Impact memes: phds humor(e) Concetta Papapicco Giuseppe Mininni Dept. Science of Psychology Dept. Science of Psychology University of Bari, Bari, Italy University of Bari, Bari, Italy ORCID 0000 0003-3240-8740 ORCID 0000-0001-7896-6620 Abstract— The era of User Generated Content (USG) on To satisfy these purposes, 39 memes about the PhD were Social Networks has invested different areas of human experience, collected from a Facebook page called “High Impact PhD including one of the highest levels of education, i.e. the PhD grade. meme” during the first part of 2019. The PhD memes were As regards the opportunity to "imitate" a virtual content, the analyzed in two levels: the quanti-qualitative, aiming to detect phenomenon of Memes (Shifman, 2014) is spreading. The research the semi-automatic emotional involvement, expression of has two goals: to demonstrate how the practices of signification of humor on the doctorate are modified with the "memes factory" humor in “meme discourses”; the semiotic analysis of meme and how artificial intelligence is able to detect a complex rhetorical images to understand if it is possible to classify PhD humor. strategy such as humor. To satisfy these purposes, 39 memes about The emotional involvement were detected by means of Tone the PhD were collected and, then, analyzed in two levels: the Analyzer IBM (Byrd, 2016), that gives back as output the quanti-qualitative, aiming to detect the semi-automatic emotional prevalence of meme texts emotions. More, starting from these involvement, expression of humor in “meme discourses”; the quantitative results and considering the PhD meme texts as semiotic analysis of meme images to understand if it is possible to “dia-texts” (Manuti & Mininni, 2017), the meme texts about classify PhD humor. The analysis show a further function of doctorate path were qualitatively analyzed, evaluating the humor mediated by communication through memes, that is the context of enunciation. complaint against a complex and precarious career path. Regarding the visual part of a meme, a semiotic analysis of Keywords—PhD Memes, Mediated Humor, Emotional Analysis, images was carried out, in which the main features were Diatextual Analysis Semiotic, Analysis of Imagines highlighted in terms of structure, colors and principal subjects. I. INTRODUCTION II. HUMOR, SOCIAL NETWORK AND AFFECTIVE The era of User Generated Content (USG) on Social INTELLIGENCE Networks has invested different areas of human experience, The psychological interest in humor establishes roots in the including one of the highest levels of education, i.e. the PhD psychoanalytic theories (Freud, 1905/1950), in which it is grade. In fact, Social Networks, like Facebook, amplify the underlined the relation to unconscious. Later, Henri Bergson possibility of creating content and making sure that they reach (1950) introduces the theory of laughter affirming that the a wide audience. Indeed, every user, even a non-expert, can put humor behavior is the result of spontaneity and freedom as content online, share it or imitate it. As regards the opportunity human values appearing in a rigid or mechanical expression to "imitate" a virtual content, the phenomenon of Memes is face. In this way, humor becomes a psycholinguistic subject of study, defined as a cognitive experience that gives rise to feeling spreading. Conceptually the Meme is "the minimum cultural of mirth or joy and it is generally mediated by language. Humor unit capable of replication" (Shifman, 2014), which declined in is mainly used to reveal suppressed desires and to overcome the virtual context and, specifically, of the Social Networks, can sociocultural inhibitions, such as aggressive themes. In this way, take different forms. One of the typical functions of Memes, humor has a primarily emotional function, helping the humorist especially on Facebook, is the replication of semi-serious to build confidence and self-esteem. There are three theories that images accompanied by humorous phrases. explain humor: the relief theory (Buijzen, Valkenburg, 2004); Taking the theoretical boundary between memetics, the superiority theory (Berger, 1993) and the incongruity theory psychology and computer science, the study aims to assess (Meyer, 2000). how, in a context mediated like Facebook, the Memes convey the humorous content regarding a highly qualified educational Following these theories, people laugh at things that are path, such as the PhD, which is a high level of education, but unexpected or surprising and it is the violation of an expected pattern that provokes humor in the mind of the receiver. Rather also delicate because PhD students are neither a than focusing on the physiological (relief theory) or emotional teachers/workers nor a students. Furthermore, the research has (superiority theory) function of humor, incongruity theory two goals: to demonstrate how the practices of signification of emphasizes cognition. It assumes that the cognitive capacity to humor