WEBVTT 00:00:10.080 --> 00:00:13.760 Hello, everybody. Welcome to the Open Translation lounge 00:00:13.800 --> 00:00:18.600 for the TED Found In Translation sessions here at TEDGlobal in Scotland. 00:00:18.640 --> 00:00:21.200 Today, we have two speakers. First for us this week, 00:00:21.240 --> 00:00:24.120 we have An Xiao Mina, who just left the stage minutes ago. 00:00:24.160 --> 00:00:27.960 And Hetain Patel, who actually delivered his talk several days ago. 00:00:28.000 --> 00:00:31.600 Also joining us here on the stage is Coco from Hong Kong, 00:00:31.640 --> 00:00:35.400 Shadia from Mauritius Island, and Jan from the Czech Republic. 00:00:35.440 --> 00:00:40.440 Joining us online, over here, we have Matti from Hong Kong, 00:00:40.480 --> 00:00:43.640 Jason from Hong Kong as well, 00:00:43.680 --> 00:00:46.400 Anna from Italy and Anja from Slovenia. 00:00:46.440 --> 00:00:47.600 - Hi. 00:00:47.640 --> 00:00:49.660 - Welcome. I'm going to start with you, An. 00:00:49.690 --> 00:00:52.400 Fantastic talk, thank you so much for joining us. 00:00:52.440 --> 00:00:55.680 Your talk was all about memes as a means of expression. 00:00:55.720 --> 00:00:59.610 And the examples were really highly localised, but they're also universal. 00:00:59.670 --> 00:01:02.710 Everyone got them immediately. Could you talk about that in the context 00:01:02.730 --> 00:01:04.780 of having all these people from around the world? 00:01:04.800 --> 00:01:08.040 - Sure. I think what's really interesting to me about Internet culture 00:01:08.080 --> 00:01:12.040 is if we think about Hollywood - I grew up partially in the Philippines, 00:01:12.080 --> 00:01:13.520 my family is Filipino-Chinese - 00:01:13.560 --> 00:01:16.560 and I remember travelling around and going to the most rural areas 00:01:16.600 --> 00:01:18.960 of the Philippines, seeing people with Coke bottles 00:01:19.000 --> 00:01:22.560 or watching Hollywood movies. There's always the sense of Hollywood 00:01:22.600 --> 00:01:24.920 or mass media providing a global culture. 00:01:24.960 --> 00:01:27.560 What I'm interested in is Internet culture. 00:01:27.600 --> 00:01:32.840 It's more like a ground up version of that, it's coming from a local version. 00:01:32.880 --> 00:01:35.560 That's why I used the word 'street-art', or hip-hop culture. 00:01:35.600 --> 00:01:39.680 I'm interested in how Internet culture can become this bridge culture. 00:01:39.720 --> 00:01:43.400 Just like I can talk about Arnold Schwarzenegger in rural Uganda, 00:01:43.440 --> 00:01:45.280 or in New York City. 00:01:45.320 --> 00:01:49.000 Just two days ago, I was talking with an Italian, an Indian and then me - 00:01:49.040 --> 00:01:50.680 sounds like an intro to a joke, 00:01:50.720 --> 00:01:55.080 and it was because we were all talking about how people in Italy, in India 00:01:55.120 --> 00:01:58.960 and in Uganda were all filming their ministers of government falling asleep. 00:01:59.000 --> 00:02:00.640 That became an Internet meme. 00:02:00.680 --> 00:02:02.480 It suddenly became this bridge. 00:02:02.520 --> 00:02:04.440 "Oh, your ministers fall asleep, too!" 00:02:04.480 --> 00:02:08.039 And, so, I'm interested in how this Internet culture can be 00:02:08.080 --> 00:02:10.600 a bridge culture that's driven by people. 00:02:10.639 --> 00:02:13.600 It is incredibly local and becomes a bridge for storytelling, 00:02:13.640 --> 00:02:16.240 and maybe even for global, civic engagement, 00:02:16.280 --> 00:02:19.360 global understanding - now I know a little bit more about 00:02:19.400 --> 00:02:21.640 what's going on in India, in a way I can relate to. 00:02:21.680 --> 00:02:25.960 So, that's really what I hope people really got from the talk. 00:02:26.000 --> 00:02:29.120 And kind of what I'm looking at with my founding partner, Jason Li, 00:02:29.160 --> 00:02:32.080 with our new site, called The Civic Beat, is can this be 00:02:32.120 --> 00:02:36.440 a bridge for storytelling, and then, from there, active engagement online. 00:02:36.480 --> 00:02:38.520 And global understanding. 00:02:38.560 --> 00:02:39.720 - Great. 00:02:39.760 --> 00:02:42.400 Actually, I'd like to take a question from the Skype crowd. 