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Has technology altered the way we remember things? What does knowledge mean when we use our phones to store facts instead of our brain? Evan Risko, a psychologist and the Canada Research Chair in Embodied and Embedded Cognition at the University of Waterloo, digs into these questions. Henning Beck's latest book, Scatterbrain, argues that our brains aren't anything like computers. Instead our brains are constantly dumping and rearranging information. The neuroscience of memory in the digital age. And how does the internet change the way we know and share information? Kenyatta Cheese, (ken-YATT-ah) co-creator of Know Your Meme, explores memes as images densely packed with meaning. This episode originally aired October 27, 2019.
It seems like every month a new cringe worthy picture of a public official in Blackface is shared on social media. The pictures usually surface decades after they were taken but they are born out of a long tradition of Blackface and racial mockery in America. But that tradition isn't just a part of our history, it's being replicated online through our use of GIFs. Anil talks with Dr. Lauren Michelle Jackson, author of White Negroes: When Cornrows Were in Vogue & and Other Thoughts on Cultural Appropriation and Kenyatta Cheese, digital enthusiast, cofounder of Everybody at Once, and founder of Know Your Meme, about digital blackface. They discuss how we can examine our online persona's and how algorithmic choices reflect systemic bias.
In Episode 88, Flourish and Elizabeth interview Kenyatta Cheese, a founder of Know Your Meme and currently of Everybody At Once, the company behind the social media presences of Doctor Who, Orphan Black, and other shows. They discuss EA1’s philosophies of community and fandom, the way the entertainment industry understands fan culture, and how official accounts navigate fannish spaces—plus a good ol’ critique of 20th-century Marxist frameworks.
This special two-part episode of WONDERLAND begins with co-host Tracy Van Slyke talking with fan community leader Shawn Taylor about the future of people-powered storytelling, diving deep into the ways pop culture fandoms are generating new content, pushing the pop storytelling industries into the next generation, and they imagine what it would take to intentionally bring fan communities and social movements together as part of a culture change movement. In Part Two, Black Lives Matter co-founder Alicia Garza joins Hollywood fan community designer Kenyatta Cheese to discuss how technology, digital strategy and offline immersions can shape the way entertainment audiences and social movements experience community, and they offer insights on what binds powerful, networked communities together. Guests: Shawn Taylor, Co-Founder of The Nerds of Color, Writer, Teacher; Tracy Van Slyke, Strategy Director for Pop Culture Collaborative, Writer; Alicia Garza, Special Projects Director for The National Domestic Workers Alliance, Co-Founder of the Black Lives Matter Network; Kenyatta Cheese, CEO and Co-Founder of Everybody at Once, Co-creator of Know Your Meme