Hey Friends! Just a quick update to let everyone know where we're at. We're in a round of revisions right now which means we've all written something that we all agree is good enough to be edited. HOORAY! We consider this to be a great success.

The process is long and more than a little challenging (have any of you ever tried to write a book with your two best friends? HOLY MOLY) but extremely rewarding. We're hoping within the next week or so to send out a pretty-close-to-how-we-imagine-it-will-be-in-print Introduction Chapter. We're all three of us pretty skeptical of the word "done" at this point, so for those backers who are getting chapters "As They're Completed"... start mentally preparing your fine selves for giving us comments, because we'd love to hear them.

Speaking of which, as a fun teaser and also to serve as a little bit of proof for those of you without access to the MemeFactory research database, reproduced below are some paragraphs from each of the sections we are all currently working on.

We hope you enjoy! And are sufficiently teased, of course...

INTRODUCTION

An excellent example of internet meme development is the unofficial, unspoken codification of just what exactly LOLspeak is. The misspellings and bad grammar are not haphazard or random - they have been standardized through repetition in LOLcat iterations. The imitation of those errors found most pleasing or humorous build the LOLspeak language to the degree that LOLspeak itself became its own internet meme. For example, the LOLspeak standard misspelling of 'secret' as 'sekrit' became standard through the sharing and reposting of images containing the word 'sekrit' and the use of that spelling by people who had seen 'sekrit' images.

The standardization of the language has gone on long enough that it is possible, now, to incorrectly misspell a word in LOLspeak.

INTERNET FOLKLORISTICS

A major characteristic of folklore is the free license one is given to change and adapt well known forms. In the same way the performer might change a ballad to suit his or her need, internet culture also blurs the line between creator and audience. Where traditional folklore had cowboys to consume and distribute different version of ballads, internet folklore has the community member to share and mutate digital culture. At any point those consuming the media might become the ones performing or sharing the media; this makes the consumers and sharers of folklore as important as the forms and stories themselves.

HAIKU DOG

... So, to summarize, the Haiku came from a cultural practice where multiple people would collaborate to create new media that was in dialogue with one another and it just so happened that the most concise and expressive part of that practice became so popular that it became its own cultural form. Over 1000 years later Advice Dog can be described in exactly the same language. Once upon a time a set of friendly neighborhood internet users were exchanging posts on a message board (cultural practice, multiple people, new media, in dialogue) when all of a sudden someone published the first Advice Dog: this first Advice Dog is cute and concise and popular, and it isn't long before it too has become it's own poetic form.

THE END

Everyone get back to work! <3