The Algorithm

So earlier I said that I would be looking into political style cartoons but I think I've shifted my attention to memes, specifically Generation Z's absurdist style of content creation. This is both the style of content most prevalent on my social media feeds but one that is just esoteric enough to reach a target audience. Because of what Poell and van Dijck describe as the personalization of media through algorithms, data analysis of views and retweets, and user interaction with different types of posts, I feel that a complex and controversial topic like anti-consumerism is best spread quickly and broadly, but with only the intended audience able to (and willing to) interpret it. I don't quite know how to use Tik Tok (or even regular) editing software yet, but I intend to follow the meme formats of deep fried and or poorly edited, where images and ideas are edited so that their resolution and quality decreases in order to stand out as artificial. These difficult to read images can slip past algorithms and censors to reach a broader audience, but would be recognizable enough to continue showing up for certain people. There is also the trend of editing plain text on top of and captioning these such images, ranging from single words to in depth analyses of otherwise mundane imagery.