Derf's Theory and the Meaning of the Cartoon Essay Example

When things become popular, they tend to be referred to as trends but what are the trends? Trends are when someone or something has an increase in popularity because of a spike in interest and eventually over time it will go down in popularity due to a lack of interest. This is the life cycle of a trend, and this is reinforced based on Derf’s theory on fads and trends. Derf theory is that trends are started by a small group of individuals and the people in those groups will spread the trend to other groups causing a chain reaction until larger older generations start to adopt the trend. After the older people adopt the trend, the other groups stop doing the trend because it has lost its original purpose. 

In the cartoon in the first half, Derf illustrates in panel one that a group of art students started to hang their boogers dangling from their noses at their local coffee shop. It has been done so many times to the point where the college students don’t even remember who first started the trend and why they did it. From that in box two, Derf illustrates that the students from the coffee shops have spread their practices to hipsters that have been adopted citywide. Then Indy rock bands would influence this trend and spread it to their audiences. This causes the trend to be spread to other city and then a celebrity also begins to bandwagon on the trend. Then celebrities will spread the trend in the television spreading it to a wider audience and then suddenly 30 million high school students will “blindly follow suit” (panel 2). 

Following up from the comic in the second half Derf illustrates in panel three that the audience has grown so widely to the point where the older generations such as the high schoolers' grandparents will also copy the fad. The older people adopted the blogger style in an “attempt at hipness”.(panel 3) Because the trend has spread so far to the point it has lost its original meaning the people who once did the trend will stop doing it because it's not inclusive to their group of people anymore and thus people started to wipe their nose” lunging for the kleenex”.(panel 4) From the four illustrations, Derf's theory on trends is that they start from a small then that grow so large to the point where the message of the trend to be diluted in the process making the trend go down in popularity.

The midden message of Derf’s theory on fads and trends is media manipulation. In addition to having a very about trends, derfs show a hidden message in the cartoon expressing the events of media manipulation. The comic strip holds some historical context and derfs background suppose this interpretation. First, Derf is making fun of the society on the comic strip to show how the media and influencers express their ideas and actions in the world and the followers will just copy or react to what is most popular so that they can conform to society more. Instead of having an idea or an opinion about a topic the people in this comic just blindly follow what has been presented in front of them and they don't even question the trend but simply follow suit since everybody else is doing the same. This message shows how a person of influence's actions can cause the audience to conform to their beliefs. For example, panels 2 and 3 derfs show the media networks and influencers such as MTV, Madonna, and the David letterman were popular tv channels and singers in 1995 when the comics were made. Secondly, understanding when the cartoon was written also suggests that derf was deeply thinking about the media. During this time television show rue, the media world and one of them being MTV and the David Letterman show. They both had viewership in the millions causing them to influence a large amount of their dedicated audience. Because of this huge audience some being children and impacted by this acceptance because since their brains are still developing, they just adapt and adjust to their environment and that is why millions of kids in high school start following the trend because the media leaves a huge impact on them. Finally, derfs high school, college, and work background explain why derf was motivated to communicate this hidden message. When Derf was in Highschool one of his friends named Jeffrey Dahmer famously known as a serial killer, but before he was known as a serial killer he was known as the shy kid.  This resulted in him being bullied to the point that it turned him into the killer that he is infamously known today. This comic strip might be inspired based on Derf's experiences because he soon learn and realized that some actions such as bullying can result in negative outcomes even though being a bully was known to be cool and popular at the time. 

Derf’s theory on fads and trends mostly resembles how I adopted the Oppa Gangnam Style. According to derf, fads are spread through college students at your local coffee shops; Hipsters then copy the trend and spread it citywide; then traveling indie rock band musicians spread their practices to other cities, the trend gets reported by Tabitha Soren broadcasted on MTV news; the audience such as students adopted the trend causing it to be banned because it might be linked to gang-related activities; finally, older generations copy the trend to attempt to be young and cool again. This causes the trend to slowly die down because it has lost its original purpose. Life how derf suggest in the cartoon the music video Oppa Gangnam Style trend evolved similarly to derf depictions on trends. A fad that I have adopted is the "Gangnam Style" dance. During recess, my friends and I would do this dance in the playground while one person would sing along to the song. This fad was popular in 2012 ever since it was uploaded on YouTube and gained popularity by sheer word of mouth and celebrities that have found the music video such as T-pain and Britney Spears also endorsed this music video on their platform. The whole fad was a type of dance that had a person having their wrist cross over and gallop like a horse when the song said "Oppa Gangnam Style". The meaning behind the word means your man has style. The word Oppa direct translate means older brother but in this context, the word refers to an older male friend or boyfriend. Gangnam is a rich city in Seoul where young people party. The evolution of this trend was a bit similar to Derf's cycle except it wasn't created by a smaller group. The creator of the song PSY was already a well-established rapper in Korea and had experience in getting his songs into top South Korean music charts since he can obtain success in South Korea. The hard part is making his song internationally popular. The way the music video gain popularity was by word of mouth but not only that it was posted on YouTube. On the YouTube site in 2012 content was a lot lower back then and the platform is self could reach a larger audience since the website was free and the cost of entry was low to watch the video. The cycle started by being posted on YouTube; The Korean viewers spread the music videos by word of mouth; the YouTube suggests feature recommended the videos to its international users; the trend being talked about all over the interview by group chat; Celebrities voice their opinion on the trend spreading the trend to their audiences.