The Rapid Circulation of Luther and Pepe

For this week's post our class is discussing the topic of media ecology and how it is "an assemblage of media forms and communicative practices which creates a specific media environment". I will be discussing two media examples; Martin Luther’s 95 These and the internet meme Pepe the Frog during the 2016 USA Presidential election and how these two examples relate to the third articulation discussed in class. The third articulation concerns how media artifacts and messages are brought into being and spread through a culture, community, or society, and is manifested in the spatio-temporal dynamics of relations of creativity and production, relations of distribution and circulation, and relations of consumption and reception.

This articulation mainly describes the spread and circulation of media artifacts and messages throughout society which is something we see and/or take part in through the internet and social media every day. With this being said, with the rise of digital and social media it is hard to believe that the act of spreading media has been happening for longer than just the early 2000s. In fact, the circulation of a message is something that has been happening since Martin Luther’s 95 These. This document or media message is argued to be the first message to “go viral” in 1517 after Luther lost control of his message about the Catholic church. After Martin Luther wrote this letter, he then went on to send it to another person who then sent it to another person thus spreading the message throughout the community. Thus showing that communication can circulate so easy, this also shows how quickly an original message can lose control and be left in the hands of someone other than the creator. When a message leaves its original state it can be seen by whoever comes across is, this is a problem we have with social media and the internet today as well.

Pepe the Frog is an internet meme that has been around for many years, due to the fact that this frog looks so sad he usually has the caption “feels bad man” nearby. Pepe resurfaced this year during the presidential election when Donald Trump tweeted a “trump version” that read “you can’t stump the Trump”. Due to the fact that Trump was behind this led to many pro- Trump Pepe memes, thus Pepe was reborn. These Trump versions of Pepe began to circulate through social media instantly and became a symbol of the 2016 election. Although with this, came a lot of negative connotation attached to Pepe, Trump supporters found a connection with Donald through this meme and continued to circulate his image across the internet. This shows the extent a message can reach with the power of social media especially with a common thread linking users. This particular meme created a sense of community between people around the world which is one of the main reasons I believe it reached its viral status so quickly.