Category Archives: Digital

Folklore 2.0: Charlie Sheen Auto Tune

Nationality: American
Age: 25
Occupation: Colorist for Cartoon Network
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 20 April 2011
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish, Japanese

White/Hispanic

California State University Fullerton

Illustration

Colorist for Cartoon Network’s Regular Show

English, Spanish, Japanese

Los Angeles, CA

20 April 2011

Folklore 2.0 -Auto tune of Charlie Sheen

http://youtu.be/9QS0q3mGPGg

“I’m sure you’ve seen the auto tune of Charlie Sheen. It’s pretty funny. A friend sent it to me through Facebook. The premise of the whole auto tune thing I that you take a song or someone speaking, and you run it through an auto tune program. By adding a beat, splicing clips, and slowing down or speeding up the words, you can make sorta a rap song. The only reason it’s gone really viral is the fact that the makers actually did a pretty good job and the whole controversy with Charlie Sheen right now in the media. The people who made it, also like to auto tune the news a lot.” AT mentioned that the explosion of auto tuning is really an evolution of media and the Internet. As she explains, the sheer amount of information and the ease of accessibility allow people to really play around with the notion of music. Now anyone can make music using a program, or alter another person’s work and post it on the Internet. When asked about the right of copyrights, AT gave a pretty liberal answer. “I mean its not like the person is making definite money off of it. Mostly people are just doing it for entertainment purposes and the chance to create things given a skill set. Now people don’t have to be artists or singers, they can work with programs that do most of the work for them.” She goes on to mention that she still considers auto tuning a creative process and is largely benign.”

Considering that AT works for Cartoon Network, a well-known television network and studio, her answers are pretty telling. She has mentioned that she doesn’t feel cheated when people post the show she works on onto the Internet. If anything she’s happy that people without cable or television can enjoy things she helped create. The whole auto tuning process that has appeared on the Internet in the last couple years is an example of folklore 2.0. It has multiplicity and variation; as people often auto tune the same things differently. It is also very unofficial, to the point that it borders on copyright infringement. The Internet has allowed people to share vast quantities of information that is as diverse as any form of language. The Charlie Sheen video is also interesting because it brings up the notion of “Win.” Win is an idea that started out on the Internet that has crossed over to everyday speech. Now, because of the Charlie Sheen auto tune, I have heard individuals use the term “Wining” in speech. It’s used to imply that something is awesome or going good for you. I.e., ” my parents bought me a brand new car. Winning!”

Being “Rickrolled”

Age: 18
Performance Date: 4/25/2011
Primary Language: English

post a link (which does not indicate any relation to 80’s singer Rick Astley or his music), or tell someone to go look it up, and it takes you to a youtube video of Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up,” or some other Rick Astley related thing.

Devon was first “Rickrolled” some time in high school, and has propagated the prank himself. Friends often prank each other by tricking each other into following this link, leading to amusing and irritating video clips. Rick Astley himself was a one-hit wonder, and he is generally regarded as something of a joke in popular culture, because his voice does not seem to match his nerdy, red-headed appearance. This brand of prank has become a viral internet version of folklore 2.0.

You’re from Colorado if… Joke cycle

Nationality: Basque American/ Caucasian American
Age: 65
Occupation: Ghost Writer and Editor
Residence: Carefree, AZ
Performance Date: 16 March 2011
Primary Language: English

Email:

winter statistic:
98% OF AMERICANS SCREAM BEFORE GOING IN THE DITCH ON A SLIPPERY ROAD.

THE OTHER 2% ARE FROM COLORADO AND THEY SAY,

“HOLD MY SODA AND WATCH THIS.”

***********************************

Now, you’re from Colorado if………

You eat ice cream in the winter.


It snows 5 inches and you don’t expect school to be cancelled.

You’ll wear flip flops every day of the year, regardless of temperature.

You have no accent at all, but can hear other people’s.

And then you make fun of them.

“Humid” is over 25%.

Your sense of direction is: Toward the mountains and Away from the mountains.

You say “the interstate” and everybody knows which one.

You think that May is a totally normal month for a blizzard.

You buy your flowers to set out on Mother’s day, but try and hold off planting them until just before Father’s day.

You grew up planning your Halloween costumes around your coat.

You know what the Continental Divide is.

You don’t think Coors beer is that big a deal.

