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What about non english speaking memes ?

Last posted Aug 13, 2009 at 02:45PM EDT. Added Jul 30, 2009 at 01:02PM EDT
11 posts from 6 users

It a thing I truely wonder about since i'm in touch with the so versatile world of internet memes.
I'm aware that a meme cannot exist without celebrity, or "Famo", that will engender Re-use, variations, modifications. They indicate what it is.
But, consequently, the easiest way to do so is to pass by the English, because, and it's logical, the more massive audience that we can get comes from America, Australia, or places where English isn't a rejected language.

That's the more common way to be understood, thus to get celebrity.

Well, there are exceptions. In fact, there are manys exceptions of it. I know that. You can quote La caida de Edgar, the things that come from Japan, or maybe the womiting Swedish host but all of these are famous because of their context. Then, there is no language barrier, because there needn't words to express what happened.

So, The majority of "foreign" memes are those that are easy to understand, by the image first wich plays the biggest part.

But, does it mean that, for instance, we can't have memes by country, depending on the language used ?

Like, I'll take an exemple with myself, french memes adopted by enough french communities to make it famous but…because of the language in itself that creates inside jokes, or that kind of thing ?

There are definitely memes that are limited by language barrier and will not catch on with the English-speaking web, but I still acknowledge them.
"Snel Hest" is an example of a meme that is only relevent to the Swedish-speaking internet. It is explained well enough so that we understand how it works, despite the fact that something is clearly lost in translation.
https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/snel-hest

As long as you can write in English clearly enough to explain the meme and how it works, then we'll gladly accept it into the database. As long as the meme is tagged with the language of origin, you should be able to search for memes by country.

I'm a foreigner and I consider 'La Caida de Edgar' as a meme since so many parodies and diferent remixes were created, however I'd go against things like 'Tengo Miedo' because it wasn't that much of a meme, just a guy freaking out.
If you DO however consider 'Tengo Miedo' a meme, you should check things like: 'Dios Eolo' and 'Canaca' on YouTube. Both are Mexican well-known memes many people can account for.

attention all foreign meme lovers! please tag "foreign" and country of origin to the entry :)
i want to do an inventory check on foreign memes in the database!

Just finished going through confirmed entries & submissions. I counted 29!

"list of entries tagged as non-english

japanese (8)
swedish (4)
s. korean (4)
german (2)
chinese (2)
mexican (2)
spanish (1)
belgian (1)
dutch (1)
brazil / portugese (1)
french (1)

Skeletor-sm

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