• WobWob@lemmynsfw.com
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      7 months ago

      Modern memes are incomprehensible, just take a random picture and slap some completely unrelated text on top of it. Or maybe I’m just too old to get it. 🤷

      • Uninvited Guest@lemmy.ca
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        7 months ago

        Because they’re not memes. I had a heck of a time explaining to my partner that a picture with text on it does not constitute a meme - the same picture used repeatedly with different text captions? Meme.

        It did not compute.

        • TokenBoomer@lemmy.world
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          7 months ago

          Who decides what a meme is? Consensus? The creator? A random moderator? This comment is a meme if we decide it is. Every one of these “memes “ were just random pictures with text until they went viral? Were they not memes until then?

          • eeltech@lemmy.world
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            7 months ago

            From the dictionary:

            an image, video, piece of text, etc., typically humorous in nature, that is copied and spread rapidly by internet users, often with slight variations.

            Its exactly the part where it is copied and spread. It’s just an image macro until then.

            A arbitrary comment or image isn’t a meme if nobody copies it and spreads it

            • aulin@lemmy.world
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              7 months ago

              It annoys me that they specify humorous and internet, even if neither of them is required for something to be a meme. Any idea is a meme if it proves successful in spreading among other people.

            • TokenBoomer@lemmy.world
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              7 months ago

              Either everything can be a meme, or memes don’t exist.

              If nothing is a meme until it is, then all original content is, by definition, not a meme. They only become “memes” when spread and repeated.

              So, any original picture with text is thus, not a meme, or potentially a meme. If it is not a meme at conception, then it shouldn’t be proliferated in meme communities, because it’s not a meme.

              If everything is a meme, then there is no novelty or uniqueness to the content, thus making “memes” superfluous and ubiquitous to the point of nonexistence.

              So, the qualifications are arbitrary.

          • Uninvited Guest@lemmy.ca
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            7 months ago

            Your last two sentences is how I would describe it.

            It’s text on pictures until it ascends to meme-hood.