Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Conviviality and Collectives On Social Media: Virality, Memes, and New Social Structures
Conviviality and Collectives On Social Media: Virality, Memes, and New Social Structures
Piia Varis
Tilburg University
Jan Blommaert
Tilburg University and Ghent University
Abstract
There is a long tradition in which ‘phatic’ forms of interaction are seen as (and
characterized by) relatively low levels of ‘information’ and ‘meaning’. Yet, observations
on social media interaction patterns show an amazing density of such phatic
interactions, in which signs are shared and circulated without an a priori determination
of the meaning. We address the issue of ‘virality’ in this paper: the astonishing speed
and scope with which often ‘empty’ (i.e. not a priori determined) signs circulate online.
We address ‘memes’—signs that have gone viral on the internet—as cases in point.
Virality as a sociolinguistic phenomenon raises specific issues about signs, meanings,
and functions, prompting a shift from ‘meaning’ to ‘effect’. This effect, we can see,
is conviviality: the production of a social-structuring level of engagement in loose,
temporal, and elastic collectives operating in social media environments.
are further and further levels of uptake, as rapid ‘viral’ spread of particular signs,
other users witness this liking and sharing while the actual content or formal
activity (some of it may already be showing properties of those signs do not seem
in the figures here), and consequently to prevail as criteria for sharing, at
make inferences about the meaning of the least not when these properties are
post itself, but also about the person(s) in understood as denotational-semantic or
their network who reacted to it. Further aesthetic in the Kantian sense. We shall
layers of contextualisation are thus added elaborate this below. The ace of virality
to the original post, which may have an after the first decade of the 21st century
influence on the uptake by others. is undoubtedly the South-Korean music
Different social media platforms video called Gangnam Style, performed
offer similar activity types: YouTube by an artist called Psy: Gangnam Style
users can ‘view’ videos and ‘like’ was posted on YouTube on 15 July, 2012,
or ‘dislike’ them, as well as adding and had been viewed 2,345475395 times
‘comments’ to them and adding videos on 30 May, 2015. Professional as well as
to a profile list of preferences; Twitter lay observers appear to agree that the
users can create ‘hashtags’ and ‘retweet’ phenomenal virality of Gangnam Style
tweets from within their network; similar was not due to the intrinsic qualities,
operations are possible on Instagram as musical, choreographic or otherwise,
well as on most local or regional social of the video. The hype was driven by
media platforms available throughout entirely different forces.
the world. Each time, we see that specific The point to all of this, however, is that
activities are made available for the we see a communicative phenomenon of
astonishing speed and scope: large numbers of searchability and findability of ‘like’-
of people react on a message by expressing minded people.
their ‘liking’ and by judging it relevant We need to be more specific though,
enough to share it with their ‘friends’ and return to our Facebook example.
within their social media community. At ‘Liking’ is an identity statement directly
the same time, in spite of Zuckerberg’s oriented towards the author of the
message being textual, it was not read update—Zuckerberg—and indirectly
in the common sense understanding inscribing oneself into the community
of this term. The ‘like’ and ‘share’ of those who ‘like’ Zuckerberg, as well as
reactions, consequently, refer to another indirectly flagging something to one’s own
kind of decoding and understanding community of Facebook ‘friends’ (who
than the ones we conventionally use in can monitor activities performed within
text and discourse analysis—‘meaning’ the community). Patricia Lange (2009:
as an outcome of denotational-textual 71), thus, qualifies such responsive uptake
decoding is not at stake here, and so activities (‘viewing’ YouTube videos in her
the ‘liking’ and ‘sharing’ is best seen as case) as forms of ‘self-interpellation’: people
‘phatic’ in the sense of the terms discussed express a judgment that they themselves
above. Yet, these phatic activities appear belong to the intended audiences of a
to have extraordinary importance for message or sign. ‘Sharing’, by contrast,
those who perform them, as ‘firsting’ and recontextualizes and directly reorients this
‘astroturfing’ practices illustrate: people statement towards one’s own community,
on social media find it very important triggering another phase in a process of
to be involved in ‘virality’. People find viral circulation, part of which can—but
it important to be part of a group that must not—involve real ‘reading’ of the
‘likes’ and ‘shares’ items posted by others. text. Also, ‘liking’ is a responsive uptake
It is impossible to know—certainly in the to someone else’s activity while ‘sharing’ is
case of Zuckerberg—who the members the initiation of another activity directed at
of this group effectively are (this is the another (segment of a) community. So, while
problem of scope, and we shall return both activities share important dimensions
to it), but this ignorance of identities of of phaticity with each other, important
group members does seem to matter differences also occur. These distinctions,
less than the expression of membership as noted, do not affect the fundamental
by means of phatic ‘likes’ and ‘shares’. nature of the interaction between actors and
What happens here is ‘communion’ signs—‘sharing’, as we have seen, does not
in the sense of Malinowski: identity presuppose careful reading of the text—but
statements expressing, pragmatically there are differences in agency and activity
and metapragmatically, membership of type.
