Berkeley Undergraduate Journal

In the field of electronic literature, there is an interest in understanding current digital writing practices, termed third generation electronic literature. Many scholars claim that third-gen e-literature lacks an “aesthetic of difficulty.” This is a term introduced by Jessica Pressman, who applied it to first and second generation e-literature to describe the complex interpretation that must occur in their analysis. I claim that there is an aesthetic of difficulty found in third-gen e-literature, which I access through my concept “local intertextuality.” This phrase draws on the mathematical definition of local to specify intertextuality within a limited range of texts. Local intertextuality can be defined in two parts: firstly, the content directly connected to it through the platform it exists on, through creation by the same author, or interaction from the same users, among other possibilities; secondly, references to particular meme templates, fonts, and filters.

By scrolling through the poster's feed and encountering memes in different presentations, a reader can draw out difficult hermeneutics of the original meme. Moreover, utilizing Michel Serres’s concept of the parasite, a reader can draw out difficult politics of the original meme, in our case liberatory politics against monopolistic social media from the outside in. The meme enacts this by realizing the gap that exists between the power of social media and the users it subjugates. At its heart, what this paper argues is that third generation electronic literature can hold an aesthetic of difficulty—you just have to read between the memes.