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Why Vadering and Hadouken are the new normal for photography memes

The recent popularity of the Vadering and Hadouken photography memes is yet more evidence of the vibrant health of social mobile photography.

But what is the story behind these memes? And what does it tell us about the current state of mobile photography and social media?

It seems the Hadouken meme was of organic origin. Nested deep in the Japanese teenage manga culture of Dragon Ball, the meme re-creates Kamehameha style attacks. And is probably the most inventive photographic meme ever.

However, the Vadering meme has been accused of intentional viral marketing for the brand Chick-fil-A. Posted by Angry Baby on Reddit five days ago it was a ‘response’ to the Hadouken images. But it seems the Reddit community and other bloggers are suspicious and have claimed at worst it is staged and at the very least a poor attempt to ‘start a meme’.

Staged or engineered I love Vadering. Maybe its because I love Star Wars, but its genius is its simplicity and creative impact.

It uses a potent cultural signal and mixes it with some deft photography to create a fun and visually engaging idea.  

For brands this again demonstrates that using photo sharing platforms and visual motifs born out of internet culture can be a powerful way to ‘visually entertain’ their followers.

This in the same week that celebrities are posting branded sponsored images of themselves on Instagram and bypassing Facebook means that ways to capture the visual social web is only going to get more interesting.

So I think there are five points we can take from these recent photography based memes:

 

1. Mobile photography is getting more inventive. The level of creativity and required skill of how some of these shots have been set up is impressive. It shows how the ‘average user’ is getting more skilled in techniques like composition and other techniques.

 

2. Ease of access means more involvement. Because of the growing ubiquity of quality smartphones and a ‘social mobile’ mindset people are into it. Getting involved in meme activation and origination is getting way more mainstream.

 

3. Meme police are fierce critics. It is getting harder to manufacture a meme that has agenda free authenticity. Do they even exist? Whatever the provenance of Vadering it has spun into a visually arresting cultural motif. And this makes the purist critics smoulder.

 

4. Increased meme competition. Vadering spilled out of Hadouken very quickly. Connecting meme waves is an orchestrated act, but also makes everything a bit more competitive and interesting.

 

5. A growing visual appetite. The rise of the visual social web means it needs lots of feeding. Expect way more Vadering and Hadouken to come.

 

Here are a few other recent photography memes:

 

#Planking

 

 

#Owling

 #Draping

 

10 social mobile photography trends for 2013

It is the season to gaze into crystal balls and squeeze out predictive posts before 2012 closes...

What a year it was for the world of mobile photography! There are far too many developments to call out, but it’s safe to say that 2012 was the year mobile photography truly came to prominence.

So what could 2013 hold for social mobile photography?

1. Flickr will make a resounding comeback
The long forgotten King will return from exile and rightfully claim the photographic throne. Flickr will properly kill it in 2013. With a smart new CEO installed at Yahoo, shiny new app, millions of fanatical fans and a trusted brand Flickr will be one of the mobile photography stars next year. Expect to see some knock out features, deeper social integration and a resurgent community.

2. Instagram will teeter between implosion and monetisation
With a ruthless Terms of Service update, heavy duty monetisation plans and a scary increase in spam Instagram will do well to keep the platform stable and positive next year. No doubt there will be more catalyst moments for the trailblazing social network, but the hard work is yet to come to maintain a balance between happy and monetised users.

3. Watch for a small steady migratory trickle from iphones to android devices
With a relatively damp iphone 5 launch and stiff handset competition this year, 2013 will see a small but significant trickle of iphoneographers leave their native habitat. As Android handsets get more technically brilliant the urge to switch may become too tempting for some. Expect to see Android photography apps to improve too.

4. Google+ will get even more serious about photography
With Google’s acquisition of Snapseed, the recent launch of G+ communities and the ongoing integration of Google+ across all products Google will continue to make serious overtures to the photography community. They seem to think if they seduce the image makers perhaps the rest might follow? Expect to see more growth and a steady stream of enhancements.

5. More camera brands will develop owned social platforms
The launch of Canon's experimental Project 1709 as a social image management tool perhaps heralds a period of innovation for manufacturing imaging brands looking to cater to emerging social customers. With more users taking more photos than ever before social image management will become a tedious, but necessary consideration for those users wanting to archive their visual social graph.

6. New photo sharing and discovery apps will challenge Instagram
Watch out for the young pretenders next year. Leading the charge will be EyeEm. With 1m downloads, 30% month on month growth, the backing of an attractive Berlin funding scene and a growing passionate community EyeEm will have a good 2013. Also check out Starmatic a beautiful reimagination of photography.

7. Publishers will increase their coverage of mobile photography
With the recent launches of Shootermag and Mobile Connect the media coverage of this niche and growing category will continue to flourish as audience and advertiser interest peaks. Mobile photographers will also begin to look for less technical tips and more creative inspiration in 2013 as the discipline matures.

8. Twitter will innovate around mobile photography and citizen journalism
In the year where Twitter was wrong during Hurricane Sandy and Obama Hug became the world’s most tweeted photo the convergence of citizen journalism and mobile photography has never looked so interesting. The very public divorce between Instagram and Twitter and their release of an enhanced app signals Twitter’s ambition to further shape the way its users use images on the platform. Expect to see improved verification services and better surfacing of images instream.

9. More brands will capitalise on the appeal of social mobile photography
There has been no shortage of cookie cutter Instacampaigns by brands testing the power of the visual social web in 2012. Some successful and some fails. But visual brand storytelling is hard to execute, especially for those brands who have no characters, plot or story! Expect to see more mobile photographers enlisted by brands to embellish brand narratives.

10. Mobile photography will become a real business
There is money in them hills! Expect more vendors like Foap and Scoopshot to develop and grow their services to cater to both demand and supply ends of the market. For the committed mobile photographer there are opportunities to get rewarded in 2013.

2013 is going to be a great year for mobile photographers everywhere!