this post was submitted on 18 Apr 2024
988 points (98.2% liked)

Antique Memes Roadshow

6138 readers
417 users here now

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.

Rules:

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] TokenBoomer 6 points 8 months ago (10 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 8 months ago (6 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 8 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.

[–] eeltech 2 points 8 months ago

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

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (4 replies)
load more comments (7 replies)