Recently, we did the best project ever. That project was about memes and nationalism, but memes are more fun. You may be wondering what the goal of this project was. The driving question was: “How can we use current memes to comment on the significance and consequences of nationalism around the world?” now I got to admit that’s a pretty cool driving question.
Before we were able to make our memes and answer the driving question, we had to complete some milestones that would help us understand it. The three milestones I’m going to be talking about are milestone one, milestone three, and milestone five. I picked each of these milestones because I think each of them were vital parts of being able to complete this project.
One of the biggest reasons I thought milestone one was so important is because it explained what the project was going to be about and then gives you the ability to ask questions about the project that will help you understand it better. What we had to do for milestone one was fill out a form with all of the questions we had. Then in class, we discussed the answers to our questions. The final thing that was so great about this milestone was that we were introduced to our driving question.
The reason why I think milestone three is so important is that it was our first real try at making TikTok’s for school. For this project, we had to make TikTok’s in a small group that followed not just TikTok trends but also Dawkins’s definition of a meme. Just before I talk about the memes, we made I think it would be good if I explained what Dawkins’s definition of a meme was. Dawkin related how memes survive and change over time to natural selection. Now that you know Dawkins’s definition of a meme, let me tell you about the memes I ended up making. The first meme I made was inspired by a TikTok I had seen a few days earlier, and it was of me and my friend Angelo (here it is)
The second TikTok I made was also based off of a TikTok I had seen earlier for this TikTok I used the refresh rate effect to make a cool effect of me leaving the room. (here that meme is)
The final TikTok I made was based on probably one of the most well known TikTok’s in my opinion which is the how boys — how girls —. Ps there is a blog for this post that’s a lot more specific (Here it is)
The final milestone I’m going to be talking about is milestone five. What we had to do for milestone five was finally make our memes about nationalism. I made three memes with three very different formats. Those formats were me and the boys, sponge bob throwing paper in water, and Gru sign format. The reason I chose each of these formats is that I thought they were funny and I could effectively use then to send my message. Now I’m going to talk about each of the specific formats. The first format I’m going to be talking about is the me and the boy’s format. As you can see on the meme, it has the caption me and the boys splitting up Africa, and the image is of four people sitting at a table with a split up Africa on it. I think this meme answers the driving question because it shows how the colonists split up Africa without including them. This is further backed up by the political comic from the same time period that this was inspired by.
The next meme I’m going to be talking about is my Spongebob format meme. As you can see, instead of a normal meme where it’s a still image, this is a short video. That is because, for this project, we had to make one TikTok/video meme. I think this meme answers the driving questions because it shows how with little care, the colonists just took away the Africans rights.
The final meme is my Gru sign format meme. I think this meme answers the driving question because it shows how the Europeans taking over Canada was unexpected, especially because the natives were very peaceful.
In conclusion, I think that this was a very fun project and that I learned tons about nationalism and TikTok (which I had only used one before). Overall this was a great learning experience, and I hope we have more projects like it.