Self Introduction
Hi, my name is Rocco Francisco. I am a student here at NJCU pursuing a B.F.A. with a Concentration in Graphic Design. My digital work uses a lot of geometric inspiration and sharp angles, and I continue to expand my artistic knowledge in all forms of media. Outside of school, I publish music independently under an alias on many platforms, such as Spotify and Apple Music. I also publish a variety of media content under the same name elsewhere. I personally have an interest in topics related to the improvement of pay and treatment for small artists, and as an Asian man I also pay attention to issues of socioeconomic nature.
Reading Responses
Understanding Patriarchy by Bell Hooks
"I was always more interested in challenging patriarchy than my brother was because it was
the system that was always leaving me out of things that I wanted to be part of. In our family
life of the fifties, marbles were a boy’s game. My brother had inherited his marbles from men in the
family; he had a tin box to keep them in."
This is a statement that can stand on its own, and is further emphasized by the context of the writing it is a part of. To understand patriarchy is to understand why so many people fail to recognize it as an issue worth drawing attention to. It is much harder to see something is wrong when you are not the one being affected, even more so when you end up becoming a beneficiary because of it. Hooks writes further about her and her brother, and how their playing of marbles demonstrated multiple sides of patriarchy and its pitfalls; Hooks as a girl was aggressively forced into a position of being "lesser," while her brother was being raised to buy into this system through similarly harmful means.
"I often tell audiences that if we were to go door-to-door asking if we should end male violence
against women, most people would give their unequivocal support. Then if you told them we can only stop male violence against women by ending male domination, by eradicating patriarchy, they would begin to hesitate, to change their position."
One of the most important facets of patriarchy to talk about is the fact that it is a system that people buy into, and one that affects daily life no matter how you feel about it. Many people say that they want to see women succeed, and see things such as violence and abuse against women to end, yet still accept and rely on systems of patriarchy. This is similar to common reactions to other instances of systemic injustice, such as that of systemic racism or that of class separation and control. These crises don't just need attention, as changes will not come if people remain accepting of these situations. As such, it is very important to act against patriarchy, whether it is on an individual scale, or on a larger scale.
What Memes Owe to History | Artsy
"...memes are hardwired with an unpredictability and a “hackable” interface or template that can be easily appropriated and overwritten—anyone can make a meme. Performance brought art into the street and public spaces, leveling the gap between artist and audience. Similarly, memes offer a highly accessible and interactive platform of production that is ripe for challenge and dissent, with disagreements and controversy only fueling the fire of a successful meme truly going viral."
Memes are a wonderful thing because they are totally accessible to pretty much anybody with a device that has an Internet connection. Anybody can consume them, and pretty much anybody can make them. Sometimes, it is as easy as taking an image and putting some text over it. Other times, it is as complicated as making an image or animation completely from scratch just to make a meme. The possibilities are very much endless, which is further expanded upon by the fact that memes can hit pretty much any topic that can be talked about. This versatility is what makes memes such a preferred and heavily used medium.
"Through humor, memes incite a collective reaction to everyday life as well as reveling in it, in a format no less playful than it is political, decoding the murky structural screw-ups, paradoxes, and hypocrisies of our current political climate."
The other wise of memes being so accessible is the fact that they are capable of being weaponized for any purpose. People can use memes to portray innocent humor just as often as they are capable of using them to promote hate speech and malicious activities. While perception may be regarded as subjective, this capability can both be praised for promoting freedom of speech at the highest level, and also looked down upon in instances of malicious usage.
Memes are Our Generation's Protest Art | VICE
"...but the purposes are similar: the blaming of villains, the identification of victims, as well as outrage at the villains and compassion for those victims"
Memes are particularly useful at identifying events as they take place. They can almost act as a secondary, though often misinformed, source of information regarding current events and news. There have been countless instances where I found out conflicts breaking out because of memes, or news regarding people I follow being broken by none other than a meme. This would then encourage me to do research on my own, showing how memes are very effective at drawing attention to the topics they cover.
"These weren’t just jokes, but a way to name and call attention to a kind of racism that was rarely talked about. “There’s a whole genre of these activist memes that have emerged and are being used to push for social change and bring things like racism to the forefront using memes, and that’s extremely powerful, "
I think it is important to talk about how memes that focus on activism can be. Many people prefer to be on the sidelines on any scale when it comes to activism, simply choosing to observe and absorb information. A lot of the time, I am one of these people. However, creating and sharing memes, even in a small space, can draw a lot of attention to pressing issues that are taking place in our society today. The potentially anonymous nature of this sharing, as well as its ease of access, makes it a relatively low risk way to call for change, being as powerful as it is easy to do.
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