Pirate Party memes

Liquid Democracy as a solution for decision making in a political party turns out to be too superficial for purpose.
Simple popularity is not a good basis for decision making.
It needs to go a lot deeper, understanding core values, evaluating evidence, open transparent debate etc.
Liquid Democracy does not provide these things.
Nice name though.

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My only suggestion is to change “sea-grassroots” to “seagrass-roots” as it flows a little better and when punning you use the replacement word as the joke ie “Isabel really necessary on a bike” not “Is-a-bell really necessary on a bike”

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Also: we have an Identity Style Guide - let’s follow it.

It would also be helpful to use CC or public-domain images and explicitly say that.

Anyway, here’s what I think the seagrass-roots one might look like in that context.

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Something I did a couple of years ago for a facebook banner (hence the nothingness in the bottom left):

It’s a bit of a mess and needs a good rework, but I think it’s got potential.

Edit to add: @edeity you make a good point about the poster-meme distinction. Now this, this is a meme:

I suggest that you switch the position of the pics around on reef one so that #VotePirate isn’t sitting on top of bleached coral.

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Couple more suggestions:

  • Who are you going to trust, a Politician or a Pirate?
  • Thinking democracy, thinking sharing the wealth… Think Politician (strikethrough text) Pirate

For the Ex Democrats

  • You know you’re in trouble when it’s up to a Pirate to keep the bastards honest
  • Its going to take a shipload of Pirates to keep these bastards honest
    *etc
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Re-purposing … just like a Pirate. I like it.

Perhaps “Keep the Bastards Honest, with a Shipload of Pirates”?

edit: or "Pirates! Keeping the Bastards Honest"
edit again: “Keep the Bastards Honest. Become a Pirate!”

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@edeity, I appreciate your answer here about social media “strategy”. Thank you.

Images are important.

A few snipped bits …

When you’re browsing Netflix, if your attention isn’t grabbed by a program within 90 seconds, you’re statistically likely to do something else instead.

You need to figure out a way to tell the story of the program in a single image.

Neuroscientists have discovered that the human brain can process an image in as little as 13 milliseconds,

Netflix set out to develop “a data driven framework” through which it can find the best artwork for each video

It’s well known that humans are hardwired to respond to faces. But it is important to note that faces with complex emotions outperform stoic or benign expressions — seeing a range of emotions actually compels people to watch a story more.

Great stories travel, but regional nuances can be powerful

Viewers respond to villainous characters surprisingly well

an image’s tendency to win dramatically dropped when it contained more than 3 people

This is different to the purpose of a meme. The difference is important because its about picking the right tool for the job - hence links back to strategy (the actual strategy bit - i.e. the why, not the how). Its the meme vs. advertisement discussion.

A meme is basically a self replicating piece of information. It does this by triggering a response in the human viewing / reading it to make them propogate it to other people. This is the basis of something “going viral”. It can be counterintuitive but memes often work well when they don’t make sense or use a range of “innapropriate” emotion - it creates an in/out group dynamic that makes “getting” the meme aspirational.

Memes are bad for educating and spreading large amounts of structured information, good for creating highly engaged groups of people that will then self educate and promote independently of centralised control.

Designing memes is an actual science. You can certainly get a lot of success in creating something that can spread just by emulating other memes that were successful, but to achieve a specific outcome within a timeframe can require actual design.

A lot of the original reference material for this predates people publishing things on the internet openly, but Dawkins for the basics (although most people are across his definitions of memes) and for more specifics on engineering memes I have tended to follow Blackmoores views, although she has since moved firmly into the territory of post human AI memes (memes that engineer memes) - which whilst highly probable do not help right here right now designing memes to get people to get other people to vote Pirate.

If anyone cares about this stuff, I can dig around and see what I can find for the reference material.

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I liked this version of the phrase the best, so I made it.

Also, I’m blatantly breaking the style guide here, by not having the logo on an approved monochromatic background. There is however a drop shadow to aid in legibility. Flame shield has been raised in anticipation. Pinging @Frew and @Feenicks to weigh in on this one.

edit: @edeity this thing isn’t even close to viable levels of virality, is it.

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It doesn’t have to be “technically” a meme to go viral and it doesn’t even have to go full blown viral.
It just has to be memorable, relateable and shareable, which I think this image achieves

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these

8 hours later, this phrasing seems dangerously close to self-referential.

Little bit. I suspect Don got it right the first time.

It plays merry hell with the line length, though. Had to switch to centred text.

Other changes: made the ship a bit transparent. I think it looks a bit better, opinions may vary.

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I didn’t think self referential. I thought “these bastards” as distinct from “the bastards” of yesteryear ie Pirates are required where once Democrats were sufficient.

Also, it refers to pirates and bastards and the image includes a pirate ship and parliament - it’s logical which refers to which.

I like it anyway but particularly version 1.

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Of course probably cant actually use this officially… copyright etc.

But it shows an example of the replicability - hooks: emotional immediacy, australia relevance, impending doom, sense of fears being ignored. Compels viewer to be a hero and do something. Trigger discussion and sharing of meme.

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I think is clear enough that we mean “The” bastards in Parliament house honest, which in a very simple way is what the senate is supposed to do.

Also “the bastards” is already lodged in everyone’s mind as related to the Dems, so it needs to be slightly different so people think of us.

@edeity your mad max meme certainly works and I like it, but only the more dedicated netizen will understand the combination of references or even be aware of the issues you are raising.
The average internet user’s concern with online privacy is basically not having their mum/gf knowing about the porn they watch.

People who are aware of their online footprint tend to understand why data collection isn’t in their best interest.
How do you make a meme to explain it to people who; 1) don’t realise they leave traceable footprints online, and 2) don’t know what a meme is?

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A lot of people are worried about personal data. Does my boss need to know I went to the doctors? That I’m pregnant? That I have an STD? That I’m an atheist? American companies have been asking people in interviews to log into their social media… it’s not illegal if they agree…

The general public is not as oblivious as we sometimes assume.

Point of a meme is that you do not need to know what one is. Unless your meme is focused on an ingroup of meme consumers (which tbh this one is partly… so not ideal for a general population meme)

Flip side - you need to realise your not going to be interesting to everyone, so instead be really interesting to the ones you want.

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