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I'm here for memes, not snappy Xitter, 4Chan, reddit or similarly sourced screenshots of texts
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this post was submitted on 28 Dec 2025
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I didn't make this meme.
Then let me put it this way:
OP didn't say that memes can't be textual in nature, OP complains about snappy Twitter, 4Chan, Reddit (idk about this one? Reddit does have memes in some subs) or similarly sourced screenshots of texts.
Such posts, while possibly humorous, and occasionally a bit funny, are not spread rapidly by Internet users, and rarely posted with any variation.
Example 1 - this is a meme:
"Nanomachines, son!"
Example 2 - this is not a meme:
I mean, if the screenshot has been shared widely enough, it should be considered a meme by definition.
If the screenshot has been shared widely enough by many different people, yes, it should be considered a meme by definition.
"By many different people" isnt part of either of the above definitions. Also, whats "many?" Whats "different" mean in this context? What is the threshold for a meme to meme? 10 people? 100? 1000?
Richard dawkins coined the term in 1976 and defined it as such:
Seems like a screenshot of text seen by hundred/thousands/millions fits that defention to me.
"Many" may be me editorializing, but "internet people" implies that it's not just one person posting the same thing in many places around the web and people liking it.
Why not? A meme is piece of culture that transmits akin to a gene. It just uses media as its medium instead of living tissue.
It may not be a "good meme" if its not propigated by others, but its still a meme.
Then you disagree with the above definition saying "[...] that is copied and spread rapidly by Internet users [...]", I'd rather use a definition that excludes basic Twitter screenshots, but I'm not dying on this hill.
... at least,
Example 2 is a meme, no doubt about it.
If you go any deeper than the surface-level Google definition (that you are pedantically picking apart), then you will find literally any idea or unit of culture is a meme.
Read the last chapter of Richard Dawkins' The Selfish Gene. Actually please read the whole book, it's a masterpiece of science popularization. Or read Susan Blackmore's The Meme Machine, it explains the concept of memes and how they evolve in further detail.
When everything is a meme, nothing is. That is why often there is a distinction made between the Richarf Dawkins type of meme and the modern internet meme.
“When everything is made of genes, nothing is”
This is just an assertion, and a false one too.
Everything is a meme, and they behave exactly like genes. They replicate themselves, perfectly or imperfectly, and are then subject to competition for users’ attention which will affect their future replication.
Another meme is attempting to outcompete the screenshot genus of memes, by using you as a propagation tool: the “screenshots of text are not memes” meme.
Edit: downvote me if you want but you can’t deny the facts. The idea I expressed in this comment was also a meme whose chances of propagation were diminished from your downvote.
This is just a silly over-intellectualization of a weird word you want to mean "thing, but fancier". I agree with the person you're replying to. If everything is a meme then the term is meaningless.
Alright man. Let’s say, hypothetically, that I tell you “everything in the universe is matter”
Then I proceed to tell you what matter is, that it’s made of protons, electrons, and neutrons, which are further comprised of subatomic particles.
Then I explain how this theoretical approach is applicable to anything and everything and how incredibly useful it is to think of stuff in this way. And how its basic composition allows for many different configurations and interactions of matter. Incredibly hot plasma caused by nuclear fusion in stars. The insane density of neutron stars. And how this is the most correct model we have to date.
Now you may respond in one of a few ways:
You can say “huh, that’s really neat” and move on. Or maybe learn more about it.
Or you can say “that’s really cool, but I only care about the stuff that we can see on earth” which is totally reasonable and which is what many people are doing in this thread.
You could also say “that’s dumb, only the stuff we can see on earth should be called matter” which is similar to the preceding response, but is not reasonable at all and is what OP is doing.
Or you could say “that’s dumb, if everything is matter then the term is meaningless” which is just an arbitrary semantic application of a phrase which, for some reason, you and OP are treating as a universal maxim and completely leaving out all context and nuance pertaining to the situation. Syndrome can say “when everyone’s super, no one will be” in the Incredibles because that is a difference of degree, while this is a categorical difference.
I explained that a meme is any piece of information that can be transmitted with or without modification, because that is the definition. If you want to stop there and say that “if everything is a meme, then nothing is” that’s your prerogative. But I am not over-intellectualizing, you are under-intellectualizing.
That is the working definition we have and it’s useful because all the rules of evolution that apply to genes also apply to memes, and so it tells us a lot about how humans interact with and exchange information. It would not work if the definition were any different. If you want to change the definition to eliminate things you don’t like, or that don’t fit within a specific community, I guarantee you will leave out things that you would say are memes unintentionally.
If you don’t want lazy text screenshots in a meme community, that’s fine. But that does not mean they are not memes.
