She Is a Meme Librarian
January 20, 2016
Memes are random bits of Internet culture that come and go faster than the highest DSL speed. There are so many memes out there that it seems impossible to catalog the trends, much less each one. The Independent tells us that Amanda Brennan has made a career out of studying and documenting memes, becoming the world’s first meme librarian: “Meet Tumblr’s ‘Meme Librarian,’ The Woman With The Best Job On The Internet.”
Brennan works at Tumblr and her official title is content and community manager, but she prefers the title “meme librarian.” She earned a Master’s in Information from Rutgers and during graduate school she documented memes for Know Your Meme, followed by Tumblr.
“[In graduate school] immediately I knew I did not want to work in a traditional library. Which is weird because people go to library school and they’re like ‘I want to change the world with books!’ And I was like ‘I want to change the world of information.’ And they started a social media specialization in the library school, and I was like, ‘This is it. This is the right time for me to be here.’”
Brennan is like many librarians, obsessed with taxonomy and connections between information. The Internet gave her an outlet to explore and study to her heart’s content, but she was particularly drawn to memes, their origins, and how they traveled around the Internet. After sending an email to Know Your Meme about an internship, her career as a meme librarian was sealed. She tracks meme trends and discovers how they evolve not only in social media, but how the rest of the Internet swallows them up.
I wonder if this will be a future focus of library science in the future?
Whitney Grace, January 20, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Tumblr Has a GIF For You
June 30, 2015
Facebook recently enabled users to post GIF images on the social media platform. Reddit was in an uproar over the new GIF and celebrated by posting random moving images from celebrities making weird faces to the quintessential cute kitten. GIFs are an Internet phenomenon and are used by people to express their moods, opinions, or share their fandom. Another popular social medium platform, Tumblr, the microblogging site used to share photos, videos, quotes, and more, has added a GIF search, says PCMag in “Tumblr Adds New GIF Search Capabilities.”
The main point of Tumblr is the ability share content either a user creates or someone else creates. A user’s Tumblr page is a personal reflection of themselves and GIFs are one of the ultimate content pieces to share. Tumblr’s new search option for GIFs is very simple: a user picks the + button, clicks the GIF button, and then search for the GIF that suits your mood. A big thing on Tumblr is citing who created a piece and the new search option has that covered:
“Pick the GIF you want and it slinks right in, properly credited and everything,” the company said. “Whoever originally posted the GIF will be notified accordingly. On their dashboard, on their phone, all the regular places notifications go.”
GIFs are random bits of fun that litter the Internet and quickly achieve meme status. They are also easy to make, which appeals to people with vey little graphic background. They can make something creative and fun without much effort and now the can be easily found and shared on Tumblr.
Whitney Grace, June 30, 2015
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
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