Forums / Discussion / Meme Research

I was struck while watching the "One Take" episode by the number of memes with genetic similarities. Is there a project in how to classify memes? There seems to be some early data on this, i.e. one take, image macros, mash-ups and so forth. It could help in clarifying memes or if something has simply been cut and pasted from another meme. This brings me to another question, is there a hierarchy of memes? For example, "Charlie bit me, again" has a different feel and esthetic to it then say "Charlie the Unicorn." Both funny, but one has been professionally mastered and the other grew from internets fandom. Either way, food for thought.

We're implementing a better tagging system and want to use a common system of labels, very much in this vein… love to hear ideas for labels to use. So far:

Video, image, professional/amateur (maybe even accidental/on purpose), image macro/catchphrase, person (e.g. Chris Crocker), event (e.g. Chanology), video game, one take, animation, 8bit

Even labels like 4chan, ytmnd, youtube, somethingawful etc. for things that started-on or are very popular on those major hubs

person should be changed to figure or being for pedobear, longcat etc.

I think there's some old software that someone used to create a 'family tree' of the Seattle music scene. It wasn't purely linear and allowed cross reference. Perhaps thats a good product to look into?

I believe it was in a documentary that hit art-house theaters.

HI Y'all-

could this be the future of KYM's awesome tagging/label system? feel free to make any suggestions about these (add/remove/doubles):

2chan, 4chan, 4 panes, 8bit

ASCII
accidents
anime
animals
animated gifs

bait
big eye
bloopers

cats
captions
camgirl
celebrity
cellphone cam
cheat code
creepy
classics
commercials
catch phrases
controversy
computer games
copy & paste

dancing
d-bags
doomsday
DIY

engrish
europe
eurodance
exploitables

flash videos
flash games
flipouts/freakouts

hypnotic
hollywood
humiliation
home video

internets
image macros

japan

lip-sync
l33t speak

marvel comics
music (rap)
music (old)

not safe for work
news cast

one-take
old school
overdubbed
oops

photoshop
pop-culture
pregnant
politics
parade

rants
religion

sci-fi
star wars
star trek
subtitles
superheroes
single-servings
something awful

techno
this is like really bad
trolling

under the influence

videogames
viral videos

Yahoo Answers
YouTube
YTMND

war
webcam

damn Brad,

that list is only missing "extensive lists"

Also, I'm not sure about the software mentioned by Dik, but the Brain comes to mind as a good option, it's visual, it's pretty flexible, and it's fun. http://www.thebrain.com/ – the only drawback is that it costs money.

stupid money.

--bonkus

"person should be changed to figure or being for pedobear, longcat etc."

Or just make a seperate tag for person and animals, since there are a lot of animal related memes, and cuz web celebs are documented here as well.

Woah… impressive list Brad!

Now that we have parents for meme entries, we can start to sort out Brad's list some more.

I'd love to hear peoples' thoughts on grouping and sorting out a hierarchy for some of these tags.

We can call it the Internet Menome Project.

When all is said and done, there will be ice cream and delicious cake.

Woah! I can see the Lolcatz sub meme deal when I click parents, but I can't otherwise!

@coopersmith look for the new 'sub-memes' section under Lolcats: https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/lolcats

It's one of the major features of MemeDB release 1.5.

@coopersmith -- that extra button is because its doing a search, "parent = Lolcatz" in this case

there's also 'author = Cooper Smith' linked from profile pages now ;)

Ah, I see. That's pretty cool! This is definitely gonna help with the Advice Dog spin-offs and whatnot!

Hey Guys,

Here's some category ideas that we put together for meme classifications. At this point, they're little more than keyword/tag search results and some of them def. need to be streamlined. UPDATED: 8/19/2009:

Classics features a collection of "timeless" memes that forever changed THE GAME.

Humiliation covers viral video and image macro entries depicting existential failures from around the globe.

Newscast features viral videos and meme entriethat spawned out of peculiar news stories & sensational journalism.

Cuteness makes you go aww.

Grossness makes you go wtf. High chance of NSFW.

Exploitable covers a broad range of photoshop memes including single character image macros, multi-panes and customizable web comics.

Trolling covers entries associated with trolling activities.

Commercial covers viral videos & memes that spawned out of TV commercials, advertisements and viral marketing campaigns

Internet Stardom covers internet-born celebrities, pop icons and webcam personalities. Also try Pop Icons / Webcam FAMO

Raging covers viral videos and personalities that are a thousand mile away from self-composure and thus a great source of lulz.

Gaming covers everything from/within computer/video games.

Japan covers everything from/within Japanese cultures.

Techno / Dance presents KYM entries that's built around catchy techno/dance/electronica music. Of which, there is lots of.

Hip Hop features KYM entries on hip hop celebrities, music videos, etc.

Animals covers entries featuring animals and mythical creatures, rather than humans.

Non-english covers popular memes from outside of English-speaking regions.

Engrish features memes and slang entries inspired by funny grammatical errors.

SO WHAT DO YOU GUYS THINK? Oh and feel free to suggest changes, more categories and subcategories!

Nice work!

Now we just need a way to keep the deadpooled results from showing up in search.

Deadpooled entries show up on public profiles under the "entries by this person" part.

@Brad – really, really good work!

One suggestion: Is there a better way to break-out the classification of mainstream celebrities (and politicians?) vs. celebrities who found their fame by the net?

ex. Tron Guy, Tay Zonday > internet celebrities
Patrick Duffy, Nick Cage, Wilford Brimley, Bill Cosby, etc. > mainstream celebrities
Howard Dean, G.W.Bush, Barack Obama, Stalin, Putin, etc. > politicians

Brad you continue to astound me yet im always slightly annoyed by you… .

Excellent suggestions all. s0apscum I love the notion of breaking people up by born-on-internet vs. acquired-by-internet, and imagine we could use that in other spots too

@redspear -- I am jealous of Brad's amazing powers of organization too… SO ANNOYING :D

@s0apscum, For sure, celebrities/tv personalities could definitely use subcategories

@redspear74, thanks but why annoy? iz it becuz u thik im astounding lol

Same reason as Jamie Brad, but don't worry i will always love you. <3

sweet. thx, fellas :]

Wow, I would have never thought of classifying memes, I just thought they were; just memes. This Meme classification idea is valid for making a big dent in meme history.

Bump.

Bumping so I can see these again.

BUUUUUMP.
Amidoinitright?

morning-