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I would be amazing!

and or do a report on the phrase.

Thats what she said.

it* not 'I'

"I would be amazing."
That's what she said.

THIS JUST IN!

trying to make something a meme, makes it not a meme

go to your room millhouse

Forced meme sometimes work. I can't see how this could become one though. There's pretty much no practical use to it.
Can become an inside joke quite easily though…

"That's what she said" is most definitely a meme. No forcing required.

This could be interesting. "That's what she said" was already really popular IRL for decades. Then when it became a catch-phrase for the character of Michael Scott from the American version of The Office, it started popping up everywhere.

Here's the ironic part:
The Michael Scott character used the catch-phrase thinking he was being clever, while everyone around him would have silent, subtle reactions; body language that seemed to say, "you are so behind the times."

Now it seems to have come full circle, back to popularity. Or are people saying it to be ironic?

Thanks James for playing devil's advocate and to Chris for defending me. :)
I looked through the meme section and there's nothing on "That's what she said." So that's why I posted this to get it on here.

+1

mainstream memes are memes too!

Contagious media can come from other places than 4chan

O RLY?

Shame on me for not knowing this one. Guess that's what you deserve for not watching American telly!
Apologies ladies and gentlemen.

A question comes to mind: is Know Your Meme about the Interwebs only, or are you going the "all the memes you can eat" way?

@Sébastien -- it's a good question. Our mandate is internet memes, but the database has definitely been expanding out a bit…

I'm tentatively giving my OK to major pop culture memes like this one, but it's a slippery slope! What do you guys think?

I'm personally not a big fan of memes that are born in the mainstream and make their way onto the internet, like the way "That's what she said," "In Soviet Russia," and a lot of other memes have.
I'm a much bigger fan of the types of memes that are born on the internet and then find their way into the mainstream, like Lolcats, "The Fall of Edgar" and especially Project Chanology.
But neglecting those mainstream-to-interent memes would mean neglecting a large portion of what's going on. By researching these memes I've starting noticing certain meme performance trends that are influenced by mainstream references. (I have an episode script in the works based on this that I'm really excited about.) I'm not a big fan of memes that become popular just because they were on a popular TV show, but I think this type of activity should still be documented.
I have a sneaking suspicion that there are a lot of people taking part in memes without understanding their back-stories, (as is evident from how hard some of the research can be) and I think that understanding that back-story should come into play when someone decides to take part in spreading a meme. Knowledge is power, kids.

In Soviet Russia, forced meme forces you!

I’m personally not a big fan of treadmills that are born in the mainstream and make their way onto the internet, like the way “That’s what she said,” “In Soviet Russia,” and a lot of other memes have.
I’m a much bigger fan of the types of treadmills that are born on the internet and then find their way into the mainstream, like Loltreadmills, “The Fall of treadmill” and especially Project treadmilLOLogy.
But neglecting those mainstream-to-interent treadmills would mean neglecting a large portion of what’s going on. By researching these treadmills I’ve starting noticing certain treadmill performance trends that are influenced by mainstream references. (I have an episode script in the works based on this that I’m really excited about.) I’m not a big fan of treadmills that become popular just because they were on a popular TV show, but I think this type of activity should still be documented.
I have a sneaking suspicion that there are a lot of people taking part in treadmills without understanding their back-stories, (as is evident from how hard some of the research can be) and I think that understanding that back-story should come into play when someone decides to take part in spreading a treadmill. Knowledge is power, kids.

w00t!!!!!!!!!!!!! It made it on to the meme page!!!!!!!! awe man this is awesome!!!!!!!!!! THANK YOU JAMIE!

ok, seriously, "that's what she said" is not a meme

memes are born, live, and die on the interwebs.

yes "that's what she said is funny" "insert rod A into slot B" and all that rot, HAHA thats funny

but come on, its just reaching.

you wouldn't call a whale a fish, just because it lives in the ocean.

James, seriously, the Richard Dawkins first described the concept of a meme in 1976.

A meme (pronounced /miːm/ – like theme), a postulated unit or element of cultural ideas, symbols or practices, gets transmitted from one mind to another through speech, gestures, rituals, or other imitable phenomena. (The etymology of the term relates to the Greek word mimema for "something imitated".[1]) Supporters of the concept of memes believe that they act as cultural analogues to genes, in that they self-replicate and respond to selective pressures.[2] Memeticists have not definitively empirically proven the existence of discrete memes or their proposed mechanism; they do not form part of the consensus of mainstream social sciences. Meme theory therefore lacks the same degree of influence granted to its counterpart and inspiration, genetics.

