To ask if you know 9gag can be the same dumb question as to ask if you know who Michael Jackoson is. I didn´t know 9gag before people started to post every picture from there on Facebook. If I said this to some old 9gagger he/she would send me to mad house. If you are 9gagger, please, do not read upcoming sentence. I learned what „internet meme“means just few days ago (oh god :-/ ).
As I was searching information about all this 9gag thing I got surprised that 9gag has already experienced „internet wars“. Yes, war can exists also in internet world (fortunately they can´t kill each other through the internet). But what is more creepy is fact, that from users of 9gag is forming some type of a new internet „nation“. They are very similar to each other, like same things, have same interests, same life style, they support each other, protect each other, arranging some secret actions and so on. I found on one web page a description of typical 9gagger and they seem to me like an Amish community with very strict and conservative rules. Here it is:
Typical user of 9gag:
· was born between 1988 - 1994
· loves Freddie Mercury
· had Nokia 3310 (and believe it is unbreakable)
· is atheist
· hates the church
· loves old console games
· hates Justin Bieber and Twilight
· loves Harry Potter
· distinguishes homosexuals from buggers
· thinks that redhead girls are the sexiest (especially Emma Watson)
· plays Skyrim
· has ever been in „friend zone“ (when a girl he wanted, told him she wants to be a friend only)
· thinks Americans are stupid and fat
· and so on
9gag was founded in Hong Kong in 2008. It was created by brothers Ray Chan a Chris Chan. Now it is hosted in USA. It is a web page were users can post funny or sarcastic images or comics which usually express some life situations all well known or it is just simply funny inscription to the picture. These posts are called gags. From dictionary: „ Gag is a joke, especially one introduced into a script or an actor'spart. “ 9gag is international sharing website which can be used by anybody (who has access to the Internet). It is something like its older ancestors as 4chan, Reddit or funnyjunk. You can vote there for a post you like, comment or share it on Facebook, Twitter or Google+. 9gag has three parts. Vote, Trending and Hot. When a post get enough votes it goes from Vote page to Trending page and if it is extremely popular it gets to Hot page which has the most visitors. 9gag is highly addictive, once you go to there you stayed there for at least one hour even it will seem that you spent there only a minute (second Facebook?) .
We can say that the popular part of 9gag is also meme faces (besides lot of other memes), they are iconic images, everytime used with different text. It can be sarcastic, humorous. Every meme has different personality and meaning.
Now I try to explain that wars. Is it possible that two web pages can fight in war? Or one web page can fight against big international company? We could see that in this crazy hyper modern time it is possible. First big „war“started when one Hungarian boy Janos Szolnoki entered to a competition on Nescafe official Facebook site. Nescafe was offering $5000 to a winner who will get 3000 „likes“. This guy, Janos asked for help his 9gaggers friends because he wanted to gain this money for his disabled brother. He posted a picture to 9gag asking people to help him. Because all 9gaggers are right fellows they gave him 4700 votes. After this, Nescafe disqualified Janos from the competition. The reason was concealed. On this occasion was formed (on Facebook) a 9gag army- the group of all 9gaggers. In just one day, they got over 25000 „likes“ on this FB group. They decided for the attack on Nescafe Facebook page and they spammed it in incredible speed (as Soviet invasion to Czechoslovakia in 1968). They spammed the demand to give Janos his prize all over again which ended up with a surrender of Nescafe. Finally Nescafe gave Janos what he deserved. Here we can see what a big power has community on the Internet. Even that typical 9gaggers are very young they forced big company to their knees. I think without the Internet it wouldn´t happen. Spamming Facebook has more power than normal protest in the streets. What a scary fact.
Another case: Entertaining web page 4chan, which was founded before 9gag, accused 9gag stole meme faces from them. 4chan thought 9gag was representing meme faces as their „work“and now receiving revenue from it. This made them argue and finally 4chan declared war on 9gag. Users of 4chan, who were participated in this, arranged an attack on 21st of December. The attack was about spamming 9gag, with pornographic and gores images. Second step was to give as much votes as possible to these disgusting pictures and put them on HOT page. 9gag admins then blocked voting for these images. After this were created two big strong communities which hate each other: 4chaners and 9gaggers. There exists hundreds of forums where they are still arguing who is better, who is funnier and so on.
For now these „wars“weren´t so serious but imagine that there will appear some bigger thing. All these people are young and easily influential. Imagine one person with a very good speech skill (as Adlof Hitler was) with not that good intention as Janos had. From one moment to another big terroristic group can be created. In the world of internet everything is faster, everybody can join any group or community. People spontaneously can commit much more dangerous things.
Can we this case named a collective intelligence? Or better collective stupidity?
Watch this video, it is really encouraging:
No comments:
Post a Comment