00:02:42.440 --> 00:02:45.120 Does anybody have a question An to begin with? 00:02:45.160 --> 00:02:48.560 - I can start, but I don't think I have a question. 00:02:48.600 --> 00:02:53.480 I'd like to comment on this activism side of the argument 00:02:53.520 --> 00:02:58.080 because we recently had some protests in Slovenia 00:02:58.120 --> 00:03:03.160 and it was quite a shock because a lot of people said they would be coming, 00:03:03.200 --> 00:03:05.160 and not a lot of people came. 00:03:05.200 --> 00:03:08.480 So are memes just a form of online activism 00:03:08.520 --> 00:03:11.760 that isn't translated into public space, 00:03:11.800 --> 00:03:15.760 and, therefore, lacks some kind of political legitimacy 00:03:15.800 --> 00:03:18.360 for politicians and the government? 00:03:18.400 --> 00:03:20.960 - That's a really great question. 00:03:21.000 --> 00:03:23.280 It's something I've struggled with a lot 00:03:23.320 --> 00:03:26.520 because it does seem like we're sharing pictures of cats. 00:03:26.560 --> 00:03:28.280 Like, what is this doing? 00:03:28.320 --> 00:03:31.920 You know, one phrase I use, and the reason I brought in this 00:03:31.960 --> 00:03:34.860 essay from Havel, is this notion of a ladder of engagement 00:03:34.880 --> 00:03:38.480 to civic expression. It always starts with little steps. 00:03:38.520 --> 00:03:40.880 And, certainly, many times, 00:03:40.920 --> 00:03:43.960 you see instances where people are talking a lot online. 00:03:44.000 --> 00:03:47.040 And it doesn't seem like they're engaging offline. 00:03:47.080 --> 00:03:48.440 But, then, over time, 00:03:48.480 --> 00:03:52.520 and one of my favourite examples is the sunglasses meme 00:03:52.560 --> 00:03:54.000 that I ended the talk on, 00:03:54.040 --> 00:03:57.480 where everyone was wearing sunglasses for Chen Guangcheng. 00:03:57.520 --> 00:04:00.440 OK, it seems like this is just empty expression, 00:04:00.480 --> 00:04:02.920 it's not going anywhere, nothing's happening. 00:04:02.960 --> 00:04:05.840 But, again, if you think about the context of China, 00:04:05.880 --> 00:04:10.400 where there's heavy suppression of any kind of political-public assembly, 00:04:10.440 --> 00:04:13.280 there is actually reports of people wearing sunglasses 00:04:13.320 --> 00:04:16.160 in a form of flash mob in physical space. 00:04:16.200 --> 00:04:18.920 They actually went to the town where Chen was being held, 00:04:18.959 --> 00:04:20.600 nearby where he was being held, 00:04:20.640 --> 00:04:23.680 and they assembled together, and all wore sunglasses. 00:04:23.720 --> 00:04:26.320 That became a form of physical public assembly. 00:04:26.360 --> 00:04:32.320 So, it's hard to imagine that happening without first the meme popping up. 00:04:32.360 --> 00:04:34.880 So, it doesn't always happen that way, 00:04:34.920 --> 00:04:38.480 but there's so many cases where we're seeing how a meme presages 00:04:38.520 --> 00:04:42.720 any kind of physical action or assembly that it's really convinced me that 00:04:42.760 --> 00:04:45.320 it really is the beginning of a larger engagement. 00:04:45.360 --> 00:04:48.400 And it might be discouraging at the beginning to see people 00:04:48.440 --> 00:04:51.600 clicking and pointing, but I don't want to see that as a dichotomy. 00:04:51.640 --> 00:04:53.560 If you go to a protest wearing a button, 00:04:53.600 --> 00:04:56.000 that meme is very much similar to a button - 00:04:56.040 --> 00:04:57.600 it's a form of visual expression 00:04:57.640 --> 00:05:00.560 that we've seen in all kinds of social movements in history. 00:05:00.600 --> 00:05:02.000 - I'd like to bring in Hetain. 00:05:02.040 --> 00:05:04.480 We were talking yesterday about how, obviously, 00:05:04.520 --> 00:05:06.600 memes are a way of expressing ourselves, 00:05:06.640 --> 00:05:10.120 and how language actually - we express ourselves in different ways. 00:05:10.160 --> 00:05:14.080 The idea of do we have a different identity in every language that we speak. 00:05:14.120 --> 00:05:17.480 - Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of reasons why you might feel as though 00:05:17.520 --> 00:05:20.960 you have a different identity when you speak a different language. 