Book chapter
Masks, Monsters, and Memes
In Conversation with Scoobert Doobert
“there is no character named Scoobert Doobert.”
Before most of the song-meaning pages, the Love Music More guest index, or the Ask the Archive spec, there was already a book chapter about Scoobert Doobert by name. Max Horwich’s “Masks, Monsters, and Memes” sits in the Institute of Network Cultures’ Critical Meme Reader (INC Reader #15, 2021) and treats the project as memetic production in practice: cartoon avatars, internet-native texture, and the gap between persona and person.
This page is a reference surface on lukefwalton.com. The chapter text is not re-hosted here (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). Read it at the links below.
Horwich’s interview lands during the Masks and Monsters era, the 2020 pandemic LP where Shaggy, the Mystery Machine, and monster language stop being decoration and start carrying adult weight. The chapter is why that record’s internet shell reads as theory, not accident. Later KŌAN-era satire like a song to quit your job to and No Worries, Yes Worries extends the same memetic register the volume names.
On this site, Scoobert Doobert is the bedroom-pop / chill-pop alias of Luke Francis Walton. The chapter is about the alias, not by him: which is part of what makes it useful as external proof that the Scoobertverse was already legible to someone outside the fan loop before the current archive pass.
Scoobert-specific reception: Only one direct scholarly reception item from the citation sweep: Neda Genova’s 2023 Computational Culture review. It names Horwich’s interview with Scoobert Doobert among the volume’s “experimental and differently conversational” contributions; its notes cite Horwich/Scoobert at pp. 79 and 88. Excerpts on this page.
Publication record & cataloging (not citations): The chapter itself is listed in the MediaRep table of contents (pp. 78–88) — the original publication record. Neural Archive also lists the volume TOC including the Scoobert interview — useful cataloging, not a citation.
Citation trail (volume & other chapters): Broader volume activity (HvA Pure Cited by 27, June 2026 index) and a web-visible audit of works citing the volume or other chapters — especially Abidin/Kaye, Galip, Chan, King. Those are volume/chapter citations, not Scoobert chapter citations. Full categorized list on this page.
Relationship hub: With Max Horwich, chapter, 360° KŌAN videos, Live from the Void virtual concert directed by Horwich, 2024 LMM animation, Love Music More episodes.
Read the chapter
- DOI (MediaRep), preferred stable citation
- MediaRep table of contents (Horwich chapter pp. 78–88)
- MediaRep entity record
- HvA Pure publication record (indexed citations)
- Full volume PDF (HvA repository)
- Institute of Network Cultures, volume page
- Publisher canonical
Scoobert-specific reception
The volume has broader citation activity, while the Scoobert Doobert interview has specific reception in Neda Genova's 2023 Computational Culture review, which names Horwich's interview and cites it directly.
Neda Genova. “Review of 'Critical Meme Reader: Global Mutations of the Viral Image'.” Computational Culture 9 (2023-07).
Peer-reviewed volume review (Issue 9, July 2023): names Horwich's Scoobert Doobert interview among "experimental and differently conversational" contributions; review notes cite Horwich/Scoobert at pp. 79 and 88.
“One of the indubitable strengths of the Critical Meme Reader is that it doesn't offer an answer to what a meme is.”
“While most of the contributions take the form of brief, richly illustrated essays… the Reader also harbours several more experimental and differently conversational contributions. Such are, for example, Max Horwich's interview with Scoobert Doobert or Laurence Scherz's poetry babies.”
“humour as constitutive element, which oftentimes functions as, in the words of Scoobert Doobert, a Trojan horse for genuinely affecting moments of open-hearted poignancy and philosophical inquiry”
“memes – be they humorous or not – could invite us to accept the absurd and accept that it's artificial because then anything is possible”
“what builds a peculiar strength of the Reader is the stubborn refusal of a unifying paradigm that would attempt to condense or bring together the contributions under a single framework”
Publication record & cataloging (not citations)
- Original publication (MediaRep TOC): Max Horwich — Masks, Monsters, and Memes: In Conversation with Scoobert Doobert. Chapter listed in the Critical Meme Reader table of contents (pp. 78–88). Publication record, not a citation.
- Neural Archive volume listing: Neural Archive — Critical Meme Reader: Global Mutations of the Viral Image. Lists the volume table of contents, including the Horwich/Scoobert interview. Useful cataloging, not a citation.
Citation trail (volume & other chapters)
Broader volume activity: DOI 10.25969/mediarep/19281 · HvA Pure Cited by 27 (observed 2026-06). Web-visible citation audit (June 2026). Pure indexed count is the anchor metric; the bibliography below is a curated trail, not an exhaustive Scholar export. Items below mostly cite the volume or other chapters (Abidin/Kaye, Galip, Chan, King, etc.) — not the Horwich/Scoobert interview.
Direct / whole-volume citations
Works citing the edited volume or its DOI as a whole.
- Nishant Shah. “Plattformversprechen zurückweisen / Refusing Platform Promises.” Open Gender Journal (2023). Cites the volume directly; bibliography includes doi: 10.25969/mediarep/19281.
- L. V. García. “La activación de los hechos climáticos a través de la ficción.” Revista SEUG (Universidad de Granada) (2025). References include dx.doi.org/10.25969/mediarep/19281.
