Interview with An Xiao Mina
An Xiao Mina, author of Memes to Movements, shared some important advice that can be incredibly useful during the age of memes. One thing Mina said that stood out to me was, “I often think that the memes that have a larger impact on society create a narrative viewpoint that allows for bloggers, journalists, news commentators, politicians, and others to continue that discourse, and then it becomes amplified. Of course, there is inevitable pushback, but that’s part of what it means to start having a larger discourse.” We often think take opposing opinions as an obstacle rather than a stepping stone, and I think it is important that we switch out perspective on that. Concerning “filter bubbles,” I think that term was used perfectly by Mina to describe how we tend to look at opinions that align with our own online. I think it is important that we try to break out of these bubbles by simply searching online for opinions from the opposite side of ours. For example, someone who identifies as progressive could look up pages that are conservative on Twitter and read through their accounts. Mina gave great advice in suggesting looking things up on a private browser. One meme I thought about while I was watching the interview was this meme I came across recently on Twitter about capitalism and large corporations.
