Fun with Internet memes

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This week on Horn Matters I will be having some fun with two popular Internet memes and of course, Photoshopping French horns into them.

What on earth is a meme, you ask?

In short it is a tidbit of humor that gets spread around and catches on, like a fad. In this case it is propagated on the Internet and in particular among community sharing groups.

Fans of LOLcats for example, understand the use of intentionally misspelled words like “moar” and “kitteh.”

For memes based on photographs, the humor might revolve around the digital manipulation of a photo – inserting one image into another of an entirely different context. Two popular memes of this type known as “Sad Keanu” and “Strutting Leo,” refer to the famous Hollywood actors Keanu Reeves and Leonardo DiCaprio.

In Mr. DiCaprio’s example it is a snapshot taken from the set of his recent movie Inception. For Mr. Reeves, it was a picture taken in 2010 from the streets of New York City while he was eating a sandwich.

The original photographs

This week at Horn Matters, Keanu and Leo will be sporting French horns and in the spirit of Internet memes, they will be superimposed into a variety of odd scenarios – just for fun.

Leonardo’s hold on the horn by the way, reminds me of something called the “Eastman grip.” I will remain vague on what this is exactly, but students from the Eastman School of Music may know what this is.

[Extracted 2021 from a “Random Monday” post, JE. With a brief JE note below]

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Verne Reynolds had a vey distinctive way he wanted you to hold your horn when bowing in a performance situation. That was the “Eastman grip.” Occasionally I will bow that same way, but normally intentionally hold the horn differently….

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