The Meme Factory at NYU from NYU Local on Vimeo.

By: Vanessa Friedman and Natan Edelsburg

We love the Internet. You love the Internet. Millennials love the Internet! The obsession is widespread and verges on addiction, so you probably think you know all about our generation’s favorite pastime. That’s okay, we thought we did too. Then we went to MemeFactory and were shamed into realizing we actually barely know anything about the “serious business” that is the world wide web.

The MemeFactory is “a performance by three dudes who spend too much time on the internet.” Natan expressed uncertainty about whether the performance would be a digital new age orchestra or a geek factory. It ended up being the perfect mash up of both, and we ended up being a little out of our league. Which is to say, Vanessa felt as though the presenters were speaking a foreign language at times, and we’re fairly certain ¾ of the audience could hack our social security numbers if they really wanted to. (Please don’t.)

Stephen Bruckert, Patrick Davison and Mike Rugnetta the “three dudes” presenting the event, kept the audience riveted with lightening fast dialogue, intriguing content, and of course, pretty pictures and videos—gotta cater to our ADD, right? They were also super cute, a fact which Vanessa pointed out to Natan numerous times, and, it must be noted, Natan did not disagree. MemeFactory, if you ever need a date, we’re right here! On the Internet!

The presentation excelled in its clear definitions and basic explanations about the topics at hand. Natan’s favorite part of the show was the explicit definition between a viral video and a meme, which, for anyone who legitimately had no idea what a meme was, was pretty key. In case you were wondering, a viral video is something that’s static, whereas a meme is something that not only imitates but changes and adds on to the original. As Natan puts it, you must “make it mean, make it dirty, or just make it funny and then pass it along for the next person to mess around with.” Precisely. Think all the imitations of the Soulja Boy dance. Think the reaction videos to Two Girls One Cup. Think LOLcats. Think all of these things and more played off of three screens for over an hour! That, in a nutshell, is Memefactory. And we loved every sick second.

Memefactory was sponsored by Gabriella “Biella” Coleman, Parker Higgins, Evan Korth, Free Culture @ NYU, NYU’s ACM Chapter, the Council for Media and Culture and the Center for Media and History.