You went to Casa Bonita as a kid, AND as an adult.

You’ve gone off-roading in a vehicle that was never intended for such activities.

You always know the elevation of where you are.

You wake up to a beautiful, 80 degree day and you wonder if it’s gonna snow later.

You don’t care that some company renamed it, the Broncos still play at Mile High Stadium!!!
Every movie theater has military and student discounts.

You actually know that ** South Park ** is a real place, not just a dumb show on TV.

You know what a ‘trust fund hippy’ is, and you know its natural habitat is Boulder .

You know you’re talking to a fellow Coloradoan when they call it “Elitches,” not “”Six Flags.”

A bear on your front porch doesn’t bother you.

Your two favorite teams are the Broncos and whoever is beating the crap out of the Raiders.

When people back East tell you they have mountains in their state too, you just laugh.

You go anywhere else on the planet and the air feels “sticky” and you notice the sky is no longer blue.

FORWARD THIS IF YOU LIVE IN OR ARE FROM COLORADO !!!

The informant is a 65-year-old ghost writer and editor who lives in Carefree, Arizona. He lived in Colorado for about 25 years before he moved to Florida 7 years ago then moved to Arizona about two years ago.

The informant told me his brother- or sister-in-law in Iowa sent this email to him.

The informant told me he liked it because

People from Colorado could relate to it. [He liked that it talked about the] regional things Coloradans take for granted. It’s the inside joke thing. People love to share jokes that other people wouldn’t get, and this is one of those.

He told me he, sent it to everyone he knew that either lived in Colorado or had lived in Colorado because he thought “they would get a kick out of it.”

To me, as a fellow Coloradan, this joke certainly was funny, the wording makes it seem like these jokes are the ones that circulate about Coloradans rather than those Coloradans would say about themselves. For one things, the first joke has a clear tell that the “joke teller” in this email is not from Colorado – they had the Coloradan ask the passenger to hold their “soda”. Coloradans make fun of people incessantly when they say “soda” instead of “pop”. Soda to a Coloradan refers to club soda, not Coca Cola. Also, most of these one-liners need an outside reference to make them funny. “Humid” to people in the Midwest and on the East Coast is 90% humidity; 25% is nearly unheard of. And yet to a Coloradan 25% is more humid than normal. Unless one is able to take an outsiders perspective on most of these jokes, they aren’t funny – they’re simply how life is lived. So what. For example, for someone who eats ice cream in the winter all the time, it’s pointless to point it out. I think it is telling as well that the informant, a man who hasn’t lived in Colorado for 7 years, sent it to me, another ex-Coloradan, and initially got it from an Iowan. None of us currently live in Colorado. I don’t think this joke cycle would be as funny to someone who’d spent their whole lives in Colorado. Its humor depends on the transience of populations with people comparing the norms of one place with those of another. In this way, this joke cycle represents the transient nature of Americans as wells as the idiosyncrasies of Coloradans.

Belief

Nationality: Chinese-American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Pasadena, CA
Performance Date: May 2007
Primary Language: English

If one receives a chain e-mail, then one has to follow its instructions to pass it along.  If it is not resent to more people, then one will have to suffer bad outcomes.

Carolyn knows this belief from middle school but does not believe that it is true.  She says that when she first started receiving chain e-mails regarding crushes, she would respond to it and forward it to as many people as she could to ensure her safety in future relationships.  She said that the e-mails would seem cursed, especially because it would build up suspense as the reader would scroll down to the bottom.  When she reached high school, she realized that the bad luck that they specified, which included loss of love and friendship, did not really come true.  Because of her age, however, she believed it when she was in her early teenage years.

It is very common for pre-teens and early teenage children to trust anonymous emails that tell can foretell one’s future.  Just like a fortune-teller, a chain e-mail has the same effect in that it decides the magnitude of one’s love based on how many people it is forwarded to.  The influence of technology on the 21st century has brought beliefs to an entirely different level.  Now that the internet is the fastest way to transport information, it is expected that folklore is passed down in this fashion.  It is expected that these chain e-mails exist because of their quick diffusion throughout society based on people’s eagerness to avoid more trouble.  These constantly circulated chain e-mails are common in the young teen generation because of their gullibility and naivety.  Because the influence of lust and love begins in middle school, the presence of chain e-mails regarding luck in relationships is highly abided by.  The transition between elementary school and high school is a rite of passage that all adolescents have to go through in order to reach adulthood.  In this transition stage, there are many beliefs such as the chain e-mail that young teenagers trust in.