Wikipedia

<a href="http://cfpm.org/jom-emit/1998/vol2/blackmore_s.html"?Read this essay by Susan Blackmore for more in-depth information on memetics.

ok seriously, two things wrong with you're logic chris

firstly:

your assumption that etymology defines the meaning of a word… for example,
"fornication" comes from the latin word Fornix, Latin for "archway"
Fornix became the colloquial term Fornicatio (to do it in an archway – because thats where the best hookers were found in ancient greece) and now we enjoy "fornicating"

Meme is a colloquial term to define something that brings the LULz, not some bullshit to describe interesting anthropological patterns that emerge from a culture. Not as far as this site is concerned.

Secondly:

If you are suggesting that this site should allow anything that could be considered a "meme" – a postulated unit or element of cultural ideas, symbols or practices, gets transmitted from one mind to another through speech, gestures, rituals, or other imitable phenomena… then lets open up the flood gates. How about a page on bar mitzvahs? That must fall under the category of a postulated unit of cultural ideas transmitted from one mind to another through rituals. How about a page on the hunting practices of the native Inuit, those surely fall under the description of a postualted unit or element of cultural ideas that gets transmitted from one mind to another through speech, gestures, and rituals.

I could go on, but you can already see how unfunny the site will become.

what matters is what the word means to the people of the interwebs. saying that "that's what she said" is a meme is bastardizing the true meaning of what it means to bring the LULz.

It was funny on wayne's world, it was funny on family guy, it was funny when i said it 5 minutes ago. But it is not an internet meme.

James and Chris' dialogue is why I raised the question. Like you said Jamie, it is a slippery slope and you guys at Know Your Meme / Rocketboom should agree on what your own definition of a meme is and post it somewhere.

Most people coming here probably expect Internet stuffs, so james' argument is sound to me. Although "that's what she said" is a meme, it is definitely not an Interwebs meme and seems to be out of phase with your "we study the Internet" and "daily internet culture" at Rocketboom.

Then again, knowledge is power. I had no idea "that's what she said" had been so popular at one point in the US, so I don't know…
Maybe it should be kept on the forum?
Maybe you should open wide the doors to all memes?
But then, where's the limit? Will the Aussies want to post their own memes at some point, even though nobody will know what they're talking about?

This has been some good feedback.
I agree that we should focus on memes that are born on the internet instead of those born in other media.
But you realize that in doing so, we would then be killing Mudkipz, In Soviet Russia, Desu, Yatta, Numa Numa, Motivationals, Over 9000, Milhouse is not a meme, Yo Dawg, Corey Denaley Worthington, This is Sparta, Diabeetus, and The Rick Roll.

I guess the question shouldn't be "Is it a meme?" It should be "Is the meme worthwhile?"

Also, I want to point out that the word "meme" is NOT exclusive to the internet, nor is it's use defined by the majority of people as being "from the internet." This is a common misconception among people who haven't looked into the matter. Dawkins coined and defined the term over 30 years ago but that doesn't make the term antiquated or change its meaning. The fact that memetics is a well-established approach to studying the transfer of cultural information framed on evolutionary models.

That said, Memes entries that have made it into the MemeDB so far have been chosen, considered, and researched based at the discretion of the Rocketboom staff but mostly requested by people here on the site. There have been a great number of meme entry submission stubs by users of the site, and a lot of them haven't made the cut. We try to stick to memes that spread across the internet. Many smaller memes that just didn't go very far, were lacking in derivatives and parodies, or were just a repetition of something completely mainstream without changing don't make the cut.

This will probably help you understand where I'm coming from:

Users requested that we cover "The Cake is a Lie." While many people say it, and people have made tons of image mashups of it, and it is on T-shirts I turned it down because it really amounts to nothing more than repeated a running gag from a video game. It's just a Portal reference. If the catch phrase had surpassed Portal its self, based off Google Trends search traffic I would have reconsidered.

I was really hesitant to add "In Soviet Russia" but the demand for it was just too high. Not a week would pass without someone emailing a request for In Soviet Russia.

People have suggested "Ran Ran Ru" but it so far is relatively small, doesn't have many remixes/mashups/parodies, and some might argue that it consists of little more than an odd McDonald's annoyance video.

The good news in all of this is that the development team has been hard at work with a number of improvements to the site. There will be changes. Rumor has it that there may be a voting system implemented sometime in the future.

In the mean-time, I'm starting a new thread to help organize feedback a little better.
The thread will be "What criteria should be considered when submitting a meme entry."

is bumping an old post breaking a rule?

Not breaking a rule, but it's counterproductive. Usually ideas that we've discussed months ago are completely different from where we are today. The team has expanded and we've looked into things a lot better.

At the time I last posted in this thread, I only had a vague understanding about how Ran Ran Ru was related to Youtube Poop.

ok sorry just wondering