Gabriela Monteiro Lunardi Thesis
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“THE ‘ZOEIRA’ NEVER ENDS”: THE ROLE OF INTERNET MEMES IN CONTEMPORARY BRAZILIAN CULTURE Gabriela Monteiro Lunardi Bachelor of Social Communication (Advertising), 2013, Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul (Brazil) Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Philosophy (Communication) Digital Media Research Centre School of Communication Creative Industries Faculty Queensland University of Technology 2018 Keywords Brazilian culture Brazil Cultural identity Digital culture Humour Internet Memes Participatory media Zoeira i Abstract Internet access and use is growing around the world and, accordingly, the importance of understanding its cultural influence is also growing. Via everyday social media use, the stories, rumours and jokes that make up the culture of the internet are shared and transformed. Some of these texts are “memes”: that is, groups of texts that share similar characteristics and spread on the web, changing and adapting from one context to another (Shifman, 2014). To analyse internet memes means to investigate the cultural meanings of those expressions and how they relate to culture and society more broadly. In this context, this study focused on Brazilian memes. I used textual analysis to study in depth three Brazilian internet memes: the Neves and Temer’s recordings meme, which sprang from a secret audio recording of a discussion involving political corruption; the Sarrada no Ar (Brazilian funk) meme, which commented on a dance craze; and the Gretchen meme, which focused on the mononymous Brazilian celebrity Gretchen. I based the selection and analysis of the memes on the concept of the zoeira, which is a particularly Brazilian form of humour. My goal was to understand how Brazilian internet memes represent specific aspects of Brazilian culture and explore how Brazilian meme culture relates to the broader popular culture of the internet. This thesis concludes that: (1) humour is the way Brazilians found to talk about controversial elements of Brazilian culture; (2) Brazilian internet memes can work as a genuine avenue of protest; (3) memes help Brazilians to build their cultural identity; (4) creating and sharing internet memes about Brazilian culture helps Brazilian users to connect with each other, forming a sense of shared community; and (5) through memes, the Brazilian community finds its place on a ii global internet whose popular culture remains dominated by the English language and American culture. iii Table of Contents Keywords ................................................................................................................................... i Abstract ..................................................................................................................................... ii Table of Contents ..................................................................................................................... iv List of Figures .......................................................................................................................... vi Statement of Original Authorship ............................................................................................. x Acknowledgements .................................................................................................................. xi Chapter 1: Introduction............................................................................................. 1 1.1 Context of the study ........................................................................................................ 1 1.2 Research design .............................................................................................................. 3 1.2.1 Objects of study ..................................................................................................... 4 1.2.2 Analysis approach .................................................................................................. 5 1.3 Thesis structure ............................................................................................................... 6 Chapter 2: Internet Memes ....................................................................................... 9 2.1 What are internet memes?............................................................................................... 9 2.1.1 The structure of internet memes .......................................................................... 11 2.1.2 Repackaging mechanisms and meme genres ....................................................... 13 2.2 Meme vs. viral .............................................................................................................. 14 2.3 Memes as social and cultural expressions of the internet ............................................. 15 2.4 From global to local ...................................................................................................... 17 2.5 Humour as an attribute .................................................................................................. 20 Chapter 3: Humour and the Brazilian Internet .................................................... 22 3.1 Carnival: A Brazilian allegory ...................................................................................... 22 3.2 The Brazilian laugh ....................................................................................................... 24 3.3 The zoeira: Brazilian humour on the internet ............................................................... 27 3.3.1 Defining zoeira .................................................................................................... 27 3.3.2 Zoeira vs. trolling ................................................................................................ 30 3.3.3 The zoeira in digital media studies ...................................................................... 32 Chapter 4: Research Design .................................................................................... 36 4.1 Objects of study ............................................................................................................ 37 4.1.1 Politics: Neves and Temer’s recordings .............................................................. 37 4.1.2 Class: Sarrada no Ar (Brazilian funk) ................................................................. 38 4.1.3 Popular Culture: Gretchen ................................................................................... 39 4.2 Research process ........................................................................................................... 40 4.2.1 Discovering the Brazilian memes ........................................................................ 41 iv 4.2.2 Defining the concept of the zoeira and its uses ................................................... 43 4.2.3 Selecting the memes ............................................................................................ 45 4.2.4 Collecting the material ........................................................................................ 47 4.2.5 Storing the material ............................................................................................. 51 4.3 Analysis approach ........................................................................................................ 52 Chapter 5: Politics – Neves and Temer’s recordings ............................................ 54 5.1 The zoeira in politics .................................................................................................... 55 5.2 Neves and Temer’s recordings ..................................................................................... 61 5.2.1 Memetic examples ............................................................................................... 63 5.3 The zoeira in Neves and Temer’s recordings ............................................................... 83 Chapter 6: Class – Sarrada no Ar (Brazilian funk) ............................................... 88 6.1 The zoeira in class ........................................................................................................ 88 6.2 Sarrada no ar (Brazilian funk) ..................................................................................... 94 6.2.1 Memetic examples ............................................................................................... 96 6.3 The zoeira in Sarrada no ar ....................................................................................... 108 Chapter 7: Popular Culture – Gretchen .............................................................. 113 7.1 The zoeira in popular culture ..................................................................................... 113 7.2 Gretchen ..................................................................................................................... 118 7.2.1 Memetic examples ............................................................................................. 120 7.3 The zoeira in Gretchen ............................................................................................... 131 Chapter 8: Conclusions ......................................................................................... 137 8.1 Overview .................................................................................................................... 137 8.2 Discussion of findings ................................................................................................ 138 8.2.1 Humour is the Brazilian