"Electronic Disturbance" and "Truth is a Virus" (Week 10 Entry 1) 6/06/17

“Electronic Disturbance: An Interview” Ricardo Dominguez “Truth is a Virus: Meme Warfare and the Billionaires for Bush (or Gore)” Andrew Boyd

Electronic Disturbance talks about the power of the internet, like a virus. He also uses examples of how the Zapatista’s used electronic force in 1994. In

Truth is a Virus aside from being the title of the article it also kind of implants a thought. In a way personally this title reminds me of “ignorance is bliss” as well as Inception in which the basic idea in the movie is implanting an idea into one’s head. These two things come together in such a mantra because not only is truth implanted, but it also reminds us that once the truth spreads there really is no going back. Another thing explored, something in this generation is very familiar, are “memes.” I would personally describe memes as images that are often captioned with a different or ironic take on the situation shown in the photo. Obviously at UC Davis a common example of this is the pepper spray meme. When such images meet politics, it becomes equivalent to this 21^st century digital politic cartoon. Boyd uses Billionaires for Bush as an example. As he contemplates their use of memes he talks about the double edge of irony. In a way that’s essentially what makes memes funny. It has that literal sense but also that double entendre, in many cases a subversive implied meaning. He relates this to a virus, that has the outer shell, as well as the inner code that is injected into other cells. To complete the analogy memes have the outer shell which is the visual itself, as well as hidden implied meanings posed through methods such as sarcasm. The way memes can be rapidly spread parallels a virus, and thus this inner code, hidden truth is dispersed. Such as in Sandip Roy’s article, it is also important to acknowledge that the virtual must meet with the real structures of organization to truly be effective. Towards the end Boyd recounts “Truth cannot live on meme alone” and that memes are powerful methods and the truth throughout the years has spread through like viruses, albeit in different shapes and forms.