on the doctorate are modified with the "memes factory" note and understand incongruous events is necessary to and how artificial intelligence is able to detect a complex experience laughter or mirth. Absurdity, nonsense, and surprise rhetorical strategy such as humor. are vital themes in humor covered by this theory (McGhee, 1979; Veatch, 1998). According to Berger (1976, 1993), humor Copyright © 2019 for this paper by its authors. Use permitted under Creative Commons License Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0). techniques fall into four general categories: language, logic, that users that know the enunciation context may understand identity, and action. Some examples are summarized in Table I: easily the meaning of communication act, on the contrary, there was no effect of joy and mirth in the humorous meaning. Currently, the studies about Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Natural Language Processing (NLP) focused on the creation of sophisticated software, able to detect and recognize the tone and the emotions of all discourse genres. It is the case of IBM tools, in particular the Tone Analyzer, that is more than an Artificial Intelligence, because it may be classified as Affective Intelligence. The mode of operation of these software is that of matching the text in input with their inner vocabularies of words, going back, as output, a data of total emotion on the base of a scale with score lower than 0,50, equal to 0,50 and higher than 0,50: the significant values are those higher than 0.50. The emotions detected are the five basic emotions, which are: joy, fear, sadness, disgust and anger. Joy or happiness has shades of enjoyment, satisfaction and pleasure. There is a sense of well- being, inner peace, love, safety and contentment; while fear is a response to impending danger. It is a survival mechanism that is a reaction to some negative stimulus. It may be a mild caution or an extreme phobia; sadness indicates a feeling of loss and disadvantage. When a person can be observed to be quiet, less energetic and withdrawn, it may be inferred that sadness exists; disgust is an emotional response of revulsion to something considered offensive or unpleasant. It is a sensation that refers to something revolting and anger evoked due to injustice, conflict, humiliation, negligence or betrayal. If anger is active, the individual attacks the target, verbally or physically. If anger is passive, the person silently sulks and feels tension and hostility. But, even in these cases, the main limit is that it is impossible reduce the complexity of human experience in a matching: in particular the AI is not able to detect all rethorical strategies and all context. III. PHD CONTEXT AND SOCIAL NETWORK PhDs (philosophiæ doctors) are young researchers who invest three or four years in the in-depth study of specific scientific topics. These are graduates with different educational Tab. 1 Humor Techniques (Berger 1976; 1993) backgrounds, from engineers, doctors to more humanistic disciplines such as social sciences, philosophy and literature. They are, however, people who, after completing their This theoretical framework begins to be challenged university studies, transform their "thirst for knowledge" into following the Digital Revolution and the introduction of new an occupation. media, in which it has been experienced a humorous situation in a different way. In particular, the spread of social networks, However, it is an occupation that is more "vulnerable" to which offer the possibility of producing a quantity of content the labor market flexibility logics, in a context, such as the very easily, modifies the experience of the humorous academic one and, on a larger scale, the scientific one, which is communication situation, the function and the comprehension based on rigor and quantity. In addition to this, there is a lack itself of this rhetorical strategy. First of all, the main difficulty of clarification in the definition of who, in terms of skills and regarding the mediated humor is the absence of enunciators face tasks, is a "doctoral student". In most cases, it is a paid to face interaction. In fact, this limit engrave the possibility of a "qualified" student, but not all PhDs are eligible for financial fast understanding, such as in the case of mediated irony support. The common element is that all those who undertake (Papapicco & Mininni, 2019). More, regarding the this career clash with an uphill path, not always linear and communication act that takes place in virtual space, it is often characterized by deadlines, pressures, measurements of their difficult to re-build the context of enunciation: this is an other work through purely quantitative indices, all surrounded by the factor of engraving the comprehension. In the specific virtual uncertainty of the future. space, as Social Network, the communication act is transmitted This landscape has aroused the interest of sociologists, in a “broadcasting” way, reaching a wide audience. This means psychologists and economists, who, starting from statistics, Identify applicable funding agency here. If none, delete this text box. have begun to study doctoral students, with "research in research". In particular, a Belgian research of 2017, published in Research Policy, studied the relationship between the academic career and the mental health of the doctoral students (Levecquea et al., 2017). Specifically, 3600 Belgian doctoral students of all disciplines were involved and it emerged that, independently of training, one third of the sample had a high risk of developing, above all, depression. Despite this, there are no other studies to confirm the data, as most of the results show a correlation with stress and states of anxiety, mainly identified as a concern for the future, due to the lack of prospects. There Chart 1: Quantitative results of Emotional Analysis is also the absence, in the universities themselves, of professionals who deal with supporting Human Resources in future employment or simply accepting individual and By convention, following the model of Barrett and Russell collective difficulties and needs. Some strategies, already (2009) which disfigures positive emotions from negative present within the Social Networks, useful to defuse the emotions, the results of positive emotions (joy) have been given common practices of meaning related to the doctorate, are the a value of 1; for negative emotions (anger, sadness, disgust and international humorous pages, in which every PhD student is fear) a value equal to -1 and for neutrality a value equal to zero. recognized. These pages, like many virtual communities, have almost a "mutual help" function, because, thanks to sharing, it The results show the prevalence of neutrality, represented in is possible to feel less alone. gray in the graph. The negative emotions in red are also This is the case of a specific communication tool, which is significant, where, however, the absence of disgust is becoming a rapidly spreading cultural artifact, i.e. the "Meme". highlighted. The positive emotions represented in green are The meme is composed of two communicative elements: one quantitatively less significant. This is an important indicator visual and the other textual. because, from the psycholinguistic scientific literature on “humor”, the connection of this rhetorical strategy to a positive emotion emerges. Starting from this limit and considering the IV. IMPACT PHD MEME: A CASE STUDY memes discourses as “diatexts”, whose meaning derives from the interweaving of text and context, it can be noted that the The research has two goals: to demonstrate how the practices emotionality detected by the Artificial Intelligence is not of signification of humor on the doctorate are modified with the entirely incorrect, as in the following example: "memes factory" and how artificial intelligence is able to detect a complex rhetorical strategy such as humor. To satisfy these Eg. 1 “When your manuscript comes back with major purposes, in the study, 39 memes about the PhD were collected revisions. (0,51) from a Facebook page called “High Impact PhD meme” Ah shit, here we go again (0,73)” during the first part of 2019. In fact, more recent PhD memes have been chosen. The PhD memes were analyzed in two In this case, the real fear emerges of those who submit a levels: the quanti-qualitative, aiming to detect the semi- scientific work in the form of an article to a journal and receive automatic emotional involvement, expression of humor in it with many corrections to be made, perhaps, in a limited “meme discourses”; the semiotic analysis of meme images to period. Fear is immediately replaced by the anger that emerges understand if it is possible to classify PhD humor. in having to work again on the same research, further modifying what could have been the initial idea. A. IBM EMOTIONAL ANALYSIS At the textual level, in the memes on the doctorate it can be From the Emotional Analysis of the PhD memes, a significant noted the constant presence of bad words, such as "shit", prevalence of neutrality and negative emotions such as anger, "bastards" which then load the emotions in a negative sense. On sadness or fear emerges, as can be seen in chart 1: the contrary, in the case of joy detection, this is due to the use of intensifiers, as in the following example: Eg. 2 “When your manuscript is finally revised gets backfrom review” (0,74) Also in this case, the basic theme is the review of scientific articles by journals. The use of the "finally" intensifier loads the sentence of joy. From these initial results it can be deduced that the PhD 2. the semisymbolic correlation, which provides a relationship practices of significance are the subject of the memes concern between a category of the expression and one of the content (for the relationship with the supervisors, the difficulties in example the topology / topology category, can correspond to publishing