What national, international, cultural and personal events in 2011 stand out for you most? Why? To refresh your memory, think of all the news we have discussed in class and the recent videos we watched. Which of these events seems most important? Why?
At the end of each year, The New York Times publishes lists of highlights in various categories, like the Book Review’s list of the 10 Best Books or music critics on the best albums of 2011. The Bits blog’s Jenna Wortham published “2011: The Year in Memes.” Which do you recognize? :
What Internet memes and online fads captivated the Web in 2011?
The editors of Know Your Meme, a Web site dedicated to tracking this sort of thing, singled out two of their favorites: Rebecca Black’s so-bad-its-kinda-good YouTube video “Friday,” and the remixed images of a police officer spraying Occupy Wall Street protesters.
The site compiled a list of the year’s most viral phenomena, from pure pop culture to tributes and memorials to Steve Jobs.
Planking, the trend of being photographed while lying flat on a surface, made the list, as did “nyan cat,” a colorful, pixelated cartoon of a cat with the body of a Pop-Tart, flying through space and being trailed by a rainbow. The full rundown is on the Know Your Meme blog.
Twitter and Facebook released similar lists of the topics and news events that caught fire among users during the year. Twitter cited the revolts in Egypt and the very public meltdown of the actor Charlie Sheen, while on Facebook, the death of Osama bin Laden and the Super Bowl were among the most popular items.
Students: Tell us about what you’ll remember most from this year, whether it’s a viral Internet meme like those described by the Bits blog, a news event we covered in our 2011 news quiz, an event in your own life, or something else entirely. You might even list the first five or 10 events that come to mind when you think about 2011 as a whole. How would you sum up this year? What are you looking forward to in 2012?