Who owns a meme?

Why'd You Push That Button?

Vox Media Podcast Network

Society & Culture, Arts, Technology, Design

4.4 • 683 Ratings

🗓️ 6 March 2018

⏱️ 36 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Our first episode of season 2 is about memes and the law, which sounds both boring and scary and is neither. First, we chatted with Vox Media’s Sara Reinis, who told us an unsettling story about her first viral tweet. In short: Her life was turned a little upside down because she made a meme using a photo of some birds, and did not realize the birds were someone’s family. Fair enough, Sara, but maybe all of our listeners will learn from your mistakes! Then we talked to Drew Scanlon, best known as the “white guy blinking meme.” He told us all about how his life has changed since his eyelids became the most famous ones on the whole internet. Honestly, it doesn’t sound that bad! But I would probably have less patience with my friends and acquaintances than Drew does. He says it doesn’t even bother him when they introduce him to people as “the blinking guy.” Finally, we talked to Tim Hwang about all the legal issues buzzing around these stories. He’s a lawyer, as well as the founder of the meme convention ROFLCon, and the director of Harvard and MIT’s Ethics and Governance of AI initiative. You can listen and read the transcript below, or find us anywhere else you find podcasts, including on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play Music, and our RSS feed. And get caught up on season 1 if you’re late to the party. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Do you like sharing memes?
0:01.0	Every time I feel like an old lady, I'm like, this is the funniest thing ever.
0:05.0	And everyone's like, yeah, this is like a year old.
0:07.0	I like the original memes, like that fat seal.
0:09.0	That's a meme, right?
0:10.0	Ken Bone was my favorite meme for a while.
0:11.0	I send like animal photos.
0:13.0	They might be like reality show people.
0:15.0	A lot of it is like is that there's a photo of me that becomes a meme and I'm unaware of it. I think there's a website, right? Like, know your meme. Yeah. It's like everybody
0:24.4	can just come together and like either make fun of something. I like the bonding.
0:28.1	Hello, and welcome to Why'd You Push That Button, a show where Caitlin Tiffany and me,
0:34.9	Ashley Carmen, talk about all the little decisions technology forces us to make.
0:40.9	We're back.
0:41.7	This is crazy.
0:43.1	It doesn't feel that we got much of a rest.
0:46.6	No.
0:48.3	Simultaneously, winter has felt so long, and also I feel like we were just here.
0:52.8	Yeah, exactly.
0:54.0	Having this microphone in front of my
0:55.4	face is strange. I don't know. I'm nervous. Super nervous because it's season two. Right? So no more
1:03.9	excuses. Yeah, this is our professional season. Yeah, they gave us, you know, lots of, lots of perks now.
1:10.8	Perks.
	...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in -2579 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Vox Media Podcast Network, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Vox Media Podcast Network and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.