The original concept was based heavily in the idea of copying something with variance. “Meme” and “Gene” rhyme, and you know, Dawkins… The analogue is that a meme is reproduced with variants that find success or failure in their ability to reproduce.
If something is a “one off” and isn’t generating (reproducing) variant copies for cultural spread, it’s not really behaving as the cultural analogue to a gene.
But that’s a historical definition. Language evolves, it’s kinda peak meme for “meme” to shed it’s original definition like a snake dropping its legs.
And since this is a picture (a reproduction) of a text post to an entirely different social media platform, this meme is reproducing. I’ve seen it posted to several different communities since this post, and no doubt users of those communities will have copied the image, sent to their friends, reposted to Facebook, blah blah.
By the original definition, it’s not enough to just copy it, it needs to have variations. Think “slaps roof of car” or “always has been”. Variant upon variant. Think how many meme variants that are essentially “I’ve found it, the scroll of truth”. They evolve, they spin off new lines. That’s the “evolution” part. It’s a word and concept buy a guy who made his whole career telling people who don’t believe or understand evolution they’re stupid.
Simply sharing something online doesn’t make it a meme by the original definition. You can call it one, I don’t care. At this point the semantic battle was fought and won like a decade ago: now a meme is fucking *anything" and the word has entirely shed any vestiges of its original meaning.
I’m just trying to explain the disconnect you and the other guy is having. You’re operating with two distinct definitions. Yours is the common contemporary definition, by which this is a meme.
Thiers is the original Dawkins definition, of which this absolutely 100% is not.
But, language is defined by usage, so I absolutely 100% agree that this is a meme by contemporary definition. So you’re right.
I still disagree. The variation with selective retention is the Twitter post being screenshotted rather than hyperlinked to i.e. the context, comments, likes, retweets, etc have been lost, the text retained, but instead mutated into pixels to be shared visually. Copied (the text), varied (into image), selected (context and source disregarded). The image has been shared across multiple different platforms, and is spreading as it is influencing cultural ideas and, potentially, behaviors. It has propagated through imitation and replication.
This is memetics at work. A screenshot of something shared to wider social circles is, much to many’s chagrin, a meme.
I understand the disconnect; the other commenter likely first encountered “memes” as entertaining images with text over them. I’m older than the internet and read Dawkins long before I connected to a BBS for the first time.
Ok, I respect your position even if I don’t agree with it.
Mainly because this definition is so broad, it becomes in my opinion worthless. Everything is a cultural artifact. The sharing of anything is therefore a spreading of culture. The Internet is strictly speaking the sharing of resources. Every. Single. Thing. Everything on the entire publically accessible internet is a meme. Every word out of your mouth is a meme. Anything you’ve ever done which has been observed by another is a meme.
At that point, it’s not interesting or IMO valuable as a conceptual tool.
I’m not telling you you’re wrong, just that your definition (in my opinion) steals a word which could have been a compelling descriptor and makes it less valuable.
The original concept was based heavily in the idea of copying something with variance. “Meme” and “Gene” rhyme, and you know, Dawkins… The analogue is that a meme is reproduced with variants that find success or failure in their ability to reproduce.
If something is a “one off” and isn’t generating (reproducing) variant copies for cultural spread, it’s not really behaving as the cultural analogue to a gene.
But that’s a historical definition. Language evolves, it’s kinda peak meme for “meme” to shed it’s original definition like a snake dropping its legs.
And since this is a picture (a reproduction) of a text post to an entirely different social media platform, this meme is reproducing. I’ve seen it posted to several different communities since this post, and no doubt users of those communities will have copied the image, sent to their friends, reposted to Facebook, blah blah.
Indeed, it is a meme.
By the original definition, it’s not enough to just copy it, it needs to have variations. Think “slaps roof of car” or “always has been”. Variant upon variant. Think how many meme variants that are essentially “I’ve found it, the scroll of truth”. They evolve, they spin off new lines. That’s the “evolution” part. It’s a word and concept buy a guy who made his whole career telling people who don’t believe or understand evolution they’re stupid.
Simply sharing something online doesn’t make it a meme by the original definition. You can call it one, I don’t care. At this point the semantic battle was fought and won like a decade ago: now a meme is fucking *anything" and the word has entirely shed any vestiges of its original meaning.
I’m just trying to explain the disconnect you and the other guy is having. You’re operating with two distinct definitions. Yours is the common contemporary definition, by which this is a meme.
Thiers is the original Dawkins definition, of which this absolutely 100% is not.
But, language is defined by usage, so I absolutely 100% agree that this is a meme by contemporary definition. So you’re right.
I still disagree. The variation with selective retention is the Twitter post being screenshotted rather than hyperlinked to i.e. the context, comments, likes, retweets, etc have been lost, the text retained, but instead mutated into pixels to be shared visually. Copied (the text), varied (into image), selected (context and source disregarded). The image has been shared across multiple different platforms, and is spreading as it is influencing cultural ideas and, potentially, behaviors. It has propagated through imitation and replication.
This is memetics at work. A screenshot of something shared to wider social circles is, much to many’s chagrin, a meme.
I understand the disconnect; the other commenter likely first encountered “memes” as entertaining images with text over them. I’m older than the internet and read Dawkins long before I connected to a BBS for the first time.
Ok, I respect your position even if I don’t agree with it.
Mainly because this definition is so broad, it becomes in my opinion worthless. Everything is a cultural artifact. The sharing of anything is therefore a spreading of culture. The Internet is strictly speaking the sharing of resources. Every. Single. Thing. Everything on the entire publically accessible internet is a meme. Every word out of your mouth is a meme. Anything you’ve ever done which has been observed by another is a meme.
At that point, it’s not interesting or IMO valuable as a conceptual tool.
I’m not telling you you’re wrong, just that your definition (in my opinion) steals a word which could have been a compelling descriptor and makes it less valuable.