1. Each meme that I chose does indeed relate to my topic and more importantly, my target audience. These memes all relate to basketball in a way and more specifically, Lebron James. To begin with, the first meme is basically a sign that states, “LeBronto.” This meme is probably the most popular meme and the context behind it is that Lebron James has versed the Toronto Raptors in the Playoffs countless amounts of times and he always succeeds in absolutely decimating their defense whilst single handedly always beating them. The NBA community thus made the nickname, “Lebronto” as its basically Lebron’s city since he always destroys the Toronto Raptors. The next meme consists of Lebron drinking wine and singing a song which seems normal, but it is the complete opposite as whenever Lebron sings a song and posts it on Instagram, it is clearly obvious he does not know the lyrics to any of the songs and says random words which the NBA community has taken notice and this meme is probably one of the funniest pieces of materials. Finally, the last meme that I picked and is essentially very painful is Lebron and Jr. Smith in Game 1 of the 2018 NBA Finals as Lebron was absolutely destroying the Warriors only for Jr. Smith to not shoot before the buzzer when time was expiring and that became  one of the most talked about NBA moments for years to come. This all relate to my topic and audience as they are cornerstone memes of the NBA community and they relate to the game of basketball. Lebron James is also the face of the NBA thus the memes are centered around him and he gives NBA Fans a lot to laugh about whilst also being the Greatest Player in NBA history. 
2. When talking about memes, it is important to mention ideals as that can tell the audience a lot. Patrick Davison, Professor, introduces this idea of ideals when he states, “ The ideal of a meme is the concept or idea conveyed.The ideal dictates the behavior, which in turn creates the manifestation (Davison, 2020).” Essentially it is the idea or what is being shown to the audience or the emotion that is being conveyed. In general, these 3 memes convey one particular ideal and that is comedy based on basketball knowledge. Essentially, if you were not familiar with the game of basketball, then you would not know what the meme would mean or why it would be significant. The meme of “Lebronto” requires knowledge that Lebron plays great in Toronto to understand and thus the ideals of each meme is that you must have some prior basketball knowledge to basically get a kick out of it. Having that knowledge also helps as the NBA community uses these images to represent a certain situation and that can help you understand how the meme relates to that particular situation. 
3. There are definitely different behaviors when it comes to each of the 3 memes. When it comes to Lebron singing the lyrics, it represents a goofy type of behavior that gives the NBA community something to laugh about. The Lebronto meme essentially represents a player that shows dominance against a certain team and represents absolute and utter domination through skill and power. Finally, the Lebron James and Jr.Smith meme represents just this feeling of “what are you doing,” as that is the best statement that can describe the meme itself. It is also important to note how each of these memes originated and how they spread and it is obvious where all of the NBA community lives and that is in twitter. Every single one of these memes originated on twitter and spread on twitter as Twitter is the main platform NBA memes and the community itself. 
4. When talking about a meme it is also important to talk about its manifestation. Davison expands upon this idea and states, “The manifestation of a meme is its observable, external phenomena. It is the set of objects created by the meme, the records of its existence. It indicates any arrangement of physical particles in time and space that are the direct result of the reality of the meme (Davison, 2020).” This essentially relates a lot to the Behavior of the meme as explained above. The manifestation of each of the memes is that it is taken out of context and using the emotion present in that meme to use in another situation. The Behavior gives the emotion and tells the NBA community essentially when the meme is suitable to use whilst the manifestation is how they use the particular meme and in this case, they use it out of context and in different situations that can be related back to the behavior of the meme thus representing the manifestation. 
5. Choosing specific manifestations can definitely appeal to your audience as you have to pick something that has a manifestation relating to the interests of your audience. For example, I would pick a meme that has a manifestation relating to basketball and something that can be used under a certain twitter post to express emotions or for comedic purpose. It is really important to choose both a behavior and manifestation of a meme that relates to the interest of your target audience in order to connect with your audience way better. For example, in all of the memes that I chose, they all have a behavior and manifestation that can be used under different basketball posts as they are universal in terms of relating to other situations and that would be the type of means that I would choose for my target and intended audience. 

Reference List:

Davison, P. (2020). 9. The Language of Internet Memes. In New York University Press eBooks (pp. 120–134). New York University Press. https://doi.org/10.18574/nyu/9780814763025.003.0013

Owen. (2023). LeBron Mumbling Wrong Lyrics / LeDontKnowTheLyrics / “Yabadabadoo Old Navy.” Know Your Meme. https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/lebron-mumbling-wrong-lyrics-ledontknowthelyrics-yabadabadoo-old-navy

Adam. (2023). LeBronto. Know Your Meme. https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/lebronto

Matt. (2023). LeBron James’s NBA Finals Reaction. Know Your Meme. https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/lebron-jamess-nba-finals-reaction

Hey Everybody! Welcome back to the Purple and Gold and Welcome to the first ever episode of The Purple and Gold! In this episode, we are going through an in depth analysis of Game 3 of the NBA Playoffs where the Lakers defeated the Memphis Grizzlies and now hold a 2-1 lead. The podcast is divided into 2 parts where in the first part, we talk about the power of home court advantage and the first quarter dominance put up while the second part dissects this myth of “box score watching.” Make sure y’all enjoy the episode and comment thoughts and questions! All relevant links are posted below!

