Aesthetics for Birds

Aesthetics and Philosophy of Art for Everyone

Tag Archives: the internet

May 13, 2017
by Anthony C.
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Pepe Is Dead! Long Live Pepe?

This is an update to an earlier story that follows new developments in the Pepe meme story: Pepe’s death! Faithful readers of this site will be familiar with the saga of the internet meme Pepe the Frog. (For those of you who missed it, my earlier post on Pepe and the nature and value of internet memes is here.) The latest update: Pepe’s death! But first, a bit of background:

February 21, 2017
by Aesthetics for Birds
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Can #Selfies Be Art? Saatchi Says Yes

I’m going to go ahead and say Saatchi isn’t really that cutting edge on this one. People have been doing self-portraits for a long-ass time. Maybe those don’t count as “selfies” though? In any event, the famous Saatchi Gallery will host a show this spring called “From Selfie to Self-Expression”. This is funded together with the enormous Chinese telecom company Huawei. (Hm, I wonder why they’d be interested in selfies.) Maybe most exciting is for those artistic sorts who read the blog: You can enter your own selfie for a chance to be shown at Saatchi! They’re currently holding a selfie competition (entry rules here), open until March 12, 2017. You have to submit images via their website interface. For whatever reason, you can’t just post an Instagram with the #SaatchiSelfie hashtag and be entered. Although they do want you to use that hashtag on Twitter, Instagram, etc. Or you can just scope out … Continue reading →

January 26, 2017
by Anthony C.
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The Curious Case of Pepe the Frog: On the Ontology and Value of Internet Memes

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Donald Trump Jr. (@donaldjtrumpjr) Editor’s note: This story has a Part II, with updates on Pepe’s death! In the waning days of last fall’s presidential election a frog took center stage. In early September, Donald Trump Jr. posted an image on Instagram featuring his father leading “The Deplorables.” The image is intended to be a response to Hillary Clinton’s “basket of deplorables” remark. However, what catches one’s eye is a curious depiction of a green frog wearing a Trump wig. The Clinton campaign quickly pointed out that the frog is an instance of an internet meme known as Pepe the Frog and denounced Trump for his campaign’s usage of the meme due to its associations with white supremacy and the alt-right. Not long after, the Anti-Defamation League added Pepe to its online database of hate symbols.