devadatta

Is replacing heads in animations (e.g. replacing SNL/What is love? heads with Sparta heads) an internet meme? Or perhaps a metameme?

http://youchewpoop.com/news/faq/ ? newfags don’t know how to newsfaq

Read about the japanese monkeys that learned to wash their potatoes by imitating one in their group to get an idea of what prehistoric memes might have looked like. Also read about Kelloggs experiment in the 30s with bringing up a baby chimp with his son to learn what copycats we are compared to chimpanzees! (hint: his wife ordererd him to stop the experiment because the boy only imitated the chimp) Probably more than ingenuity or planning, our ability to copy each other has given us culture. Our failure...

Btw, I believe Dawkins has some good ideas about what makes memes successful in “The God Delusion”, esp. “continuous” vs. “discrete” memes and action vs. intent. Also, it’s worth thinking about whether a meme contains both the content and the instructions to copy them, or if instructions alone are a meme in itself (like how to link to YT). I don’t know if analogy with genes and enzymes are a help or an obstacle here.

It would be fun if someone had the psychological knowledge of memetics to actually design a meme that succeeded according to prediction. But we’re not there yet (although I haven’t caught up on research). Rather, some forced memes will turn into actual memes just because there are so many who makes them and someone is bound to succeed sooner or later purely by chance. As of now, I’d say that the intention of the creator doesn’t matter, they’d just be lucky intentional or not.

I didn’t mean that the recipient should change, just that it changed from e-mail to PM.

I think you could increase the feedback rate on articles by changing “Suggest Change” from e-mail to the internal PM system. At least if you want suggestions from me. :)

“Rymdreglage” is Swedish and means space lever/regulator.

Has anyone really been far (esp. when combined with philosoraptor), longcat, Weegee, pedobear, Xzibit Yo Dawg, Tom Green Raids, Bayeux Tapestry Macro, Picture unrelated, I kiss you!, Ran Ran Ru, Do a barrel roll, LOL WUT, AYB and Rickroll.

Perhaps it’s best to separate autogenerated ANSI/ASCII-art from manually made.

Way to small to call a common meme.

A gene is still a gene, even if it exists only in a single (extended) family. I think the same should apply to memes. The question is rather how common or popular it is. Nice video btw!

Chris, does this mean there will be no deadpool but rather that they’ll get into a fad or miscellaneous category? Speaking about intentionality, I would say that it doesn’t matter if the creator of the original intended it to be a meme. Unless the creators(s) of the original have resources to make remixes, spoofs, image macros et.c. themselves, the defining factor should be what the original have turned into, and how many people were in the process. The interesting thing is when the original has spread...

What is the date of origin for a meme? When the source (e.g. a film from the 80s) was created or when the first variants (e.g. a remix or parody of a scene or catchphrase in the movie posted somewhere) appeared? I think the latter date is more reasonable. It doesn’t become a meme until it’s copied and mutated.