Snowclones and Clichés and Memes, Oh My! | Otherwords
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- Опубликовано: 23 фев 2022
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Adaptable clichés called "snowclones" are EVERYWHERE on the internet. We use them for memes, inside jokes, to show our membership of the group. But they weren't invented online. In fact, they're way older than you think!
Otherwords is a PBS web series on Storied that digs deep into this quintessential human trait of language and fınds the fascinating, thought-provoking, and funny stories behind the words and sounds we take for granted. Incorporating the fıelds of biology, history, cultural studies, literature, and more, linguistics has something for everyone and offers a unique perspective into what it means to be human.
Host/Writer: Erica Brozovsky, Ph.D.
Creator/Director: Andrew Matthews & Katie Graham
Producer: Katie Graham
Editor/Animation: Andrew Matthews
Executive Producer: Amanda Fox
Fact Checker: Yvonne McGreevy
Executive in Charge for PBS: Maribel Lopez
Associate Director of Programming for PBS: Niki Walker
Stock Images from Shutterstock
Music from APM Music
Otherwords is produced by Spotzen for PBS.
© 2022 PBS. All rights reserved.
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Memes are the DNA of the soul! Now that's a pretty meme! _Exquisite!_
Lmao, I love how MGR is here
Clinks glass 🥂
If choosing to interpret 6:47 as Erica suddenly remembering she is an actual doctor is wrong, then I don't want to be right.
Almost as good as this; "Dammit, Jim, I'm a doctor not a doctor. I mean I am a doctor, but I'm not that kind of doctor. You can't help people with a doctorate you just sit there and you're useless." Dr. Delbert Doppler; "Treasure Planet"
Another Wizard of Oz Snowclone is "I have a feeling we're not in X anymore.
I thought she was going to go with that one
I thought it would be "there's no place like X"
@@meganhartmann180 what else do we say in that one other than "home"....come to think of it, maybe we never change "Kansas", either. We just take out "Toto " and put in the name of the person with whom we're speaking
Or;
"Oh, _____________, I'll miss you most of all!"
This was AMAZING.
I laughted, I learned, I liked ;)
words, memes, jokes, Oh My!!
I liked, I commented*, I subscribed
*(am commenting)
5:09 "but here it's snowclones all the way down" is itself a snowclone on "turtles all the way down"
Shakespeare wishes he could have come up with "to swing or not to swing"
The original beebop musician Dizzy Gillespie titled his autobiography _To Be Or Not To Bop._
For what it’s worth, I think Vision was right. Still missing someone long after they’re gone just shows how deeply you cared about them.
ain't no rule that says a snowclone can't be deep!
This thread is now snowclones all the way down.
@@lucasgelati I think most fo them are like that's why they are so adaptable
Well, that's kind of what the joke is. Vison was stating the obvious, basically just defining grief, then everybody that is generally not any deeper than a kitchen sink, suddenly went "Oh wow". You've got to remember that writers are heavily influencing the zeitgeist, & they love to poke fun at the intellect of the general public, & often their own readers as well.
I mean, I loved my nana, but she died 18 years ago and I couldn't describe her appearance or voice to you
What a lovely reminder to Keep Calm and Snowclone On
I often hear Never attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence, to which I snowcloned Arthur C. Clark: Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice
You're mixing your metaclones there.
@@kolyaschaeffer5760 And that’s how it’s done
Yea im fuckin stealing that frase its mine now, its too good not to use
This is… amazing
When shapes were mentioned as being snowclones, I immediately began searching for a Loss reference on screen.
Uhhhhh, im gonna need a blank of Shakespeare thinking, reflecting, and burning his page. Thanks. 🤣
so many great animations in this episode and its really cool to fully understand a phenomena that we all basically interact with but actually do have a name for. i do like the point at the end that its definitely about short hand and for inside jokes, in the digital age identity is tied to the online communities we are apart of so communication that shows whos in/out of those groups makes sense but also there is a sense of collectiveness too when everyone uses the snowclone even if they dont know where it originates from which is also fascinating.
im really excited for the podcast! a podcast makes perfect sense for it's lit/storied
*phenomenon.
I loved this. I am always fascinated by language and culture, but don't have the vocabulary to describe these things. I now have a new term: snowclone and I am glad of it! It is especially funny because I just used the Inuit snow example as a demonstration of how language can give clues to the environment in which that language evolved.
You wanna be even more clever-er-er? Try telling people how many words there are for rain in Scotland 😂
@@berrybannanas haha! :) Well played!
@@jso6790 my favourite is “it’s buckiting down” always use to look for buckets when my mum said that. Haha
Personal favorite Vini Vidi Vici snowclone from back in highschool: Vini Vidi Dormivi - I Came, I Saw, I Fell Asleep.
Also quite fond of "Carpe DM" - Seize the Dungeon Master. Cause sometimes, your DM just needs smacked. (Shout-out to my DM who kept purposely killing my character off so his best friend could loot my gear.)
Carpe Dentum!
Seize the tooth!
She said "Veni. Vidi. Vici." in Classical Latin! This has made my day!