00:05:21.000 --> 00:05:23.200 It might be due to vocabulary. 00:05:23.240 --> 00:05:26.520 So, from my personal experience, if I'm speaking Gujarati, 00:05:26.560 --> 00:05:29.280 an Indian language, there's certain things 00:05:29.320 --> 00:05:31.360 I'm used to talking about in that language 00:05:31.400 --> 00:05:33.800 with my grandmother, domestic things. 00:05:33.840 --> 00:05:36.560 In English, I might talk about a whole different kind of things. 00:05:36.600 --> 00:05:37.960 In French something else. 00:05:38.000 --> 00:05:40.640 So, it might be the kind of topic you speak about, 00:05:40.680 --> 00:05:46.120 and, then, also, something comes in in the vocabulary also, 00:05:46.160 --> 00:05:49.720 in how you think about things, through different languages. 00:05:49.760 --> 00:05:52.680 And I actually think it's not just language. 00:05:52.720 --> 00:05:56.200 Even with one language, you kind of change who you are, 00:05:56.240 --> 00:05:59.120 depending who you talk to anyway. I guess, every day, 00:05:59.160 --> 00:06:02.880 we're performing different versions of ourselves, kind of thing. 00:06:02.920 --> 00:06:05.680 - One of the most popular things I've seen 00:06:05.720 --> 00:06:08.680 is Photoshop remixes of police brutality. 00:06:08.720 --> 00:06:13.240 There's a meme in China called The Fat Cop. 00:06:13.280 --> 00:06:17.160 And there was a protest in Shifang about pollution, 00:06:17.200 --> 00:06:20.240 and there's this fat cop that was hitting people. 00:06:20.280 --> 00:06:22.480 And, obviously, very frightening. 00:06:22.520 --> 00:06:26.040 People took that cop and started putting him into other images, 00:06:26.080 --> 00:06:29.160 cos he looked like he was running, so they put him into, like, movies 00:06:29.200 --> 00:06:32.080 where he looks like he's chasing after Tom Cruise, they put him into 00:06:32.120 --> 00:06:33.600 all these weird images. 00:06:33.640 --> 00:06:37.600 And a really similar thing happened in the United States where, 00:06:37.640 --> 00:06:39.160 I don't know who's from the US, 00:06:39.200 --> 00:06:42.080 but if you remember the pepper spraying cop, the famous cop who 00:06:42.120 --> 00:06:45.640 was pepper spraying students who were engaging in the Occupy movement. 00:06:45.680 --> 00:06:49.400 And he looked like he was literally watering the plants. 00:06:49.440 --> 00:06:52.640 And, so, people took that image of him, again, a terrifying image, 00:06:52.680 --> 00:06:56.030 and they took that terror away by putting it into a quantitative humour 00:06:56.050 --> 00:07:00.320 and started Photoshopping him into images of him, like, 00:07:00.360 --> 00:07:04.160 watering the roses, or spray painting in a movie. 00:07:04.200 --> 00:07:08.360 So, those images, they break language. 00:07:08.400 --> 00:07:11.760 I know exactly what's going on in China, I know exactly what is happening, 00:07:11.800 --> 00:07:14.480 even if I'm looking at a meme that's coming from Egypt, 00:07:14.520 --> 00:07:16.440 and I don't speak the language, 00:07:16.480 --> 00:07:19.870 but I can see and understand it, in a way, because it's a visual language, 00:07:19.890 --> 00:07:22.990 and that's really compelling to me. 00:07:23.020 --> 00:07:25.980 - I want to bring in someone from Skype. Anna, I'd like to bring you. 00:07:25.990 --> 00:07:28.640 Do you have a question for either Hetain or four An Xiao Mina? 00:07:28.680 --> 00:07:30.560 - Yes, hello. 00:07:30.600 --> 00:07:36.320 I was wondering if you think there's any difference between memes in China 00:07:36.360 --> 00:07:41.440 and in the other countries, just because China Internet is censored? 00:07:41.480 --> 00:07:44.600 - I think we see a lot of creativity because of censorship. 00:07:44.640 --> 00:07:47.760 A lot of the talks this week were talking about how creativity 00:07:47.800 --> 00:07:49.520 and innovation come out of necessity. 00:07:49.560 --> 00:07:53.280 And, so, China has two things... China's Internet has two things going for it. 00:07:53.320 --> 00:07:55.440 It's one of the world's largest Internets. 