Melissa HerreraFollow

Date Collected

Fall 11-2017

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. Growing up one of my favorite cartoons was Spongebob, so when it came through my newsfeed, it was instantly hilarious.

Context

While skimming through my Facebook Newsfeed some time ago, I was on my phone and likely just hanging out with some friends. One of my good friends made a post, I messaged her asking for an interview but she did not write back. However, I remember that she did not create the image, it was shared on a Facebook page she was following (I don’t remember the name or account of the comedic page). The meme is known as “Mocking SpongeBob” or “Spongemock”. As many know SpongeBob comes from an animated series created by Nickelodeon called SpongeBob SquarePants. The image comes from an episode that aired on November 25, 2012, called “Little Yellow Book”. In the episode, SpongeBob acts like a chicken whenever he sees plaid. “The earliest iteration of the scene being used as a meme occurred on May 4th, 2017. Twitter user @OGBEARD[2] posted a screenshot of the scene where SpongeBob acts like a chicken with the caption “How i stare back at little kids when they stare for too long.” The tweet (shown below) has received more than 73,000 retweets and 147,300 likes in five days” (knowyourmeme). Quickly after the presence of the new meme, a slight modification was added to the meme, specifically the caption, which shows an alteration of uppercase and lowercase text to represent a mocking tone.

Texture

The overall attitude of this meme is humorous, though I suppose there is a tinge of familiarity. In that when facing some altercations with another individual, we often hold back our personal opinion due to the likelihood of getting in trouble with a boss or someone of higher power. There is even the possibility of being unable to counteract the comment of another so we sometimes will just respond by mocking. Since my friend was not the original owner of the post, I could not get a hold of the creator of this meme. However, by posting this meme it shows that often times we have to bite our tongues and hold back how we truly feel and often times the only way to get that frustration out is to mock the individual in a silly tone. Below are a couple more of examples with the same concept of mocking due to the inability to share a personal opinion or failure to create a better argument for a comment.

Course

Introduction to Folklore/English 2210

Instructor

Dr. Lynne McNeill

Semester and year

Fall 2017

Theme

G9: Internet Memes

EAD Number

5.33

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