The Benefits of Donating Clothes

Will Peterman

Professor RobbGrieco

Com 416

2/15/2023

For this leap 1 assignment, the topic I chose was “COMEBACK CLOTHES DONATE OR RECYCLE UNWANTED CLOTHES AND TEXTILES TO SUPPORT VULNERABLE POPULATIONS AND PROTECT THE PLANET.” As a means to raise awareness of protecting our planet, and to show how simple it would be to do the small things that are needed to do, I used a collection of 5 memes to get the point across.

Memes, especially familiar and popular ones, can be strong carriers of a message no matter what the message is. The main idea of this effort was to bring attention to it in order to keep the world healthy, but with the help of humor, people who see the meme can quickly learn how easy and simple it is to do their part for the environment. So many people have hidden away in their closets and dressers old t-shirts, pants, socks, and shoes that don’t fit them anymore still in their house! We willingly throw these all away into the trash, never really thinking, “oh well maybe someone else could use these”. We just toss them, without a care in the world, then we think about what next pair of pants from LuLuLemon should I buy.

The memes chosen for this were carefully picked. I thought a powerful aspect of this was using a template, joke, and person who has been seen many times before as or in a meme. The Bernie Sanders, Anakin Skywalker, and Drake memes fall under that. With the right caption that brings attention to the issue at hand, while demonstrating the simplicity of donating/recycling, people would be more inclined to do so.

A major factor of propaganda that associates with meme usage is “image ranking”. This technique from the chapter was described as “Using eye-catching graphics and optimizing visual content for search.” The faces seen in the memes are very familiar to people, they react to it in certain ways, and when people see that still of the said face in a frame, they recognize it as a meme from seeing it before. Maybe they found it funny, maybe they didn’t, but many are familiar with these meme formats. Because I chose memes as a way to deliver propaganda, visual aids acted as the backbone of this message. If I had chosen a press release or blog as a way to display propaganda, it would probably deal more with metadata, opt-out, and thumbnail artwork, that is why image ranking is important here.

Acting on emotion in this form of propaganda was important as well. Being able to find a middle ground between the importance of helping the plant and comical familiarity was the reason why I created the memes. Behind each one as well carries so much simplicity to the problem it raises. Although they are not as abstract and powerful as for example Nazi propaganda, where the color red is strong and vibrant to display power, these memes created can go a long way to simplifying the issue to people.

From Helen Brown of BBC, her article “The surprising power of internet memes” talks in detail about the technique and effectiveness of memes used today. Without looking at the hidden meaning or message, many can define a meme as a “ubiquitous source of light entertainment — a way for people to express themselves through cleverly remixed templates of text, images, and videos.” However Brown also argues “They are a language in themselves, with a capacity to transcend cultures and construct collective identities between people. These sharable visual jokes can also be powerful tools for self-expression, connection, social influence, and even political subversion.” When it comes to a very important issue that we deal with today, global preservation and environmental health, people can react and act the same way in their efforts, or take it more seriously when they see a meme related to this topic.

I did enjoy the experience of creating propaganda for this assignment. The readings acted as a great tool in assisting my knowledge of what makes propaganda, propaganda. What also made the project more enjoyable was learning more about a topic of great importance today. Being able to apply lessons learned from the class to real-world scenarios is a great way to improve one’s literacy and knowledge of both subjects. This assignment also allowed for much freedom to express one’s creativity with how the propaganda was presented.

References

“The Surprising Power of Internet Memes.” BBC Future, BBC, https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20220928-the-surprising-power-of-internet-memes.

RobbGrieco, M. (2023). Propaganda. Pathwright. Retrieved February 16, 2023, from https://propaganda.pathwright.com/library/propaganda-61105/459571/path/?path_id=5688893

“Textile Recovery.” Mass.gov, https://www.mass.gov/guides/textile-recovery.