*Veni, vidi, Wiki.*
"I came, I saw, I Googled it."🤣
I noticed that too 👍
in the Asterix films there are parodies of "Veni. Vidi. Vici." one of the funniest for but in Asterix in Britain (my favorite) cesar said "I came, I saw and I can't believe my eyes"🤣
I remember a another meme from Asterix: when Obelix does not understand the Romans he says inspired by the initials SPQR (Senatvs PopvlvsQve Romanvs) he says: These Romans are crazy (in Italian: Sono Pazzi Questi Romani)
Love love love otherwords - a great, easily digestible way for me to share my linguistic love with my friends who did not pursue the degree as I did. Also a perfect quick fix now that I'm out of school
I love Otherwords so much. "It's snowclones all the way down" is the most meta thing I've ever heard, it gives me pure joy, thank you.
My lifelong favorite snowclone:
I came, I saw, I went out for pizza 🍕
Finally, a video I can use to explain memes to my parents.
I can't think of anything creative, so I'll just fall back on:
Memer? I hardly know her!
3:12 And let's not forget "they come, they eat, they leave" from _A Bug's Life_ !
Yes, it's supposed to be present tense, since the queen ant is describing what the grasshoppers do every year, after the ants gather food for them.
The alternate memings are fascinating. I love the idea that understanding a meme gives you membership (memebership?) in a group. I always though of Darmok and Jalad as a cool thought experiment, but this shows it's reality.
Shaka. When the walls fell.
Ah, the Gilgamesh episode.
@@CowboyGittarManKiazi's children, their faces wet.
Veni, Vidi, Veneri. I came, I saw, I got an embarrassing disease.
My favourite Julius Ceasar quote has to be "Infamy! Infamy! They've all got it in for me!"
4:05 The first time I saw it written was "I chase therefore I am", on the special features of a Tom & Jerry compilation DVD, where they were giving profiles on the characters, and they listed the above saying as Tom's motto in life.
"It's memes all the way down" absolutely sent me.
loved the way you guys kept using snowclones throughout the video, it really drove the point home
I had never heard of snowclones before, or even considered that such a concept existed, so this blew my mind a little bit!
5:03 My favourite example is in the movie _Treasure Planet_ , where Dr. Doppler says, "I'm an astronomer, not a doctor!", then clarifies that, yes, he's *technically* a doctor since he has a doctorate, but he isn't a medical doctor.
Oh, and for those of you wondering, he's a combination of Dr. Livesey and Squire Trelawney from the book (i.e. Dr. Honeydew and Fozzie Bear in the Muppet version).
I don't know who shawn mendes is but It's giving is from drag culture
PLEASE yes let's stop forgetting how much popular culture originated in drag culture
My favorite is just rearranging it: "Vidi vici veni"!
Also "I think therefore I am confused" and "I think I think, therefore I think I am, I think…"
I first heard the word 'meme' in a the book by Richard Dawkins, so I still think of the word meaning an infectious idea that spreads and multiplies like a lifeform. ie: religion.
It's still weird to me to hear the internet definition of 'meme'.
If it's any comfort, it's equally weird for me (veteran internet meme trash) to hear a meme like "dammit jim, i'm a X not a Y" being called a "snowclone". But isn't it wonderful that Internet Memes are indeed true memes, even if all true memes are not Internet Memes? Watching these little packets of cultural information mutate and evolve in real time is a thrill that never gets old, imo
The context is seemingly very different, but it all comes together with the fundamental truism of evolution: Whatever gets repeated, gets repeated.
Remember when Star Trek had an alien species that spoke in metaphorical memes? Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra. The mental image of that conveyed the concept of working together like the way image macro templates convey a concept even without a caption.
Also, other aspects of culture, like language, clothing styles, cuisines, architectural styles. They're all memetic. People see/hear/experience it and want to copy it. Or they keep a core idea from it and change it up a little.
And that's how memes(or memory genes) duplicate and mutate.
it works well in the digital age because those creating or sharing the meme have their inflection already baked into the well-known meme source.
Funny, your last sentence did me realize that a doctor can be an engineer, kind of.
To meme is human?
Everything is a remix. Memes are part of all history and written language.
This is really refreshing today. Thanks PBS!
me: Can't wait for the next episode. I bet it will be great.
Otherwords: *releases new episode*
me: :SURPRISED PIKACHU:
oh my god, having lost my job and succumbed to deep depression and struggling with suicidal thoughts and now trying to recovering from all these, I find myself greatly benefit from those funny and insightful and educational videos made by Dr Erica and all the videos on Storied channel and PBS. They all have been in a great help.
Thank you all for making these wonderful knowledges accessible to us all... I feel less alone despite the fact that I am alone... I feel less weak despite the fact that all the past has wrecked a havoc on my mental health and physical health... thank you all for making these 😭 🙏❤
The crazed hunt for the yeti is my favorite
I wasn’t aware of the Star Trek use as we have an older version in Finnish! Sometime in the early 1900s, the great Jean Sibelius answered his wife’s inquiry about his expected return from the bar: ‘I’m a composer, not a fortune teller’. 😄
Like the T-shirts worn by hikers/climbers back in the... 80s I think, that said, "Go Climb a Rock." Soon after, there were T-shirts sold in San Francisco that said, "Go Climb a Street." :)
i JUST saw the "I ain't exactly thinking" meme before i clicked on this. same edit scars and picture and everything
Honestly though, I think Shakespeare would have loved meme culture. He’d be proud that we made snowclones out of his lines. He would also be happy to know that his works stuck around long enough to be memes.
