Ikwuagwu 1

Joshua Ikwuagwu

Professor Nolen

ENGL 1301

October 13 2021

Reflection on my Memes

On the second essay I feel as if did what was expected of me in the first. Initially I

thought this would be wrong, then I realized we’re doing the same prompt expect with 3

examples. The mistakes I made in my first essay I steered clear of in the second. No talking too

much about 1 idea, or making the essay about said idea. From the criticism I received about

essay 1, I believe essay 2 is its superior in nearly every way.

From essay 2 I learned that over examination doesn’t exist. In my political example I

found this example “A political page dedicated to memes similar to this one is a YouTube

channel called ‘Memeology’ […] The ironic part is that he not even from the U.S., he’s

Honduran.”, I did this to connect memes on a more national scale. I could’ve used this as an

entire paragraph, but it wasn’t the same format as the Facebook posts so it wouldn’t have

translated over as well. Through tying this YouTube channel to the political meme, I could talk

about how memes connect people internationality, and how they also make their own memes

relating to our politics.

A problem I faced in essay 1 was staying on the topic of genres. I was too caught up in

Aubrey Gordon’s “Fat Healthism” argument. A better analysis of that article would’ve been

discussing how articles from people that look like us, or we believe to be knowledgeable in fields

we are researching, can easily shift our views on topic we know nothing about. This was seen in

my replier example of “If fit people were so concerned with my wellbeing, you’d think they
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would be a little nicer to me”, the person who wrote this reply was just trying to argue with the

commentor about the treatment of obese people. In essay 2 I had another moment like this with

the political memes group “Please provide a video or picture or article that shows that President

Trump has Alzheimer’s. You CANT!! Your laughing emoji at the end of my last post just goes

to show that you aren’t very bright!!” This repliers anger is evident and proves that the political

memes page divides people as opposed to bringing them together, which helped to put me prove

my conclusion.

A useful skill I learned in this essay was rounding out your topic. By rounding out I mean

to completely enclose it so that no outside ideas can misinterpret the thesis. An issue I’ve always

had in AP writing papers is explicitly stating what my thesis is and not allowing it to be

manipulated. This is why I only used statistics to vaguely describe the sampling size of

participants in these memes, as opposed to using them as bridge to stereotypes or a need for

diversity in certain groups. While this skill is useful, it completely falls flat in more literal

subjects, like math or physics. This is due to there only being 1 correct answer and nothing being

up for debate. So, even if I explain how I got to my goal without sparing a single detail, I would

still receive the same grade as everyone else.

Analyzing the same genre over multiple communities showed me that similarities aren’t

hard to find when you’re not looking for them. In fact, the basis for my entire essay was how

even though these memes are nothing alike, they still unite people under a common idea of

enjoying them. In every single comment section, there were people telling their own experiences

and making jokes.

I feel like in this essay most comments will be made on my analysis of the memes. There

was either too much useless information, or not enough information. In the comments made by
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my peers, they pointed out I had a good thesis, but my body paragraphs had some run-ons in

them. A strength I have is my thesis, because it smoothly states my genre and the questions that I

will be answering. My weakness would be the expansive way I word sentences I suppose.

I believe I’ve grown leagues ahead of my old position. The crucial mistake I made in

essay 1 was being too focused on the content and not explaining something about the genre. I

corrected that mistake here by making crafting a question about the genre in my thesis, and then

tearing apart that argument to reveal my actual point at the end of the essay.