some group. Such groups are not held This is important to note, because
together by high levels of awareness and existing definitions of virality would
knowledge of deeply shared values and emphasize the absence of significant change
functions—the classical community of in the circulation of the sign. Limor
Parsonian sociology—but by loose bonds Shifman (2011: 190), for instance,
of shared, even if superficial interest or emphasizes the absence of significant
‘ambient affiliation’ in Zappavigna’s terms change to the sign itself to distinguish
(2011: 801), enabled by technological virality from ‘memicity’: memes, as
features of social media affording forms opposed to viral signs, would involve
changes to the sign itself. We shall see offered by social media platforms are
in a moment that this distinction is only thus not unified or homogeneous:
valid when one focuses on a superficial we can distinguish a gradient from
inspection of the formal properties of purely responsive uptake to active and
signs. When one takes social semiotic redirected re-entextualization and
activities as one’s benchmark, however, resemiotization, blurring the distinction
things become more complicated and made by Shifman between virality and
more intriguing. We have seen that memicity.
significant distinctions apply to ‘liking’ Let us have a closer look at memes
and ‘sharing’. In fact, we can see both now, and focus again on the different
as different genres on a gradient from genres of memic activity we can discern.
phatic communion to phatic communication:
there are differences in agency, in the 3. THE WEIRD WORLD OF
addressees and communities targeted by
both activities and in the fundamental MEMES
pragmatic and metapragmatic features of As we have seen, Shifman locates the
both activities. difference between virality and memicity
To clarify the latter: ‘sharing’ an in the degree to which the sign itself is
update on Facebook is a classic case changed in the process of transmission
of ‘re-entextualization’ (Bauman and and circulation. Memes are signs the
Briggs 1990; Silverstein and Urban formal features of which have been
1996) or ‘re-semiotization’ (Scollon changed by users. For her definition,
and Scollon 2004). Re-entextualization Shifman draws on Richard Dawkins,
refers to the process by means of which author of The Selfish Gene (1976), who
a piece of ‘text’ (a broadly defined coined ‘meme’ by analogy with ‘gene’ as
semiotic object here) is extracted from its ‘small cultural units of transmission (…)
original context-of-use and re-inserted which are spread by copying or imitation’
(Shifman 2011: 188). We have already
into an entirely different one, involving
seen, however, that even simple ‘copying’
different participation frameworks, a
or ‘imitation’ activities such as Facebook
different kind of textuality—an entire
‘sharing’ involve a major shift in activity
text can be condensed into a quote, type called re-entextualization. Memes,
for instance—and ultimately also very often multimodal signs in which images
different meaning outcomes. What is and texts are combined, would typically
marginal in the source text can become enable intense resemiotization as well, in
important in the re-entextualized that original signs are altered in various
version, for instance. Re-semiotization, ways, generically germane—a kind of
in line with the foregoing, refers to ‘substrate’ recognizability would be
the process by means of which every maintained—but situationally adjusted
‘repetition’ of a sign involves an entirely and altered so as to produce very
new set of contextualization conditions different communicative effects. Memes
and thus results in an entirely ‘new’ tend to have an extraordinary level of
semiotic process, allowing new semiotic semiotic productivity which involves very
modes and resources to be involved different kinds of semiotic activity—
in the repetition process (Leppänen genres, in other words.
et al. 2014). The specific affordances Let us consider figures 2-4, and
for responsive and sharing activities 5-7. In figure 2 we see the origin of a
successful meme, a British World War II the royal crown has been replaced by a
propaganda poster. beer mug.
A virtually endless range of In figures 2, 3, and 4 we see how one
resemiotized versions of this poster have set of affordances—the visual architecture
gone viral since the year 2000. They can of the sign and its speech act format—
be identified as intertextually related by becomes the intertextual link enabling
the speech act structure of the message the infinite resemiotizations while
(an adhortative ‘keep calm’ or similar retaining the original semiotic pointer:
most users of variants of the meme
statements, followed by a subordinate
would know that the variants derive from
adhortative) and the graphic features of
the same ‘original’ meme. The visual
lettering and layout (larger fonts for the architecture and speech act format of the
adhortatives, the use of a coat of arms-like ‘original’, thus, are the ‘mobile’ elements
image). Variations on the memic theme in memicity here: they provide memic-
range from minimal to maximal, but the intertextual recognisability, while the
generic template is constant. Figure 3 textual adjustments redirect the meme
shows a minimally resemiotized variant towards more specific audiences and
in which lettering and coat of arms (the reset it in different frames of meaning
royal crown) are kept, while in figure 4, and use.
