Its interesting what does and doesn’t have the capacity to become a meme. It's not an exact science, and without really looking it seems entirely random, as the humor involved itself is often very random. Something has to reach and appeal to a pretty big group for it to become the cultural phenomenon. The example of Drake’s dance is perfect. It already had a massive audience when he put it in his music video. Someone, or a number of people, saw the dance, thought it was funny, and isolated that section, exposing it to even more people. To really become a meme though, something has to be malleable and be able to be applied in other ways creating more jokes, such as in him throwing pokeballs, or at the end of its life cycle in a T-mobile commercial. The “world village” is what makes memes possible as things are able to spread quickly around the world, elsewise by the time it reached somewhere else, the humor would have passed.
It’s difficult to force virality. The reason anyone can be successful with it is the mere volume with which such things are pumped out. When I saw Jimmy Fallon as I read through this blog post, I couldn’t help but groan. I have never cared for him. He remains to this day, my least favorite SNL cast member. All of his supposed best moments are of him breaking character and laughing. His lack of professionalism was a novelty at first, but it got old as he even became a distraction in other people’s skits. One might ask why this isn’t funny but Stefon, a skit intended to make Bill Hader break character is. That could stem from the fact that it's rare for Bill Hader to ever break, making it better when he does, whereas Fallon breaks so frequently. It’s so over the top and out there that it's almost like a fun test, to see him set up for failure. Fallon breaks at almost nothing, as seen is this video where he doesn’t make it 5 seconds into an unfunny song. (http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/holiday-treat-for-all/n11532). The problem with then giving him his own show, is that’s all he does still. He can’t stop laughing at himself in his monologues, interviews, sketches, or games. He acts childish, he appeals by trying to be the cute one, all in awe of his guests, giggling, jumping, and clapping with them. It appeals to some, allowing him to be successful. His segments are short and simple, allowing them to succeed on the internet as standalone clips. When you go to Fallon’s youtube page, the interviews aren’t even kept together. They are divided into short clips by their topic, though this is also to boost his views. It’s safe. Jimmy Fallon is the mild salsa of television. No one is upset by him, but it can just leave you wanting more, or significantly less.  |
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I very much appreciate your Fallon rant--and I think you are right, it has to do with a kind of forced vitality that has increasingly taken over his show. He's a skilled comedian when he tries, and he's also skilled at being a bad comedian--a rare combination. But it's easier to do the latter, and so overtime he has leaned on it heavily.
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