the papers and the post-doc uncertainty, as shown in one of the content where “high” corresponds to “sacred” and these expamples: “low” to “ profane”. The application of this methodology aims to understand the Eg. 3 “Phd supervisor: is your manuscript finished yet? presence or absence of regularity on the creation of visual PhD: Well, yes, but actually no” aspect in PhD memes. Eg. 4 “Pimples? Zero First of all, the image becomes the imitation element in the Blackheads? Zero "meme" phenomenon. The images used are actually known. Probability of your manuscript acceptance on first These are images that represent clear and identifiable subjects, submission? Zero placed in the foreground. In some cases, the presence of dialogues is recorded and therefore the image is a vignette, Eg. 5 “Me: I’m doing a PhD where all the characters have an equal portion of space. Even People: and then what? the colors are clear in most cases, so they can be easily Me: Good question.” recognized. As for the subjects and the situations portrayed, the protagonists of the photos are famous movie characters with In these examples, there is a prevalence of neutrality, linked to expressions consistent respect to the text of the image. In the a lack of emotions or to the presence of contrasting emotions, case of PhD memes, the recurring expressions in the characters i.e. anger and joy in the same phrase. In PhD meme discourses, is doubt and sadness, as shown in the following examples: neutrality is also due to the presence of imagines, that sometimes is the real element of joy. If the image is bigger or more significant than the text, neutrality is justify. Therefore, it is necessary analyze PhD meme images that, in most cases, replace the non verbal communication act. B. SEMIOTIC ANALYSIS OF PhD MEME IMAGES Fig. 1 example of doubt Fig. 2 example of sadness Sight is one of the most attractive senses of the human being, as it communicates messages immediately with respect As can be seen from the images, the visual aspect helps the to the written text. An image is the privileged and mediated way comprehension of the text and completes it. Furthermore, they to pass quickly from the level of the signifier (plan of the are well-known TV personalities: in the first case the expression) to that of the meaning (plan of the content). The expression of doubt and the sentence of the protagonist are not semiotic analysis of images (Van Leeuwen, 2001) is a original, that is to say that the context in which they are inserted methodology that allows to trace meanings within visual changes, which makes it possible to consider it an imitation and objects and it is based on the plastic analysis of the image that detect the basic humor. In the second case, the expression of includes three levels: original sadness of a well-known protagonist of a TV series for teenagers, is set in a different context, where, however, the 1. topological organization, where the constitutional elements image is coherent. of the image are identified; Other characters typical of the meme images on the PhD are the protagonists of cartoons, as in the following examples: 2. eidetic organization, where the lines of the visual object analyzed are highlighted; 3. chromatic organization. After having identified these three characteristics, it can be found the plastic formats that allow to reach the content, that is the transition from the signifier to the meaning, which are divided into two aspects: Fig. 3 Meme of Shrek Fig. 4 Meme of Spongebob 1. the symbolic correlation, that is the set of conventions and The images, however, are not chosen randomly. In example 3 cultural aspects connected to the expression plan (for example there is an "ogre" in the foreground, which in traditional culture if the gold color indicates sacredness, the subject / object is considered a monstrous figure, here instead replaced by an depicted that dresses gold, will be a sacred subject / object); ogre of modern cinematography used to overturn many of the fairy tales elements. The humor of the PhD meme fits into this neutrality. The software does not allow, in case of neutrality, a reversal. sentence level analysis able to understand if neutrality is given by the absence of sentiment or as a juxtaposition of positive and V. CONCLUSION negative emotions, an aspect that will be evaluated as a future perspective. In addition, among the future perspectives, a The era of User Generated Content (USG) on Social comparison of the current results of the study with other sources Networks has invested different areas of human experience, and with a larger sample will be provided. An inter-judges including one of the highest levels of education, i.e. the PhD agreement will also be possible, in order to avoid the excessive grade. As regards the opportunity to "imitate" a virtual content, simplification to five emotions carried out by the IBM software. the phenomenon of Memes is spreading. 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