00:07:55.480 --> 00:07:58.520 I think it may have recently become the world's largest Internet. 00:07:58.560 --> 00:08:01.880 The infrastructure is there to support a lot of creativity and remixing. 00:08:01.920 --> 00:08:05.120 Then, on the other side, it's one of the world's most censored Internets. 00:08:05.160 --> 00:08:09.480 So, you have these two factors. A lot of people can be creative online, 00:08:09.520 --> 00:08:12.640 but then their voices are stamped on more often. 00:08:12.680 --> 00:08:16.160 So, recently, there were images of Tiananmen Square - 00:08:16.200 --> 00:08:20.480 I don't know if you remember the infamous tank image, three tanks, 00:08:20.520 --> 00:08:22.320 and the man standing up to it - 00:08:22.360 --> 00:08:25.000 there were two images that stuck out to me. 00:08:25.040 --> 00:08:28.200 One was someone had replaced the tanks with a kitten 00:08:28.240 --> 00:08:29.680 looking at the person. 00:08:29.720 --> 00:08:33.760 And another one, they actually replaced the tanks with rubber ducks, 00:08:33.799 --> 00:08:36.200 and rubber ducks had become a meme earlier because 00:08:36.240 --> 00:08:39.919 there's a big rubber duck floating around in Hong Kong, an art installation. 00:08:39.960 --> 00:08:45.520 And, so, that image is incredibly, incredibly censored in China. 00:08:45.560 --> 00:08:49.280 But by creating these other ways, putting in a cat, 00:08:49.320 --> 00:08:52.400 I mean, what goes more viral on the Internet than a cat? 00:08:52.440 --> 00:08:55.120 It's a way to get the message out there, really quickly. 00:08:55.160 --> 00:08:58.920 Of course, it got deleted pretty quickly, but it also spread pretty quickly. 00:08:58.960 --> 00:09:04.480 So, I don't want to say that creativity is different. 00:09:04.520 --> 00:09:07.760 Part of my talk is that there's actually a lot of really similar creativity 00:09:07.800 --> 00:09:10.360 around the world, but, in China, you do have this element 00:09:10.400 --> 00:09:16.440 of censorship that compels creativity in more frequent cases, at least for now. 00:09:16.480 --> 00:09:18.120 - OK, thank you. - I think, you know, 00:09:18.160 --> 00:09:23.120 I've only looked at three contexts - at China, a little bit of Philippines, 00:09:23.160 --> 00:09:25.640 and Uganda, and then United States. 00:09:25.680 --> 00:09:28.120 And there are some similar themes. 00:09:28.160 --> 00:09:32.720 Police brutality tends to be actually a similar theme across all of these areas. 00:09:32.760 --> 00:09:35.360 And growing up in Los Angeles, I understand why that is. 00:09:35.400 --> 00:09:37.640 I saw police brutality myself. 00:09:37.680 --> 00:09:39.800 It's a frightening situation. 00:09:39.840 --> 00:09:41.840 So, using humour diffuses that, 00:09:41.880 --> 00:09:46.680 so, it becomes a very common way to express ourselves 00:09:46.720 --> 00:09:53.120 and often people, especially in areas where there's limited free speech, 00:09:53.160 --> 00:09:57.080 people will remix images of their leaders, so you see a lot of that. 00:09:57.120 --> 00:09:58.840 But, often, it's very local. 00:09:58.880 --> 00:10:02.120 Some of the more compelling memes coming out of Sub-Saharan Africa, 00:10:02.160 --> 00:10:04.440 I showed one, Tweet Like A Foreign Journalist, 00:10:04.480 --> 00:10:07.840 where the Spanish Prime Minister had said... 00:10:07.880 --> 00:10:10.360 The Spanish economy was tanking, 00:10:10.400 --> 00:10:14.360 the Spanish Prime Minister sent a text message to his finance minister 00:10:14.400 --> 00:10:17.280 and he said, "Don't worry - Spain is not Uganda." 00:10:17.320 --> 00:10:20.520 Uganda's pounced on this. They started saying, "Uganda is not Spain." 00:10:20.560 --> 00:10:23.880 And they started posting statistics about how Uganda's economy is rising, 00:10:23.920 --> 00:10:25.280 all these kinds of issues. 00:10:25.320 --> 00:10:28.880 That's something really common I've seen in Sub-Saharan Africa, 00:10:28.920 --> 00:10:33.800 because Sub-Saharan Africa in particular is misrepresented in global media 00:10:33.840 --> 00:10:35.400 much more often than other places. 