Friday, November 20, 2009

Know your autotune

In one of my other JMC classes, we're doing a study on viral media and what makes them so insanely popular. One of the presentations was on a series of YouTube posts entitled "Autotune the News."

For those of you who don't know what Autotuning is, it's basically what makes T-Pain sound like T-Pain. Apparently it was created by an oil miner in attempts to find underwater reserves for Exxon Mobile. Eventually it fell into the hands of the internet and exploded from there.

No, I didn't do a ton of research on this topic to find this all out. I just watched the Know Your Meme episode about autotuning.

For those who don't know what Know Your Meme is, it's a group of people who study, analyze and breakdown internet memes, crazy fads that become viral for bizarre reasons.

If you're wondering what the hell is up with that girl who just stares into the camera, the numa numa guy, or balloon boy, they tackle all these topics in an attempt to better understand how and why the stories came about and why we, as a culture, took time out of our lives to pay attention.

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