Moments When the Weak Gained Ground: Viral Video as a Curriculum of People

Author's abstract: The public school curriculum has devolved into merely being a political football for the forces of the dominant culture, no longer even attempting to serve the People of the community or the students that the school ostensibly should serve. In the absence of a curriculum that is meaningful to People, another curriculum has spontaneously appeared outside of school via shared online media between social networks. This new curriculum, identified by a relatively wide viewership and its challenge to social injustice, oppressive conventions or hegemonic forces, is a curriculum of viral videos shared because of their meaning and cogence in the moment. This inquiry examines a number of these videos through a modified method of Critical Discourse Analysis that utilizes aesthetic analysis as its primary lens to attempt to determine meaning.