Forums / Discussion / Meme Research

Most of you are familiar with the concept of cheesy elevator music when you're waiting to go up and down, and cartoons have used it as a comedic style. Why hasn't this concept, that's prevalent in pop culture, not an internet meme? It should be, it's comical, and there's literally dozens of youtube videos that present the challenge of "Can you listen to this for an hour?" involving elevator music. Someone should make this a meme, and post it on the site.

A meme is something that spreads, not something that's simply funny.

It's been spreading. It's used a lot in pop culture to simulate a boring wait with cheesy music.

It didn't spread primarily using the internet. Elevator music being used to simulate a boring wait is more of a trope, that was used before the internet and spread organically IRL. It's used online because every trope ever is used online somewhere. However, it's just a trope, not a meme. The difference is significant.

If you can prove that the context of Elevator Music has changed and mutated because of the internet, then yes. Make an article.

Otherwise take a time machine back to last April Fools Day and submit it under a KYM IRL entry.

That's quite a short-sighted comment, Elevator music or Muzak is pretty much memetic. It even has its own Wikipedia page, but of course, that alone is not really proof.

Can we get any proof people? I'm sure there's loads.

Let me just put it this way:

Joke =/= Meme

That's a good rule of thumb.

DISCLAIMER:
1. meme = joke.
2. memes were started on the internet. That's what separates a regular joke from a meme.

[Elevator music intensifies…]
[Gunfire intensifies]

Then, we just find something to make it funny. Simple as that.

Eh, afraid it doesn't exactly work like that.

Besides, memes don't have to be funny. A meme is something that spreads and gains attention, that's all there is too it. It's simply that humor spreads more easily than other stuff, because most still browse the web to have fun and not remain serious. It's only normal that most memes then end up being centered around jokes and humor.

Funny or unfunny, perhaps even controversial, if it has significant spread on the web it is a meme and we document it.

The difference between why elevator music then isn't a meme was already explained by Twilitlord.

Okay then, this discussion has ended with elevator music NEVER becoming a meme, and me looking like an idiot that knows nothing about memes. Let's just kill this forum before it goes out of hand, shall we?

Well, if things like, "that's the joke" or other tv show jokes made it to memes then why isn't this a meme? It been on tv shows, movies and everywhere?

That's true, but "That's the joke" in a memetic context has been in one very specific image/video:

When we refer to "that's the joke" as a meme, that's what we're talking about. The phrase is used in other contexts, but if the hypothetical joke flies over someone's head on tumblr, or the like, that's the image you're likely going to use, because the internet has bestowed a very specific set of ideas upon it. The use of that macro as a canned response and the extra meaning given to it is what makes it a meme.

Yeah, "elevator music" is an incredibly broad idea