The Purple and Gold Website!- purpleandgold2.wordpress.com/

Background Music-Fitness Sports Electro Rock by Lite Saturation-freemusicarchive.org/music/lite-sat…tro-rock-loop/

PSA Background Music: Sport and Car Energetic Trap | Greve- Alex-Productions

NBA Foundation: nbafoundation.nba.com/

Picture Credits: https://www.flickr.com/photos/masey/50892287781

When it comes to my header image, I definitely feel that it makes my blog site complete in a way. To begin with, I would like to explain my header image and what it is. My website is basically centered around the Lakers and the traditional colors associated with the Los Angeles Lakers is Purple and Gold. I decided to make my background fully purple rather than just use the logo with the background so I could have more control of the images and layers present in the header. I then used the Lakers logo and added it to the purple background and decided that aesthetically it would look really nice if I would add some purple thunder to it and then add two Laker Legends in Lebron James and Kobe Bryant. I feel like this header image gives readers and visitors to the site a foreshadowing of sort of what is to come in regards to my blog site. It shows the readers that the website is mostly about the Los Angeles Lakers thus being a sports blog. This relates to meeting the information needs of my target audience because it essentially introduces the foundation of the Los Angeles Lakers. It shows the two Laker Legends in which the Los Angeles Lakers are known for and it shows off the traditional purple and gold colors of the Lakers! It is also important to make a header image that relates to the information on my website. I do not want to confuse my visitors and readers with a header image that has nothing to do with what I am trying to convey to my readers. Rather, I decided to make a header image based on what I am trying to write so that it makes the website more fluid and transparent!

If you are wondering where I found my source images well… I found my source images on google images by using the Advanced Search option which allows me to get the reusable pictures. Essentially when you use the Advanced Search option on Google Images, there is a section that is labeled “usage rights.” If you click on the drop-down then you are greeted with “Creative Common Licenses” and “ Commercial and other licenses.” Creative Common Licenses are the type of user rights that I was looking for as according to Creative Commons, Their “free, easy-to-use copyright licenses provide a simple, standardized way to give the public permission to share and use your creative work — on conditions of your choice.”(Creative Commons) Essentially a Creative Commons License does not have all rights reserved and allows people to build upon the work and legally use other people’s creative efforts! That is exactly what I did as I built upon each and every single one of those images and made sure they were reusable under a Creative Commons License. I used all those reusable images to make one big header which proved to be successful and efficient!

Lev Manovich talks about layers a lot and she states, “ Layers change how a designer or an illustrator thinks about images. Instead of working on a single design, with each change immediately (and in the case of physical media such as paint or ink, irreversibly) affecting this image, she now works with a collection of separate elements. She can play with these elements, deleting, creating, importing and modifying them, until she is satisfied with the final composition – or a set of possible compositions that can be defined using Layer Groups.” (Manovich 11) Manovich actually stresses how important layers are and I definitely related to that when I was making my header image. The layers were essential in making my header image. As I stated above, I first had a layer with a background and decided to make the color of that background purple in order to match the colors of the Los Angeles Lakers. I then created another layer of the Lakers Logo thanks to the lasso tool which helped take the background off and isolate the logo itself. I then made another layer which included my thunder lightning. I used the layering to make sure my lightning goes above the Lakers logo and then I lowered the opacity of the Lakers logo in order to make sure the lighting shines through. I then added separate layers of the two basketball players and actually made the layer underneath the thunder-strike in order to have the thunder-strike go through to add that aesthetic. 

Patrick Davison describes the process of MS paint and how the limitations of MS pain led to a huge change in technological aspects of certain graphic programs. My production process was definitely different from the single-layer limitations of Davison as I did not rely on hand-drawn lines and bumps. Rather I relied on the innovative tools presented to me such as the lasso tools and layering tools. I also really enjoy the ability to lower opacity. I feel like the main difference between my production process to that of a single-layer bitmap is that I used more innovative tools and that I used tools that really did not require MS paint and I feel that it was definitely more organized and cleaner than it would of been than using the single-layer bitmap as if I was using the single-layer bitmap, I feel it would be all over the place and it would not be as organized. It would also be more difficult to make images that are stacked upon each other. 

Works Cited:

Davison, P. (2014). Because of the pixels: On the history, form, and influence of Ms Paint. Journal of Visual Culture, 13(3), 275–297. https://doi.org/10.1177/1470412914544539

Manovich, L. (2019, September 27). Inside photoshop: Computational culture. Computational Culture | a journal of software studies. Retrieved February 19, 2023, from http://computationalculture.net/inside-photoshop/

What is Creative Commons? (n.d.). Retrieved February 20, 2023, from https://wiki.creativecommons.org/images/6/62/Creativecommons-informational-flyer_eng.pdf