this post was submitted on 18 Apr 2024
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Antique Memes Roadshow

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Giving you the backstory and appraisals of vintage memes!

Submissions should be vintage memes or commentary about vintage memes. Commenters are advised to appraise the internet value and provenance meme antiquities.

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[–] ramenshaman 19 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Modern memes are not nearly as good imo.

Edit: these

[–] [email protected] 14 points 2 months ago (1 children)

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. 🤷

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (3 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 2 months ago (1 children)

This was actually peak comedy in 2018 though

[–] ThoranTW 6 points 2 months ago

Absurdist memes were/are peak

[–] TokenBoomer 6 points 2 months ago (2 children)

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 5 points 2 months ago (2 children)

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 1 points 2 months ago (2 children)

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.

[–] frostysauce 3 points 2 months ago

"I like Ike" was a meme from the election where Eisenhower became president.

[–] eeltech 2 points 2 months ago

That could be covered by the 2nd definition, I just didn't think it was relevant here:

[–] TokenBoomer 0 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

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.

[–] eeltech 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)
[–] TokenBoomer 1 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Your last two sentences is how I would describe it.

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

[–] eeltech 4 points 2 months ago

Those are just image macros. Not every image macro becomes a meme

And not every meme is in the form of an image macro

[–] TokenBoomer 2 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)
[–] ramenshaman 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

It's the poorly drawn black/white dudes that bother me the most.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)
[–] ramenshaman 5 points 2 months ago

No, I like those. I mean the newer ones-