it requires study and cunning to keep language alive. In Mind over Memes: Passive Listening,Toxic Talk, and Other Modern Language Follies, Diana Senechal examines words, concepts, and phrases that demand reappraisal. Targeting a variety of terms, the author contends that a “good fit” may not always be desirable; delivers a takedown of the adjective “toxic”; and argues that “social justice” must take its place among other justices. This book also includes a critique of our modern emphasis on quick answers and immediate utility. By scrutinizing words and phrases that serve contemporary fads and follies, this book stands up against the excesses of language and offers engaging alternatives. Drawing on literature, philosophy, social sciences, music, and technology, Senechal offers a rich framework to make fresh connections between topics. Combining sharp criticism, lyricism, and wit, Mind over Memes argues for judicious and imaginative speech.
Download or read book Please Don t Sit on My Bed in Your Outside Clothes written by Phoebe Robinson and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2022-06-21 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: THE NATIONAL BESTSELLER, NOW IN PAPERBACK “Another hilarious essay collection from Phoebe Robinson.”—The New York Times Book Review “Strikes the perfect balance of brutally honest and laugh-out-loud funny. I didn’t want it to end.”—Mindy Kaling, New York Times bestselling author of Why Not Me? With sharp, timely insight, pitch-perfect pop culture references, and her always unforgettable voice, New York Times bestselling author, comedian, actress, and producer Phoebe Robinson is back with her most must-read book yet. In her brand-new collection, Phoebe shares stories that will make you laugh, but also plenty that will hit you in the heart and inspire a little bit of rage, and maybe a lot of action. That means revealing her perspective on performative allyship, white guilt, and what happens when white people take up space in cultural movements; exploring what it’s like to be a woman who doesn’t want kids living in a society where motherhood is the crowning achievement of a straight, cis woman’s life; and discussing how the dire state of mental health in America means that taking care of one’s psychological well-being—aka “self-care”—usually requires disposable money. She also shares tales of her mom slowpoking before a visit with Mrs. Obama, the stupidly fake reassurances of zip-line attendants, her favorite things about dating a white person from the UK, and how the lack of Black women in leadership positions fueled her to become the Black lady-boss of her dreams. By turns perceptive, hilarious, and heartfelt, Please Don’t Sit on My Bed in Your Outside Clothes is not only a brilliant look at our current cultural moment, it's also a collection that will stay with readers for years to come.
Download or read book What We Will Become written by Mimi Lemay and published by Mariner Books. This book was released on 2019 with total page 359 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the age of two-and-a-half "Em" adamantly told his family he was a boy. While his mother Mimi struggled to understand and come to terms with the fact that her child may be transgender, the journey to uncover the source of her child's inner turmoil unearthed ghosts from Mimi's past and her own struggle to live an authentic life. Raised in an ultra-Orthodox Jewish family, her role as a woman largely preordained from cradle to grave, Mimi eventually made the painful decision to leave her religious community and the strict gender roles it upheld. Helping her son-- renamed Jacob-- Mimi explains how painful events from the past can be redeemed to give us hope for the future. -- adapted from jacket
Download or read book No One Is Talking About This written by Patricia Lockwood and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2021-02-16 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: FINALIST FOR THE 2021 BOOKER PRIZE & A NEW YORK TIMES TOP 10 BOOK OF 2021 WINNER OF THE DYLAN THOMAS PRIZE “A book that reads like a prose poem, at once sublime, profane, intimate, philosophical, witty and, eventually, deeply moving.” —New York Times Book Review, Editors’ Choice “Wow. I can’t remember the last time I laughed so much reading a book. What an inventive and startling writer…I’m so glad I read this. I really think this book is remarkable.” —David Sedaris From "a formidably gifted writer" (The New York Times Book Review), a book that asks: Is there life after the internet? As this urgent, genre-defying book opens, a woman who has recently been elevated to prominence for her social media posts travels around the world to meet her adoring fans. She is overwhelmed by navigating the new language and etiquette of what she terms "the portal," where she grapples with an unshakable conviction that a vast chorus of voices is now dictating her thoughts. When existential threats--from climate change and economic precariousness to the rise of an unnamed dictator and an epidemic of loneliness--begin to loom, she posts her way deeper into the portal's void. An avalanche of images, details, and references accumulate to form a landscape that is post-sense, post-irony, post-everything. "Are we in hell?" the people of the portal ask themselves. "Are we all just going to keep doing this until we die?" Suddenly, two texts from her mother pierce the fray: "Something has gone wrong," and "How soon can you get here?" As real life and its stakes collide with the increasingly absurd antics of the portal, the woman confronts a world that seems to contain both an abundance of proof that there is goodness, empathy, and justice in the universe, and a deluge of evidence to the contrary. Fragmentary and omniscient, incisive and sincere, No One Is Talking About This is at once a love letter to the endless scroll and a profound, modern meditation on love, language, and human connection from a singular voice in American literature.