Figure 2: British wartime propaganda Figure 3: Keep calm and call Batman
poster
See http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/keep-calm-and-carry-on for figures 2-4
Figure 4: Keep calm and drink beer Figure 5: I can has cheezburger?
See http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/
sites/cheezburger
The opposite can also apply, broad range of contexts (see figure 7).
certainly when memes are widely known The extraordinary productivity of this
because of textual-stylistic features: the meme-turned-language-variety was
actual ways in which ‘languaging’ is demonstrated in 2010, when a team of
performed through fixed expressions ‘lolspeak’ authors completed an online
and speech characteristics. A particularly translation of the entire Bible in their
successful example of such textual- self-constructed language variety. The
stylistic memicity is so-called ‘lolspeak’, Lolcat Bible can now also be purchased
the particular pidginized English as a book.
originally associated with funny images of The different resources that enter
cats (‘lolcats’), but extremely mobile as a into the production of such memes can
memic resource in its own right. Consider also turn out to be memic in themselves.
figures 5, 6, and 7. Figure 5 documents People, as we said, are extraordinarily
the origin of this spectacularly successful creative in reorganizing, redirecting, and
meme: a picture of a cat, to which the applying memic resources over a vast
caption ‘I can has cheezburger?’ was range of thematic domains, addressing
added, went viral in 2007 via a website a vast range of audiences while all the
‘I can has cheezburger?’. The particular same retaining clear and recognizable
caption phrase went viral as well and intertextual links to the original memic
became tagged to a wide variety of other sources. This fundamental intertextuality
images – see figure 6. The caption, then, allows for combined memes, in which
quickly became the basis for a particular features of different established memes
pidginized variety of written English, are blended in a ‘mashup’ meme. Figure 8
which could in turn be deployed in a shows such a mashup meme.
Figure 8: Keep calm and remove the arrow from your knee
See https://www.facebook.com/pages/Keep-Calm-and-remove-the-arrow-from-your-
knee/254461191300457.
Figure 9: Skyrim scene ‘Then I took an arrow in the knee’. See http://knowyourmeme.
com/memes/i-took-an-arrow-in-the-knee.
to addressees and audiences, and degrees be read in order to be seen and understood
of intervention in the original signs. The as denotationally and informationally
procedures we have reviewed here differ meaningful; their use and re-use appear to
in degree but not in substance: they be governed by the ‘phatic’ and ‘emblematic’
are, like ‘retweets’, ‘likes’ and ‘shares’, functions often seen as of secondary nature
re-entextualizations of existing signs, i.e. in discourse-analytic literature.
meaningful communicative operations
that demand different levels of agency 4. Conviviality on demand
and creativity of the user. Second, and
related to this, the nature of the original But what explains the immense density
sign itself—its conventionally understood of such phatic forms of practice on social
‘meaning’—appears to be less relevant than media? How do we make sense of the
the capacity to deploy it in largely phatic, astonishing speed and scope with which
relational forms of interaction. This again, such phatic forms of communion and
ranges from what Malinowski described communication circulate, creating—
as ‘communion’—ritually expressing like in the case of Gangnam Style—
membership of a particular community— perhaps the largest-scale collective
to ‘communication’ within the communities communicative phenomena in human
we described as held together by ‘ambient history? The explanations, we hope to
affiliation’. ‘Meaning’ in its traditional sense have shown, do not necessarily have to
needs to give way here to a more general be located in the features of the signs
notion of ‘function’. Memes, just like Mark themselves, nor in the specific practices
Zuckerberg’s status updates, do not need to they prompt—both are unspectacular. So
perhaps the explanations must be sought At the same time, Marwick and boyd
in the social world in which these phatic are correct in directing our attention
practices make sense. towards the kinds of communities in
In a seminal paper, Alice Marwick which people move on social media.
