It’s amazing how an idea can spread through the internet. A great example of this is the Area 51 Raid meme. It began as a joke when somebody posted a Facebook event saying there will be a Raid on Area 51 on September 20th, 2019, saying that some people began taking it seriously. According to Criss (2019), the creator of this joke, Matty Roberts, disavowed storming Area 51. However, he still planned on having events. An event called Alienstock was planned to be in the nearby town of Rachel. However, Criss (2019) said that Roberts cancelled this due to, “”…lack of infrastructure, poor planning, risk management and blatant disregard for the safety of the expected 10,000+ AlienStock attendees…””
According to Criss, the official event has been changed to the Area 51 Celebration in Las Vegas. This is probably a wise idea. Criss mentions how two dutch men had already been arrested earlier this week. This shows how a joke on the internet can be taken too far. We may need to teach people in the future about safety regarding jokes on the internet, and not taking things too far.
Source: Criss, Doug (20 September 2019), Alien enthusiasts descend on Area 51 for an event that started as a joke, CNN, Retrieved on 20 September 2019 from: https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/area-51-raid-weekend-event-trnd/index.html
People definitely do need to be more aware of the comments that they make on the internet and think of the possible aftermath that could be established from doing so. It could be something as trivial as the Area 51 jokes, or even as serious as getting your college acceptance revoked. For example, back in 2017 when Harvard withdrew ten acceptances for offensive memes over a “private” internet chat.
Members from the upcoming Harvard class of 2021 decided to contact each other through a group messaging app – that clearly uses public internet domain – to talk to each other and exchange memes about college. This may not seem like an issue at all, because it isn’t. Doing this is extremely popular among upcoming freshmen college classes. However, it is their internet conduct that got them in trouble. According to the Washington Post, “some of the group’s members decided to form an offshoot group in which students could share obscene, “R-rated” memes, a student told the Crimson. The founders of the messaging group demanded that students post provocative memes in the main group chat to gain admittance to the smaller group.” These “jokes” consisted of making derogatory comments about racial and ethnic groups, mocking sexual assault, deaths of children, and the Holocaust. It was completely uncalled for and messed up. Finally, “university officials caught on. And in mid-April, after administrators discovered the offensive, racially charged meme exchanges, at least 10 incoming students who participated in the chat received letters informing them that their offers of admission had been revoked.” This just goes to show that people need to be more aware of what they are putting out onto the internet, even in private chats. They need to be aware of the consequences of their actions and fully understand the affect that they could impose.
Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/06/05/harvard-withdraws-10-acceptances-for-offensive-memes-in-private-chat/
Great point on that “We may need to teach people in the future about safety regarding jokes on the internet, and not taking things too far.” Diving deeper into the point on the jokes on the internet, I feel it is best represented with memes- and I found an interesting take on memes: “…Despite this, the image still resonated with a significant number of people and circulated through right-wing sectors of social media. For every person laughing at inaccurate information delivered through memes, there seems to be another spreading it as truth.”1
Even though it seems so silly and trivial to worry about memes, I do think it is a serious matter regarding that there are some people who can’t take a joke for a joke and others who are using it to spread hate knowingly: “It is, perhaps, absurd that a poorly drawn, sad cartoon frog managed to be exclusively tied to white supremacy, but nonetheless the situation illustrates the representational power memes have gained in society.”1 Pepe the frog was an infamous case of a meme going too far, and how memes do have some power over people.
“Irony” has become done to the point with memes where sometimes I cannot tell if someone is serious or if it is irony. I feel like we are treading a fine line with the memes on the internet because a majority seem to regard everything as a joke, but then on the other hand we sometimes end up with a hate-group effectively spreading their message. I really agree with the point that we need to make sure people are careful of the jokes on the internet and while having a good time is always important, I feel like safety should come first and foremost.
Resources:
https://alleghenycampus.com/17609/opinion/memes-a-cultural-phenomenon-with-dangerous-powerful-implications/
What I find even more ridiculous about the whole Area 51 raid, is how it affected our military. While it may have all been a massive, social media fueled joke, the military still had to take some action in implementing precautions. Despite Roberts cancelling the event, the Air Force still reportedly sent reinforcements just in case things ended up getting out of hand (Pawlyk, 2019). Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein said before the date of the event that extra security and extra barricades had been added as well. I remember being on social media sometime in July when the event gained a lot of attention online and hearing that the Air Force had issued an official warning. I also saw photos of briefings that were taking place inside the base, has the soldiers learned about the possible “threat.” Obviously, reinforcements were not needed and nothing serious happened, it’s just worth noting how large of an impact social media can have on even our U.S. military.
Sources:
Pawlyk, O. (2019, September 17). ‘Storm Area 51’ Has Been Canceled, but the Air Force Isn’t Taking Chances. Retrieved from https://www.military.com/daily-news/2019/09/17/air-force-sending-reinforcements-area-51-despite-raids-cancellation.html