so i herd u liek mudkipz: Affordances and Constraints
'so i herd u liek mudkipz' has been a popular internet meme since early 2005. The user has taken the meme and, while using an image of a mudkip, has changed the text font and style to that of old time English. This particular meme was around before most social networking sites and so it would've been mostly found of internet forums like this one here. This particular meme would appeal to fans of the popular game and anime series 'Pokemon' and thus means that it already has a pre-created fanbase surrounding the meme which would help the spread of it around the internet and into many internet forums and YouTube spoof videos which hit around a million views each. By changing the noun mudkips to 'kips of the mud' it adds a humours edge to the meme and in turn also cements that it is a ye-olde-english parody of the popular phrase. An affordance is that this image is easy to spread around and the meme itself is easily adaptable and can be put into any form of internet communication (eg Facebook, Twitter, comment section, YouTube). But, a constraint it that many people might not get this meme if they are not a fan of 'Pokemon'.
I have learned something! The register is interesting - it seems strikingly formal because of the use of 'early modern English' features e.g. the archaic version of the verb 'to have' (utilising aspects of 'early modern English which we still recognise because the language is reintroduced to us via Shakespeare, The Lord's Prayer etc. so we refer to this as 'frozen register' because it wasn't formal at the time but seems so now because it is archaic). The humour comes from the cleverness but also the surprising contrast between content and register.
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