Download or read book Hyperbole and a Half written by Allie Brosh and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2013-10-29 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: #1 New York Times Bestseller “Funny and smart as hell” (Bill Gates), Allie Brosh’s Hyperbole and a Half showcases her unique voice, leaping wit, and her ability to capture complex emotions with deceptively simple illustrations. FROM THE PUBLISHER: Every time Allie Brosh posts something new on her hugely popular blog Hyperbole and a Half the internet rejoices. This full-color, beautifully illustrated edition features more than fifty percent new content, with ten never-before-seen essays and one wholly revised and expanded piece as well as classics from the website like, “The God of Cake,” “Dogs Don’t Understand Basic Concepts Like Moving,” and her astonishing, “Adventures in Depression,” and “Depression Part Two,” which have been hailed as some of the most insightful meditations on the disease ever written. Brosh’s debut marks the launch of a major new American humorist who will surely make even the biggest scrooge or snob laugh. We dare you not to. FROM THE AUTHOR: This is a book I wrote. Because I wrote it, I had to figure out what to put on the back cover to explain what it is. I tried to write a long, third-person summary that would imply how great the book is and also sound vaguely authoritative—like maybe someone who isn’t me wrote it—but I soon discovered that I’m not sneaky enough to pull it off convincingly. So I decided to just make a list of things that are in the book: Pictures Words Stories about things that happened to me Stories about things that happened to other people because of me Eight billion dollars* Stories about dogs The secret to eternal happiness* *These are lies. Perhaps I have underestimated my sneakiness!
Download or read book Well This Is Exhausting written by Sophia Benoit and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2021-07-13 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Like so many women, Benoit spent her formative years struggling to do the 'right' thing--to make others comfortable, to take minimal and calculated risks, to live up to society's expectations--only to realize that there was so little payoff to this tiresome balancing act. Now, in [this book], she shares her journey from aspiring good girl to proud feminist, and addresses the constantly shifting goalposts of what exactly it means to be 'good' in today's world. [Includes] topics as varied and laugh-out-loud funny as how to be the life of the party (even when you have crippling anxiety), navigating the disappointments of the dating world, and why no one should judge you for having an encyclopedic knowledge of reality TV stars"--
Download or read book Class What She Does Next Will Astound You written by Patrick Ness and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2018-03-06 with total page 261 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of three thrilling companion novels set in the universe of the new Doctor Who spin-off show, Class, created by #1 New York Times bestselling novelist Patrick Ness, author of The Rest of Us Just Live Here and the Carnegie Medal-winning A Monster Calls. “There’s no such thing as oversharing”…right? Everyone at Coal Hill School has become obsessed with completing exciting dares posted on a strange new website, run by the charismatic vlogger Seraphin. Soon the challenges become more dangerous and competitive, yet even broken arms and fistfights don’t stop the craze for them. And then students start to disappear… As April’s fragile group of friends starts to fracture, she decides she’s going to uncover the truth behind this site herself. Whatever it takes, whomever she hurts, April’s going to win. But then, to her horror, she wakes up and finds her whole world is changed. What she does next will astound you.
Download or read book Because Internet written by Gretchen McCulloch and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2020-07-21 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER!! Named a Best Book of 2019 by TIME, Amazon, and The Washington Post A Wired Must-Read Book of Summer “Gretchen McCulloch is the internet’s favorite linguist, and this book is essential reading. Reading her work is like suddenly being able to see the matrix.” —Jonny Sun, author of everyone's a aliebn when ur a aliebn too Because Internet is for anyone who's ever puzzled over how to punctuate a text message or wondered where memes come from. It's the perfect book for understanding how the internet is changing the English language, why that's a good thing, and what our online interactions reveal about who we are. Language is humanity's most spectacular open-source project, and the internet is making our language change faster and in more interesting ways than ever before. Internet conversations are structured by the shape of our apps and platforms, from the grammar of status updates to the protocols of comments and @replies. Linguistically inventive online communities spread new slang and jargon with dizzying speed. What's more, social media is a vast laboratory of unedited, unfiltered words where we can watch language evolve in real time. Even the most absurd-looking slang has genuine patterns behind it. Internet linguist Gretchen McCulloch explores the deep forces that shape human language and influence the way we communicate with one another. She explains how your first social internet experience influences whether you prefer "LOL" or "lol," why ~sparkly tildes~ succeeded where centuries of proposals for irony punctuation had failed, what emoji have in common with physical gestures, and how the artfully disarrayed language of animal memes like lolcats and doggo made them more likely to spread.
