Creative Disruptions: AI, Memes, and Social Media
Description
This presentation introduces a regenerative pedagogical approach to teaching Creative Disruptions, a first-year seminar that invites students to explore the evolving intersections of artificial intelligence, internet memes, and social media as transformative cultural forces. At its core, the course is designed to help students critically and creatively engage with how these technologies not only disrupt but also offer opportunities to restore and reimagine modes of communication, identity, and creative expression. The course framework is rooted in a multimodal methodology that blends analytical rigor with creative experimentation. Students examine how algorithms shape cultural flows and user behavior, while also investigating memes as regenerative cultural texts—sites where humor, politics, and collective memory are continually remixed and reborn. These digital artifacts are treated not just as ephemeral content, but as living expressions of social commentary and cultural renewal. Through case studies, collaborative dialogue, and hands-on projects, students learn to decode digital phenomena as both aesthetic and social constructs. The course emphasizes critical digital literacy, guiding students through urgent conversations around platform power, surveillance, misinformation, and the commodification of identity. Yet, rather than merely critique, the pedagogical aim is to cultivate a sense of agency—encouraging students to imagine and enact restorative practices within digital culture. Ultimately, Creative Disruptions positions students not only as analysts of digital systems but as regenerative creators capable of reshaping the cultural landscape through thoughtful, ethical, and imaginative engagement.
Artists