Melissa HerreraFollow

Date Collected

Fall 12-2017

Informant

Myself

Point of Discovery/Informant Bio

My name is Melissa Herrera and I am a Junior at Utah State University. Majoring in Animal, Dairy, and Veterinary Science (ADVS). I was born in Anaheim, California, but moved to Logan, Utah, when I was nine years old. Needless to say, choosing to attend USU was an easy choice. I work as a Veterinary Technician (Not Certified), and I am a member of Alpha Chi Omega, Beta Xi chapter here at USU. You will find me on my phone scrolling through Facebook, iFunny App, Instagram, Pinterest, etc. I usually spend most nights binge watching Netflix series or partake in movie marathons. I’ve seen all seasons of Futurama, so when I saw this meme on my newsfeed I understood the joke immediately.

Context

While swiping through the iFunny application on my smartphone, I came across this meme some time ago. I was likely just sitting somewhere on my phone to trying to escape boredom. I took a screenshot of the meme because I thought it was pretty funny. Later, when I tried to find the user that submitted the post, I could not find them rendering me incapable of asking for an interview. The meme is known as “Not Sure If”. Fry from the series Futurama is apart of what is known as an image macro series. Which means it is a photographic image on which a humorous caption or catchphrase that has been digitally superimposed. Fry is seen squinting appearing to be deep in thought with the text consisting of “Not sure if X”, with “or just Y”. “The 7th season of the show aired on June 20th, 2012. In the weeks leading up to the start of the new season, Comedy Central aired several commercials featuring Fry using the style and phrasal template of “Not Sure if X”. Amongst original ones, these also used featured various popular versions of the phrase found online”(knowyourmeme.com).

Texture

The overall attitude of this meme is very comedic. “Narrowing of a person's eyes can indicate evaluation, perhaps considering that something told to them is not true (or at least not fully so)” (changingminds.org). Which is the exact facial expression Fry is depicting in the image. I think this meme is generally used humorously, just in the general sense that we all, have been unclear about the correct answer. Below are a couple more of examples with the same concept of uncertainty between X and Y.

Course

English 2210

Instructor

Dr. Lynne McNeill

Semester and year

Fall 2017

Theme

G9: Internet Memes

EAD Number

5.30

Download

Additional Files

CP 6.pdf (708 kB)

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