Session Description
The meme: the direct, often wild small piece of media that can pop up in the strangest ways and in the strangest places.
In this session we will focus on the practical elements of making memes and animated GIFs. We’ll walk through a few tools and techniques that will have you sharing your inspirations with your friends, your students and your social media networks.
While we build, we will also talk a little bit about the social dimension of this form of media. We’ll discuss how memes are playing an arguably out-sized influence on our contemporary discourse, and also consider a few ways memes can go wrong.
Session Agenda
- Let’s share a favourite meme!
- A short history of the meme.
- Make a meme in less than five minutes!
- Making animated GIFs from images or videos. How are GIFs used for instruction? Let’s see if we can make an “explainer GIF”.
- While we work, let’s talk about how memes are deployed in online culture… While fun, memes have been weaponized for propaganda and can perpetuate harmful representation.
- What can we do if we want to go deeper or be more advanced?
Facilitated By:
Brenna Clarke Gray & Brian Lamb
Register for a workshop today!
Try It Yourself!
This short screencast tries to demonstrate one technique from this workshop: how to pull a looping clip from an online video. This particular demo uses the Giphy GIF Maker. This tool is not the most precise option, but it’s easy to learn and lots of fun.
It would be nice if Brian could stop going on about vintage synthesizers. But you gotta admit this introduction to the Mellotron from British Pathé is pretty sweet.
Further Resources
- r/educationalgifs. A frequently updated collection of GIFs that illustrate principles or generally show amazing things.
- Common Craft, “How to Make Explainer GIFs”. If you are a confident PowerPoint user, you might find these techniques especially useful.
- Stephanie (Charlie) Farley, University of Edinburgh, Gif It Up – Create your own Gifs. “This workshop was created to provide an introduction to creating GIFs from openly licensed and public domain, museum, library, and archival materials. Using free and open online tools.”
- Michael Branson Smith, “A History of the GIF”. A collection of links, with many early and influential examples.
- Know Your Meme. A “site that researches and documents Internet memes and viral phenomena.”
- Erinn Wong, “Digital Blackface: How 21st Century Internet Language Reinforces Racism”