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Social Media in Popular Culture
Published in Michael Muhlmeyer, Shaurya Agarwal, Information Spread in a Social Media Age, 2021
Michael Muhlmeyer, Shaurya Agarwal
One enduring example of an internet meme is the “Rickrolling” prank. People send a seemingly legitimate internet link, which leads instead to a Rick Astley music video from the 1980s. Another good example is the popular trend of using photo editing software to alter movie posters in extreme and comical ways to express a point and post the new image on social media sites. Many memes that become widespread evolve to suit new situations and desired subjects of commentary. During the 2020 coronavirus pandemic discussed earlier, for example, people were given “stay at home” orders for several months. Many took the time to learn to bake bread since they were unable to go about their routine (generally more exciting) plans for the year. Several memes similar to the one shown in Figure 2.2 were created and posted over social media sites to express frustration through humor.
(Re)framing the emerging mobility regime at the U.S.-Mexico borderlands: Covid-19, temporality, and racial capitalism
Published in Mobilities, 2023
Miguel A. Avalos, Ghassan Moussawi
Before discussing the ‘essential’ categories’ temporal dimensions and effects, we first describe the temporal context under which they operate. Public health measures against Covid-19 promote social deceleration enforced by stay-at-home orders, work-from-home arrangements, and extended lockdowns (Suckert 2021). Conversely, economic activities sustaining racial capitalism in countries such as the United States require constant acceleration in production, labor, and consumption to maximize profits under the guise of its economic security and interests, even during global emergencies. Thus, racial capitalism’s temporality is diametrically opposed to the pandemic’s slow temporality, occasioned by public health measures. It is imperative, then, for capitalist nation-states to secure legitimized sources of mobile yet disposable surplus labor, often gendered and racialized, that is unencumbered by Covid-19 mobility constraints and their temporal exigencies.