I always watch ALL the way to the end to watch the outtakes. Thanks for those.
I’m a little surprised there was no mention of “keep calm and carry on” which was ubiquitous for about 5 years.
I also find out funny that it spent several decades as a sealed meme in a can before going viral.
The video did seem to skew a little "classic literature" (so that maybe normies would understand it?)
This is a really great show.
love the work you (plural) do!
Like songs with a common melody they could use for puns in the middle ages.
You were supposed to bring balance to linguistics, not leave it in meme-ness!
Oh the irony
okay u kinda knocked it out of the park with the humor on this one like i genuinely laughed
2:51 they way you correctly said weni, widi, wici just makes me love you even more
I never knew this had a name! I find it so fascinating that our popular media can become so ubiquitous in our minds that we can make a shorthand for that thing/vibe!
This should have been a whole half hour.
Nah. I think a half whole hour would be plenty.
otherwords!! delivering top quality content for all my literary wonderings
"This is memeness!"
NO: THIS IS SNOWCLONE!!
I came for the answer to how cliches evolve into memes, and all I got were examples of snowclones.
Not* Shakespeare seeing the future and burning Hamlet! 😂 Slay
I enjoyed Mad Libs and Mad magazine when I was young! Thanks Dr B!
Best intro to a video ever!
You just nerded my brains 🧠 out. You awesome, awesome doc.
I love these videos berry much
To swing or not to swing is so silly it made me lol
Well accodring to a late cambodian cyborg assassin memes are the DNA of the soul.
Know your snowclones
"if loving worms is stupid i dont want to be smart" "it is!" is one of my favorite exchanges on community
another great video! you're a godess!!
'I'm a doctor, not a doorpost!' I just thought Robert Picardo was blowing off electronic steam, little did I know that ...
I started on Star Trek TNG, so cut me some slack please.
yes, I love the meta-ness of the Doctor's comments on Voyager.
Another Wizard of Oz line that has been snowcloned is "Toto I have a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore."
This is such a good series.
I was sure that the snowclone for Wizard of Oz was going to be "____, I don't think we're in _____ anymore" :-)
“Humans crave connection.” Thank for explaining to me why I look at memes so much!
Engagement for the engagement god! (This statement will never be more relevant.)
Was "madlibs" copyrighted/trademarked such that they had to invent a weird phrase like "snowclone"?
Anyway, this was a good beginner's guide to my favorite type of internet meme - the fill-in-the-blank. IMO the best ones have the most potential for widespread applicability (easy to substitute new things in the blanks) AND potential for mutation (skewing the phrase beyond filling in the blanks). My personal favorite is still Spiders Georg.
And because of boaty mcboatface, an actually professional racing series allowing fans to name a race gave us buschy mcbusch race.
Best intro sequence on youtube
The first thing I think about when I think of Julius Caesar is that he was deaf in his right ear. "Come on my left hand" always gave me a laugh growing up.
I clicked, I watched, I enjoyed!
Gahhhhh this series is so good!
This whole video had me dieing off laughter
Erica Brozovsky, Ph.D., is a brilliant presenter. Thank you. I love your wisdom and show.
Watching this video helps me lean more & more 😁😁😁😁
This channel is so underrated :(
I love these videos!!!
I have a question. I noticed a lot of titles just shorten these kind of phrases. Like how Star Trek TNG's finale was called "All Good Things." Or I saw an episode of something (can't remember what) and the title was just "Actions Speak." Is that a thing? Is there a name for that?
That was delightful
It's giving came from AAVE , it has been said for the longest - before Shawn
Indeed! AAVE and ballroom culture :) - Dr. B
To boldly go to a place where no man had is a thought that will be completed by who.
Cher if she watches this video: now why am I in it? You see how I get thrown into stuff, I ain't een did nothin
I've seriously never heard "It's giving" as a snowclone in my life.
She said Veni, Vidi, Vici correctly
Loved the content. Also please consider, You Don't have to kowtow with apologize to things you never said nor implied. Just let them be.
Thanks😎
otherwords will forever be iconic in my brain.
I really do miss "hyperbole and a half". I miss the monster alot. I miss I clean all the things.
I appreciate hearing veni vidi vici pronounced in it's proper goofy-ass sounding form
I like to think that the book on Goodreads 'I Drink Therefore I Am, A Philosophers......' is actually a callback to Monty Python's 'Philosopher's Song' and the lines 'And Rene Descartes was a drunken fart/ I drink therefore I am'
AH! It always makes me smile when I am reminded of the story of Boaty McBoatface!
We need a madlibs booklet of snowclones!
Congrats on making an academic video about memes funny and interesting. Not an easy feat.
Good point - memes help us join a "gang" - and get human "contact"
Okay, but that George of the Jungle reference ❤