By your thinking, the letter A on a transparent background is a "meme"
… it is.
By the most useless definition of the word I guess, but I don't see how it is supposed to be meaningful to anyone but a linguist with that specific opinion.
I mean the letter A itself is a meme, transparent background or not.
You can even trace its evolution back thousands of years.
To be fair,
If people post it around, it is.
Care to summarize what those books say that the surface-level Google definition provided to me by Antagonistic doesn't?
I'm not going to read entire books just to defend my meme against another meme which defends a class of alleged memes.
Well the definition is correct, it is Antagonistic's narrow interpretation of that definition that is incorrect.
The key is evolution. For something to evolve, it must have the ability to be transferred, to be changed/mutated, and to be stored. Both genes and memes have these properties.
Literally any idea is a meme. If you can think it, it's a meme.
If you break a gene in two, the result is two genes. If you break a meme in two, the result is two memes.
The name "Antagonistic" is a meme. The letter 'A' is a meme. The sound you make when you say 'A' is a meme. The idea of air vibrating to make sound is a meme.
I didn't interpret anything. I posted a meme. Also, you misspelled my name if were meaning to mention me.
My apologies, I confused you with the other commenter Sonotsugipaa, and I spelled your name wrong. :(
No worries lemmy friend. Just wanted to clarify. (^-^)
Also, I mispelled your name too ._.
If any idea is a meme, is any meme an idea, and is there a direct causal relationship or is it a coincidence (or, can there be an idea that is not a meme)?
If so, and if the former, then the definition of "meme" is a synonym of "idea" and that would be that, but I don't think most people use that definition.
Note that I'm somewhat biased, loosely speaking I don't consider raw microblog quips to fit a community / subreddit / virtual space called "memes".
You are asking an interesting philosophical question, I feel a little out of my depth trying to answer.
But yes, I believe every meme is an idea, every idea is a meme, and there is a 1:1 relationship. The word "meme" is just an idea that is viewed through the lens of evolution.
Now as for the second question- should a screenshot of Twitter be allowed on this "meme" sub? - I don't have a strong opinion, but I lean towards no
That would mean that everything was a meme. And a definition that encompasses everything is worthless, arguably not even a definition (because nothing is defined).
It is not worthless at all. Studying cultural changes through the lens of evolution is very useful and enlightening. That's why I referenced the books that go into this in depth.
I would argue your narrow definition of "meme" is worthless because we already have a term for what you are describing - they are called "image macros".
It is.
Agree, but different topic and not dependent on the definition of a meme.
But I never narrowed it down that far, I only excluded (explicitly and so far) screenshots of texts. You misinterpreted that explicit exclusion as me implicitly narrowing the definition down to only images.
Now, granted, this medium narrows down what can be shown to basically images (videos are images, too) with text and/or sound, and image macros are a very common meme format, but out of this medium there are other forms of memes, too (for example deliberate moves of ones body like the Dab, Tik Tok dances or a mic drop, or dropping a side reference in a conversation). Even within this quite limited medium there are image based memes that do not need any text (like the seemingly infinite variations of the loss meme). All these forms (and examples) have one thing in common: they take an existing idea, symbol, practice manneurism, etc and recontextualize it, creating intertextual references. A screenshot of a text with nothing by its side does not do that. You can make a meme out of some of them (like posting a sign somewhere that redraws the lines of some rules just so much that nobody notices), but the screenshots of stories or jokes are not memes by themselves. And the letter A all by itself isn't either.
Your insist that memes must change or recontextualize at every step, but this is your personal interpretation and is not supported by any definition. This is analogous to saying "genes are only genes when they mutate, otherwise it's just a bunch of amino acids".
An exact copy of a gene is a gene. An exact copy of a meme is a meme.
Well said.
Most of the shit on here hasn't been shared widely or rapidly. They're at best aspiring memes.
The community should be renamed non-memes. If not, then that community should be created & every non-meme here cross-posted there.
Hahaha, looks like we're back to arguing about the old No True Memesmen falacy....
Screenshots of text that you don't like aren't memes because of reasons
I never said I don't like the screenshot I referenced, I just looked up for "twitter screenshot" on DDG and took a representative link. I find the content of the screenshot mildly amusing.
However, many people (including me) do not consider those to be memes;
if the most widely recognized definition of the word includes them, then I question its usefulness beyond a synonim for "funny quote".
like definition. words mean things? what nonsense.
Just a recent reference
But you are completely right about what I complain about. A meme often contains text, and sometimes even is purely text (for example a popcultural reference in a text-only medium can be considered a meme), but a single (maybe even witty) tweet or a forum discussion without any further context is maybe funny, but not a meme.
Haters gonna hate, but you deserve this.
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