My Senior year of highschool I came across an image while scrolling on instagram of what is commonly called “snapchat art”, it is when someone takes a picture and uses the drawing tools on snapchat to create a detailed masterpiece. Discovering this image spawned an idea that I could also create these pieces of “snapchat art”. What began as a simple idea to try drawing on snapchat, became a daily habit which Incorporated my friends and family. I could not copy others work, so I took this idea and created my own unique take. I would take a picture of my dog, Kimi, everyday and draw her as a different character. Susan Blackmore made a statement in her TedTalk, “Memes and Temes” which I believe captures how this idea came about, “You don’t need a designer, or a plan, or foresight, or anything else. If there is something that is copied with variation and it’s selected, then you must get design appearing out of nowhere”. When I began creating what I called “Kimi art” I had no plan, I did not have the foresight that I would be creating over 200 pieces of Kimi art. The first creation I made was my dog Kimi as Guy Fieri, it was simple and flawed but it changed how I approached social media.
After my first piece of Kimi art I began getting messages from my friends requesting what I should draw my dog as next. What started off as a creation out of boredom and a simple idea on instagram, became an online shared community of people who inspired and enjoyed Kimi art. My friends had genuine interest and input in my creations. I soon put more care and time into my artwork, and many more pieces of Kimi art were created using options via snapchat.
I would not say that these silly snapchat creations went viral with only fifty people involved, but the situation matched what Dao Nguyen described in “What Makes Something Go Viral?”, she said “We hypothesized that they were excited because they were participating in the shared anticipation of something about to happen”. This description accurately fits this situation because friends of mine were genuinely excited for my creations, they would pick a character they wanted drawn a week in advance. I even was asked to draw my friends animals as different characters, for example the Grinch in the image above. I developed themes in attempt to organize the ideas I was receiving, I asked everyone for their favorite dinosaurs and would then draw my dog as such. Kimi art changed how I approached social media, I then decided that everything I post should contain as much care and time as I put into these snapchat drawings. Kimi art became somewhat of a meme within my small friend group. Abby Rabinowitz quoted Richard Dawkins in “The Meme as Meme”, “Instead of mutating by random chance before spreading by a form of Darwinian selection, Internet memes are altered deliberately by human creativity,”. This quote represents Kimi art to demonstrate that it is not random and is not created by one single individual, The unforeseen complexity of Kimi art makes them comparable to memes. Kimi art, though just a creative joke, was important to me because it incorporated my creative side into my daily life. I am in animal sciences and I plan to be a vet, in a scientific field it is difficult for myself to remain in touch with my creative side, Kimi art incorporates my love for animals, my creativity, and it allows me to stay in contact with my friends even at long distance.