- Chloë Arkenbout, Jack Wilson, Daniel de Zeeuw (eds.). “Critical Meme Reader III: Breaking the Meme.” Institute of Network Cultures / MediaRep (2024). Same-series citation of the first Critical Meme Reader — useful context, not independent reception.
- A. Stencel. “What is a Meme Coin? Dogecoin to the Moon!.” Polish Journal of Applied Computer Science (2022). Cites the full volume in references.
- (authors not extracted). “Caring about queer-feminist artists on social media.” Image & Text (University of Pretoria) (2023). Cites the volume and specifically Anahita Neghabat's chapter.
- NCTV (Netherlands). “Memes as an online weapon.” NCTV policy report (2024). Cites the edited volume plus chapters by Abidin/Kaye, King, and Clusterduck.
- Madeleine Hepner. “The Meme and The Dream.” MA thesis / 4ormat (2023). Cites the introduction and Andy King's chapter.
Chapter-level citations (other contributors)
Scholarly works citing specific chapters from the volume. These corroborate the book's reach; they do not count as citations of the Horwich/Scoobert interview unless noted otherwise.
- Nicole Smith and Simon Copland. “Memetic Moments: The Speed of Twitter Memes.” Journal of Digital Social Research (2022). Abidin/Kaye and Bapna/Lokhande chapters.
- Valérie Schafer. “'All your image are belong to us': heritagization, archiving and internet memes.” Convergence (2024). Caspar Chan, Idil Galip, and Jacob Sujin Kuppermann chapters.
- H. Alvelos. “The Forensic Annotation of a Fever Dream: an Ongoing Atlas of COVID-related Memes.” ACM (MOCO) (2023). Cites Critical Meme Reader.
- Uygar Baspehlivan. “Theorising the memescape: The spatial politics of Internet memes.” Review of International Studies (2024). Idil Galip chapter.
- L. Bainotti et al.. “How to analyse audio-visual content on TikTok and other platforms.” New Media & Society (2025). Abidin/Kaye "Audio Memes" chapter.
- M. Eriksson Krutrök. “Memeing the moniker: The stickiness of gang myths in….” New Media & Society (2026). Abidin/Kaye chapter.
- S. Hagen. “Based and confused: Tracing the political connotations of a memetic phrase across the web.” Big Data & Society (2023). Caspar Chan Pepe chapter.
- J. S. Schafer et al.. “Understanding TikTok Users' Reactions to Sudden Social….” ACM (2025). Cites Critical Meme Reader.
- N. Roderick. “Exigence at the Dawn of Recommendation Media.” Critical Studies in Media Communication (2024). Cites Critical Meme Reader.
- J. Zündel. “Undetectable participation in meme culture.” Visual Communication (2025). Idil Galip chapter.
- (authors not extracted). “PoV: You are reading an academic article.” New Media & Society (2025). Abidin/Kaye chapter.
- (authors not extracted). “Malicious earworms and useful memes, how the far-right surfs on TikTok audio trends.” ResearchGate (2025). Abidin/Kaye chapter.
- (authors not extracted). “WarTok: Networked Soundscapes of Memetic Warfare.” ResearchGate (2024). Abidin/Kaye chapter.
- Digital Methods Initiative. “Tracing the genealogy and change of TikTok audio memes.” Digital Methods Initiative (2022). Abidin/Kaye chapter.
- (authors not extracted). “TikTok and Sound: Changing the ways of Creating….” OUCI (2024). Abidin/Kaye chapter.
- (authors not extracted). “Sound Memes on BookTok.” Barnboken (2025). Abidin/Kaye chapter.
- (authors not extracted). “Descolonización de la música en TikTok.” Observatorio Científico (UA) (2024). Abidin/Kaye chapter.
- (authors not extracted). “Networked masterplots.” Journal of Digital Social Research (2024). Abidin/Kaye chapter.
- (authors not extracted). “LGBTQ+ TikTok creators: Strategic visibility negotiation….” Journal of Digital Social Research (Publicera) (2024). Cites a chapter in Critical Meme Reader.
- (authors not extracted). “Between Feminist Killjoys and Happy Feminism.” Feminist Media Studies (2025). Abidin/Kaye chapter.
- (authors not extracted). “Nigerian Afrobeats: From Memes to Streams?.” Emerald (edited volume chapter) (2024). Cites Critical Meme Reader.
- (authors not extracted). “TikTok and music discovery as technologies of the self.” Journal of Popular Music Studies (2025). Cites Critical Meme Reader.
- (authors not extracted). “Memes in the Gallery: A Party Inside an Image Ecology.” Academia.edu (2023). Idil Galip chapter.
- (authors not extracted). “Jazz Cats and Horse Licks: Animal Memes, Participatory….” Journal of Animal Studies (2024). Cites Critical Meme Reader.
Cataloging, launch, and teaching (not citation counts)
Useful reception and cultural footprint — not scholarly bibliography entries. Neural Archive is listed under Scoobert-specific records above.
- SPUI25. “Global Mutations of the Viral Image (launch event).” SPUI25, Amsterdam (2021). Hosted the volume launch — context, not a citation.
- John Cabot University. “Course syllabus (Caspar Chan chapter assigned).” John Cabot University (2024). Teaching adoption of Caspar Chan's chapter — not a citation metric.