and danah boyd (2010: 120) distinguish In spite of precise ideas of specific
between email and Twitter. They have target audiences and addressees, it
this to say on the topic: is certainly true that there is no way
in which absolute certainty about the
(…) the difference between Twitter identities (and numbers) of addressees
and email is that the latter is can be ascertained on most social media
primarily a directed technology with platforms—something which Edward
people pushing content to persons Snowden also made painfully clear. In
listed in the ‘To:’ field, while tweets addition, it is true that lump categories
are made available for interested
such as Facebook ‘friends’ gather a range
individuals to pull on demand. The
of—usually never explicitly defined—
typical email has an articulated
subcategories ranging from ‘offline
audience, while the typical tweet
friends’ and close relatives to what we
does not.
may best call, following Goffman again,
The statement demands nuancing, for ‘acquaintances’. Goffman (1963), as we
we have seen that even minimal forms of know, described acquaintances as that
activity such as ‘sharing’ involve degrees broad category of people within the
of audience design—the seemingly network of US middle class citizens with
vacuous identity statements we described whom relations of sociality and civility
above, lodged in social media practices, need to be maintained. Avoidance of
are always directed at some audience, of overt neglect and rejection are narrowly
which users have some idea, right or wrong connected to avoidance of intimacy and
(cf. Androutsopoulos 2013). Imaginary ‘transgressive’ personal interaction: what
needs to be maintained with such people
audiences are powerful actors affecting
is a relationship of conviviality—a level
discursive behaviour, as Goffman and
of social intercourse characterized by
others have shown so often (e.g. Goffman
largely ‘phatic’ and ‘polite’ engagement
1963), and Marwick and boyd’s early
in interaction. Acquaintances are not
statement that ‘Twitter flattens multiple
there to be ‘loved’, they are there to
audiences into one’—a phenomenon
be ‘liked’. Facebook is made exactly
they qualify as ‘context collapse’—is for these kinds of social relationships
surely in need of qualification (Marwick (van Dijck 2013), which is perhaps also
and boyd 2010: 122). The intricate social- why a discourse analysis of Facebook
semiotic work we have described here interaction reveals the overwhelming
certainly indicates users having diverse dominance of the Gricean Maxims, that
understandings of audiences on social old ethnotheory of ‘polite’ US bourgeois
media. Different social media platforms interaction (Varis forthcoming).
offer opportunities for different types But let us delve slightly deeper
of semiotic and identity work and users into this. The communities present as
often hold very precise and detailed views audiences on social media may be at once
of what specific platforms offer them over-imagined and under-determined:
in the way of audience access, identity while users can have relatively precise
and communication opportunities, and ideas of who it is they are addressing,
effects (cf. Gershon 2010). a level of indeterminacy is inevitable in
reality. This means, in analysis, that we together, and the absence of temporal
cannot treat such communities in the and spatial co-presence that characterizes
traditional sense of ‘speech community’ online groups (cf. Maly and Varis
as a group of people tied together by forthcoming on ‘micro-populations’).
clear and generally shareable rules of A joint ‘phatic’ focus on recognizable
the indexical value and function of signs form or shape offers possibilities for
(Agha 2007). Indexical orders need to such processes of groupness, while the
be built, as a consequence, since they actual functional appropriation and
cannot readily be presupposed. Virality, deployment of signs—what they actually
as a sociolinguistic phenomenon, might mean for actual users—is hugely diverse;
be seen as moments at which such the infinite productivity of memes—
indexical orders—perceived shareability the perpetual construction of memic
of meaningful signs—are taking shape. ‘accents’—illustrates this. Here we begin
The two billion views of Gangnam Style to see something fundamental about
suggest that large numbers of people communities in an online age—the
in various places on earth recognized joint focusing, even if ‘phatic’, is in itself
something in the video; what it is exactly not trivial: it creates a structural level of
they experienced as recognizable is conviviality, i.e. a sharing at one level of
hard to determine and research on this meaningful interaction by means of a
topic—how virality might inform us on joint feature, which in superficial but real
emergent forms of social and cultural ways translates a number of individuals
normativity in new and unclear large into a focused collective. Note, and we
globalized human collectives—is long repeat, that what this collective shares
overdue. is the sheer act of phatic communion
Some suggestions in this direction (the ‘sharing’ itself, so to speak), while
can be offered, though. In earlier work, the precise meaning of this practice
we tried to describe ephemeral forms
for each individual member of the
of community formation in the online-
collective is impossible to determine.
offline contemporary world as ‘focused
But since Malinowski and Goffman, we
but diverse’ (Blommaert and Varis 2013).
have learned not to underestimate the
Brief moments of focusing on perceived
importance of (seemingly) unimportant
recognizable and shareable features
social activities. Memes force us to think
of social activity generate temporary
groups—think of the thousands who about levels of social structuring that we
‘liked’ Zuckerberg’s status update—while very often overlook because we consider
such groups do not require the kinds of them meaningless.
