Milo Proposal
Milo Proposal
Jeremy Feltman Ms. Caruso ENGL 1102 8 July 2012 Pop-Culture Inquiry Proposal Possible Subject List Andy Warhol Kittens Alcohol Sex Drugs Rock and Roll
Decided Topic: Kittens Question: How have kittens become a major part of pop-culture since the advent of the internet? Proposal: The internet has facilitated the presence of kittens in pop-culture. Kittens have long been seen as cute, and I suppose this has some relation. They do things they humans tend to coo over. I am not exactly sure why humans have such an affinity towards small creatures like kittens. This is something I would like to look into. I already know kitten meows have similar sonic structures similar to the cries of human babies, which is why humans are so drawn to the sound of meowing. I intend on finding solid backing for this claim. However, my goal is not just to look at what draws humans to kittens but specifically the kittens on the internet. In my paper I
Feltman 2
will use case examples, like Nyan Cat and Reddits r/aww section, among others from internet social media tools to examine the relationship between pop-culture and kittens. While I intend to identify other questions during my search some of the things I intend to ask are: How are people interacting with this medium? How viral is this method? What difference does the introduction of a kitten in a particular medium make? The last question involves some potentially interesting data. I may be able to look at a comparison of thumbs up on Youtube Videos or upvotes in Reddit verses similar content without kittens, to attempt to look at kittens in pop-culture from a numerical standpoint. I believe this would be a unique way of looking at kittens in pop-culture. I think it may be difficult to find second-hand sources on this topic but I will do my best. It will be important to focus on finding professional sources for this topic, as kittens, due to their very nature in pop-culture, are difficult to write about professionally, outside of the healthy/veterinary perspective. I doubt I will find any book sources on the topic, but perhaps I could find some more concrete hardcopy sourcing on the social media tools (Facebook, Youtube, Reddit, Tumblr, etc.) used to distribute kitten material on the internet.