Internet Folklore

Nationality: Swedish, Russian, Austrian, Irish
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: Northridge, CA
Primary Language: English

The Bumper Sticker application on Facebook is a program that allows people to search for different virtual bumper stickers that can be added to their profile or shared with friends.  The Bumper Sticker application has categories ranging from “Witticisms” to “Gangsta” to “Cute Animals”.  You can also view the most popular bumper stickers (the most popular has been sent 5,436,346 times), newly popular bumper stickers, and recently added bumper stickers.  Though the makers of the application created some of the bumper stickers, the majority of bumper stickers are created by Facebook users that upload them to the application.  Most bumper stickers are not specific to a certain individual (or if they are, it is a widely recognized person), but there are bumper stickers that are meant to be understood only by a select group of people.  Also, bumper stickers are constantly being created as events take place in the world or as pop culture phenomenons take place.  For instance, one very popular type of bumper sticker is the LOL Catz.  There are dozens of different pictures of the “catz” that you can share with your friends or add to your own profile.  Another popular type of bumper sticker involves the Greek fraternity/sorority system.  Recently, there have even been bumper stickers created about bumper stickers.  One such bumper sticker reads “Wow. The amount of bumper stickers you are sending me is beginning to get ridiculous.” and then in small print at the bottom says “and of course I love it”.

On the surface, it seems like the Bumper Sticker application is a fun way to waste time on the computer.  There are thousands of bumper stickers to browse and send to friends, in addition to the ability to create your own bumper sticker that you can upload and share with others.  However, the bumper sticker application is so revolutionary because it is a digestible piece of pop culture that can be spread instantaneously.  For instance, as the democratic candidacy race has intensified during recent months, there has been a large amount of bumper stickers that feature people from the Democratic Party.  One memorable bumper sticker shows the faces of Barack Obama and Hilary Clinton, and underneath reads “Bros before Hoes”.  Like many bumper stickers, this one is humorous yet vulgar, and clearly aimed at a fairly young audience (teens through early twenties).  Despite the crudeness of this bumper sticker, it’s popularity shows that this audience still cares about political issues but has a unique way of conveying this.

Bumper stickers are also used to share jokes and similar interests with friends.  There is an entire category of bumper stickers that feature “life lessons” quotes, and it is very popular for friends to send these to one another as a testimony of the strength of their friendship.  An example of this is the most popular bumper sticker shared on facebook, which reads “My friends are the kind that if my house was burning down, they would be making s’mores and hitting on the firemen.”  Again, this bumper sticker illustrates the common theme of humor mixed with a bit of truth, which makes it especially fun to share with friends.  As a result, many people have a wide variety of bumper stickers displayed on their facebook profiles that are from different friends and contain various inside jokes, funny images, or even a beautiful scenic image.

Especially since the Bumper Sticker application allows users to both share and upload their own creations, the application can be considered a means of transmitting cultural values and establishing individual or group identity.  People display quotes or images that they feel represent their personality, and also keep bumper stickers sent by friends that have a special meaning.  By looking at a person’s bumper sticker collection, it is possible to learn something about the likes and dislikes of a person, as well as their sense of humor.

I have a fairly extensive bumper sticker collection, and I really enjoy finding bumper stickers that remind me of my friends.  I love the feeling of reading a bumper sticker and saying “That is so true!”  I think that this feeling is shared by other users of the application, and helps explain why it is such a popular feature on Facebook.  Also, since the primary users of Facebook are in their teens and twenties, the application is especially popular because it appeals to the tastes of that audience; bumper stickers are easy to find and send, there are both images and text, and bumper stickers are small and do not contain a lot of information on any given image.  As a result, bumper stickers have become increasingly popular and have even become a topic of conversation outside the realm of facebook.  I have had multiple conversations with friends about a hilarious bumper sticker, or about an idea for a bumper sticker that has not been made yet.  Although the application may seem trivial, it actually has served as a unifying force when talking with friends or even people I have just met.  Also, it has helped distinguish my group of friends from other groups because we all share certain bumper stickers that display group interests and inside jokes.