strong and lasting bonds grounded in This neglect of conviviality has
shared bodies of knowledge we associate effects. In the superdiversity that
with more traditionally conceived characterizes online-offline social worlds,
‘communities’ or ‘societies’. In fact, they we easily tend to focus on differences and
are groups selected on demand, so to downplay the level of social structuring
speak, by individual users in the ways we that actually prevents these differences
discussed earlier. People can focus and from turning into conflicts. Recognizing
re-focus perpetually, and do so (which such hitherto neglected levels of
explains the speed of virality) without social structuring might also serve as a
being tied into a community of fixed corrective to rapid qualifications of the
circumscription, given the absence of present era as being ‘postsocial’—a point
the deep and strong bonds that tie them on which we disagree with Vincent Miller.
There is a great deal of sociality taking Hymes, Dell. 1972/1986. Models of the
place on social media, but this sociality interaction of language and social life.
might require a new kind of sociological In John Gumperz and Dell Hymes
imagination. We will look in vain for (eds). Directions in Sociolinguistics: The
communities and societies that resemble Ethnography of Communication. London:
the ones proposed by Durkheim and Blackwell. 35-71.
Jakobson, Roman. 1960. Linguistics and
Parsons. But that does not mean that
poetics. In Thomas Sebeok (ed). Style
such units are not present, and even less
in Language. Cambridge: MIT Press.
that they are not in need of description. 350-377.
Lange, Patricia G. 2009. Videos of affinity on
YouTube. In Pelle Snickars and Patrick
Vonderau (eds). The YouTube Reader.
REFERENCES Stockholm: National Library of Sweden.
Agha, Asif. 2007. Language and Social 70-88.
Relations. Cambridge: Cambridge Leppänen, Sirpa, Samu Kytölä, Henna
University Press. Jousmäki, Saija Peuronen and Elina
Androutsopoulos, Jannis. 2013. Networked Westinen. 2014. Entextualization
multilingualism: Some language and resemiotization as resources for
practices on Facebook and their identification in social media. In Philip
implications. International Journal of Seargeant and Caroline Tagg (eds). The
Bilingualism 0 (0): 1-21.
Language of Social Media: Identity and
Bauman, Richard and Charles Briggs. 1990.
Community on the Internet. Houndmills:
Poetics and performance as critical
Palgrave Macmillan. 112-136.
perspectives on language and social life.
Annual Review of Anthropology 19: 59-88. Malinowski, Bronislaw. 1923/1936. The
Blommaert, Jan and Piia Varis. 2013. problem of meaning in primitive
Life projects. Tilburg Papers in languages. In C.K. Ogden and I.A.
Culture Studies, Paper 58. <https:// Richards (eds). The Meaning of Meaning.
www.tilburguniversity.edu/ London: Kegan Paul. 296-336.
upload/c37dcccf-242d-4fca- Maly, Ico and Piia Varis. Forthcoming.
b79f-d3d366b0a505_TPCS_58_ The 21st-century hipster: On micro-
Blommaert-Varis.pdf> populations in times of superdiversity.
Briggs, Charles. 1997. Introduction: From European Journal of Cultural Studies.
the ideal, the ordinary, and the orderly Marwick, Alice E. and danah boyd. 2010.
to conflict and violence in pragmatic I tweet honestly, I tweet passionately:
research. Pragmatics 7 (4) (special issue Twitter users, context collapse, and the
on Conflict and Violence in Pragmatic imagined audience. New Media & Society
Research, ed. Charles Briggs): 451-459. 13 (1): 114-133.
Dawkins, Richard. 1976. The Selfish Gene. Miller, Vincent. 2008. New media,
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
networking and phatic culture.
Van Dijck, José. 2013. The Culture of
Convergence 14: 387-400.
Connectivity. A Critical History of Social
Schegloff, Emanuel. 1972/1986. Sequencing
Media. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Gershon, Ilana. 2010. Breakup 2.0. in conversational openings. In John
Disconnecting over New Media. Ithaca: Gumperz and Dell Hymes (eds).
Cornell University Press. Directions in Sociolinguistics: The
Goffman, Erving. 1963. Behavior in Public Ethnography of Communication. London:
Places. New York: The Free Press. Blackwell. 346-380.
Goffman, Erving. 1967. Interaction Ritual: Schegloff, Emanuel. 1988. Goffman and the
Essays on Face-to-face Behavior. New York: analysis of conversation. In Paul Drew
Doubleday Anchor. and Anthony Wootton (eds). Erving