this post was submitted on 06 Jan 2025
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Microblog Memes

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A place to share screenshots of Microblog posts, whether from Mastodon, tumblr, ~~Twitter~~ X, KBin, Threads or elsewhere.

Created as an evolution of White People Twitter and other tweet-capture subreddits.

RULES:

  1. Your post must be a screen capture of a microblog-type post that includes the UI of the site it came from, preferably also including the avatar and username of the original poster. Including relevant comments made to the original post is encouraged.
  2. Your post, included comments, or your title/comment should include some kind of commentary or remark on the subject of the screen capture. Your title must include at least one word relevant to your post.
  3. You are encouraged to provide a link back to the source of your screen capture in the body of your post.
  4. Current politics and news are allowed, but discouraged. There MUST be some kind of human commentary/reaction included (either by the original poster or you). Just news articles or headlines will be deleted.
  5. Doctored posts/images and AI are allowed, but discouraged. You MUST indicate this in your post (even if you didn't originally know). If an image is found to be fabricated or edited in any way and it is not properly labeled, it will be deleted.
  6. Absolutely no NSFL content.
  7. Be nice. Don't take anything personally. Take political debates to the appropriate communities. Take personal disagreements & arguments to private messages.
  8. No advertising, brand promotion, or guerrilla marketing.

RELATED COMMUNITIES:

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[–] fartsparkles@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 year ago

You’re not at all wrong and I think that’s one of the many reasons why memetics has been widely criticised. I think it had its place in the 70s while selfish replication / kin selection was being explored and popularized but I think it’s been widely discredited at this point.

I know I was arguing the definition of a term but I’m truth, I don’t personally subscribe to the overall theory (Dawkins did write the book almost half a century ago at this point!). The “meme” is a bit of pseudoscience to vaguely articulate the propagation and proliferation of ideas/culture.

You should check out The Social Conquest of Earth if you’ve not already. It doesn’t have a compelling descriptor but it does shine a light on how natural selection doesn’t take place at purely the gene level. In a sense, we shouldn’t focus on the unit of the meme but instead the mechanisms around it.

I’ve really appreciated this little debate; you’re clearly a bright person!