• alekwithak@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    36
    arrow-down
    4
    ·
    29 days ago

    A couple of years ago my kid took a funny picture of the cat and put some white text on it and said “look I made a meme!” I told her “No, you made an image macro. it’s not a meme unless it goes viral.” and even her mother who’s older than me told me I was being pedantic and any picture can be a meme.

    I hate it here.

    • epidemian@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      5
      ·
      28 days ago

      it’s not a meme unless it goes viral.

      If you want to be pedantic, it’d be good to know that that’s not what a meme is. A meme is a unit of cultural information—analogous to a gene being a unit of genetic information. A meme may not go viral, just like a gene might not be successfully copied onto other generations, but it’s still a meme nonetheless :)

      • alekwithak@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        28 days ago

        Yeah yeah I’ve read Dawkins :P My definition is based on earlier internet when things were what they were and became a meme as they were shared. Of course a popular image macro haz become meme but so can a questionnaire (wtf was wrong with us??)

    • jsomae@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      28 days ago

      it seems the meaning has changed, but to be honest I don’t know what the new meaning is.