this post was submitted on 30 Oct 2023
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Memes

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[–] samus12345 80 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That's not a political cartoon.

[–] [email protected] 37 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I think that OP's sentiment is more against gatekeeping what a meme is. Like if this is a meme, than political cartoons are too

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Defining words properly isn't gatekeeping, it's categorization.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Well, defining words narrowly is pretty much the definition of gatekeeping. I hope you're not gatekeeping what gatekeeping means?

[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

You aren't a real gatekeeper if you haven't gatekept gatekeeping before

[–] drphungky 3 points 1 year ago

Ah yes, no true gatekeeper.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Defining things properly isn't gatekeeping. You said narrow. I didn't.

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

But who decides what the proper definition is? Your proper definition is for me a narrow if it doesn't take into account the common usage. The definition of meme is widening. Cope with it.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'm perfectly happy to give orthographic dominion to Webster. They can be our Academie Francaise. They can control the definition drift. And the pedants can use their educational privilege to suppress the poors. As it should be.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

As it has always been. As God himself intended it as we see in the story of the tower of babel

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (3 children)
[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Not only is it a great origin, that's a fantastic article on it

Thank you so much for sharing

[–] EmpathicVagrant 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Literally all the things here including comments are memes.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Correct

So basically what I'm saying is that there's a lot of people gatekeeping what a meme is without understanding what a meme is

Or if they're referring to the first of the definitions in the screenshot I shared, not understanding that different people can find things humorous

The biggest meme of all is our spoken languages

[–] [email protected] -2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I didn't say they weren't. I just reject the notion that proper definitions aren't gatekeeping. I'm not joining the above argument. I understand the definition is based on usage and the usage has changed. Most humans are morons and don't know how to use words properly so they let language change over time.

[–] [email protected] 77 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (4 children)

This one is also nice and true until today

https://www.sunnyskyz.com/blog/3428/103-Year-Old-Comic-Describes-What-Would-Happen-If-Pocket-Telephones-Are-Invented

Same with Musk's "revolutionary" Hyperloop, nothing new with the same people

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago

truly amazing meme

thanks!

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago

Pocket phone prediction is more spot on than the cartoonist themselves realized, Amish men got shunned because of the emergency alert test going off

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

Their hyper loop drawing is missing the Costco tube communication sound, a nice "thoonk!" Noise.

[–] samus12345 4 points 1 year ago

The thing he didn't foresee was the ability to turn the phone on silent mode.

We can put it on silent,, but that doesn't mean everybody does when they should!

[–] I_Clean_Here 46 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

People no longer understand what meme means. Memes are old as time. Stories, jokes, funny images. Pretty much every form of information can be a meme.

So, yes, this is a slightly older meme.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Eh, what "meme" actually means and what it currently means in popular culture are two different things. People never understood what it really means, but the most commonly used meaning of it is constantly changing.

The word itself was coined by Richard Dawkins in 1976. But it wasn't a commonly used term until around 2005, even then it was used exclusively for specific things and few people knew its actual meaning. But memes in their literal sense have almost always been a thing, and they're common among many species.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

What species aside from Homo Sapiens use memes?

[–] cholesterol 4 points 1 year ago

In Dawkins' sense of the word, memes are 'units of cultural inheritance'. So melodic movements in bird song, that birds teach each other, could be considered memes. Any other place you might find cultural inheritance, you could describe it in terms of memes. Memes were simply meant to be a cultural analogy to genes.

[–] I_Clean_Here 1 points 1 year ago

Your post is an "uh, actually" version of what I said. You are not disagreeing with me but still somehow making it sound like you do.

I meant the term meme never applied to only sharing "image macros" but to inside jokes, coming shared references, common cultural knowledge. It is an absolutely fascinating term and concept if used like that, and I wish more people would understand it and use it in the same way.

[–] Sanctus 15 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Memes are truly as old as the human race.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

Hell one could argue that memes are as old as social constructs

So they could in all likelihood predate moden humans

[–] electrogamerman 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Are animal paintings in caves memes too?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Literally yes

[–] clearleaf 10 points 1 year ago

Meme actually means something and isn't just "funny image." We no longer have a word for what a meme actually is. I didn't care about the meaning of ironic changing because there's still words for that but this is different.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Meme has come to mean cartoon. Your usage is no different.

Meme doesn't NOT originally mean cartoon, it just means a viral idea.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

Richard Dawkins, is it you?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

Garfield is a meme.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

Going to be hard to beat fire and pointy sticks for old memes.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] -4 points 1 year ago
[–] ohlaph 5 points 1 year ago

Always dipping on the chinless...

[–] CaptainBlagbird 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Define meme, does the Sator Square count?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

So, uh, yes.

Yes (IMO) it does count.

It was passed down for centuries in a non-gene based way among people

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

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