Terrible Teacher
The “Terrible Teacher” meme is a popular meme on the Internet. It depicts a young teacher who seems to be confident, young and competent. Funny and often times demeaning quotations are inserted from Internet users who have had bad experiences with teachers. These quotes are usually incompetent things that teachers do and say. This meme has a lot to break down because it is so popular; the meme is seen all over the Internet and connects to the Internet population easily. Many people can relate to this meme as many people have had what they consider to be a bad teacher. The targeted audience, the student population, is very well versed in this subject.
Caroll explains, “Another part of the rhetorical context is audience, those who are the (intended or unintended) recipients of the rhetorical message. The audience should be able to respond to the exigence. In other words, the audience should be able to help address the problem” (49). Knowing this, I believe this meme is so popular because of how well it connects very well to its audience, The Internet population. The general Internet user on these websites like memebase.com is around the high school or college age. This age is a great audience for a meme about a bad teacher because this age has the most experience with teachers in general, let alone bad teachers. Many students who are stressed look for someone to blame for tough circumstances and usually point to their teacher or professor. This meme is a great way to get your point across or to blow off steam using humor while being anonymous.
I think the best thing about this meme (and any online meme for that matter) is that the rhetor is also the audience. This meme can be changed and re-posted by anyone who has online access to it, which as stated previously, is largely a student population. This means that many students will be the rhetor and that the rhetor changes often. I think this makes this meme much more interesting.
This leads to the exigency of the meme. Like most memes, this meme was created as a way to bring about humor to the Internet. With the rhetor being mostly students, this particular meme might have a link to them and their experiences with bad teachers or professors. To understand more about the exigence, Caroll tells us, ““you can begin to understand a piece’s exigence by asking, “What is this rhetoric responding to?” “What might have happened to make the rhetor respond in this way”” (48-49). This particular quote questions the reasoning behind a piece of work. This meme seems to be more of a way to relieve stress by, more or less, complaining about a teacher in a humorous way. Not only does this ease frustration for a student, but it is also shared with people around the world who can relate to that student if they had a similar happening in their own classroom.
The constraints of this meme are few. The biggest constraint could be that some of the audience could get offended; this is a hard possibility to imagine because the audience is so often the rhetor. Other constraints could be if those reading this meme have never had a bad teacher and don’t understand the meme. There could also be a possibility of misunderstanding from different nations and cultures that don’t have the public schooling that America does. There also might be those who have not been educated enough to either read or understand the meme.
To further understand this meme, one must understand the thought behind it. Why is this meme funny? The logos of this meme are quite interesting. The meme shows a picture of a teacher who seems fairly confident in herself, however, every meme has a statement that a less than competent person would say. Every student seems to have had an experience with a teacher that said or did something less than stellar, so all these students know and understand what the rhetor means by what they type in the meme. Using the meme setup appeals to our pathos, or emotional side, as Carroll explains, “Appeals (as rhetoric that draws on pathos is called) used alone without logos and ethos can come across as emotionally manipulative or overly sentimental, but are very powerful when used in conjunction with the other two appeals”(52). Humor and understanding are used in this meme. Most of these quotes are considered humorous (at the expense of the teacher) and are made to make the audience laugh. The audience generally has an understanding, as stated previously, about the situation because they have experienced it before. Other emotions that could play a role would be frustration. Some of the quotes made the rhetor frustrated and by creating the meme, they are able to ease their frustration. This brings up the question of ethos, or the rhetors’ credibility. The biggest difference in ethos found in this meme compared to other sources of writing and an advertisement is the fact that the rhetor is so often the same as the audience, as stated previously. There really is no proof behind the words typed on a computer and put on the Internet for all to see, but because the rhetor is more than likely another student who deals with the same situations other students have, the audience feels a bigger connection and has more trust in the rhetor.
This meme captures everything good you can find good in a form of entertainment. It’s very humorous and it connects well with the audience. I think that this meme sets a good standard for other Internet trends and fads. I think what makes it so interesting is that it is very unconventional, thanks to the Internet. Usually we see comic strips and funny ads in newspapers and magazines and we can only laugh at them or disagree with them. Now, we can finally retort using technology and make our own voice be heard using the same style of humor and exigence. The Internet plays a vital role in today’s society, but I think one that goes overlooked is how it unintentionally connects people. This meme is just one of many that connects people without ever having them directly communicate like they would on Facebook or e-mail.
Carroll, Laura Bolin. "Writing Spaces." Backpacks vs. Briefcases. Parlor Press, n.d. Web. 6 Feb 2012. http://writingspaces.org/sites/default/files/carroll--backpacks-vs-briefcases.pdf
Terrible Teacher. Memebase.com. Web. 9 February 2012.
No comments:
Post a Comment