00:10:35.440 --> 00:10:37.440 So, yes, there are some themes, 00:10:37.480 --> 00:10:40.840 but you can find very local ones that are really interesting. 00:10:40.880 --> 00:10:44.000 - We have a question from Hong Kong. Actually, Matti. 00:10:44.040 --> 00:10:47.000 - Do you think is this a new phenomenon, 00:10:47.040 --> 00:10:51.720 merged with the Internet, or do you have 00:10:51.760 --> 00:10:57.720 any pre-Internet samples of remixing, for example picture of leaders, 00:10:57.760 --> 00:10:59.640 and stuff like that? 00:11:00.600 --> 00:11:02.160 - Oh, yeah, absolutely. 00:11:02.200 --> 00:11:05.800 What's new about the Internet is that it's faster. 00:11:05.840 --> 00:11:10.760 I haven't seen anything in history that's filled with such weirdness. 00:11:10.800 --> 00:11:15.600 I haven't seen cats and llamas and dogs and pigs. 00:11:15.640 --> 00:11:19.490 But I was just talking with someone, since we're in the UK, this is appropriate, 00:11:19.510 --> 00:11:21.840 there's this British publisher, 00:11:21.880 --> 00:11:25.600 I forget the century, but his name was John Wilkes. 00:11:25.640 --> 00:11:28.960 He was publishing the North Briton newspaper. 00:11:29.000 --> 00:11:33.160 It was considered at the time a very edgy newspaper. 00:11:33.200 --> 00:11:37.880 The 45th issue angered the government so much that they destroyed 00:11:37.920 --> 00:11:41.840 all the printing presses and they censored the magazine. 00:11:41.880 --> 00:11:44.480 And then they arrested John Wilkes. 00:11:44.520 --> 00:11:46.760 But, then, shortly after he's arrested, 00:11:46.800 --> 00:11:48.960 just like the sunflower seeds, the number 45 00:11:49.000 --> 00:11:51.520 started popping up on walls and, again, 00:11:51.560 --> 00:11:53.760 this is why I bring that analogy with street art, 00:11:53.800 --> 00:11:56.160 that there is a long history of people 00:11:56.200 --> 00:11:59.320 taking symbols and images and putting them out 00:11:59.360 --> 00:12:02.640 as a way of speaking out, even when that message is being suppressed. 00:12:02.680 --> 00:12:05.640 - I just want to bring in some of our translator panellists. 00:12:05.680 --> 00:12:08.240 Do you have a question for either Hetain or An? 00:12:08.280 --> 00:12:12.880 - Our president gets mocked a lot, but, like, he never... 00:12:12.920 --> 00:12:18.000 I always thought if he can reply with a humour, 00:12:18.040 --> 00:12:21.640 it would be really nice to solve the situation, 00:12:21.680 --> 00:12:25.320 so I'm wondering, is there any example 00:12:25.360 --> 00:12:30.840 of how government can handle this in a rather humorous way? 00:12:30.880 --> 00:12:34.160 - Humorous way, yeah, that's a great question. 00:12:34.200 --> 00:12:37.360 I don't know if any Americans here remember 00:12:37.400 --> 00:12:40.080 the Hillary Clinton texting meme that popped up? 00:12:40.120 --> 00:12:43.880 That wasn't a political commentary. It was just her looking really bad-ass. 00:12:43.920 --> 00:12:45.960 She was wearing sunglasses and texting. 00:12:46.000 --> 00:12:48.440 And there are all kinds of joke texts coming from her 00:12:48.480 --> 00:12:49.600 about how cool she was. 00:12:49.640 --> 00:12:53.680 And her Twitter account, she just opened a Twitter account, and it's that photo. 00:12:53.720 --> 00:12:56.120 So, I think she's doing it well. 00:12:56.160 --> 00:12:58.200 Granted, it wasn't criticising her, 00:12:58.240 --> 00:13:00.520 but she did it well in terms of embracing it. 00:13:00.560 --> 00:13:05.000 And I think, there's certainly a culture gap, a generation gap, 00:13:05.040 --> 00:13:09.040 and I do hope that it opens up a door for using humour 00:13:09.080 --> 00:13:10.910 because I think that would be great, 00:13:10.920 --> 00:13:13.760 if persons in power can use humour 00:13:13.800 --> 00:13:15.840 to help talk about often very difficult issues. 00:13:15.880 --> 00:13:17.480 - We're going to have to wrap it, 00:13:17.520 --> 00:13:19.040 we have to head back into session. 00:13:19.080 --> 00:13:22.000 Thank you, An Xiao Mina, and thank you, Hetain Patel, for joining us. 00:13:22.040 --> 00:13:24.440 And thank you, all the translators. Thank you very much.