Forums / Discussion / Meme Research

No, I'm not taking the piss and I'm absolutely not trying to be obtuse. What exactly constitutes a meme on this site? Does it have to be spread specifically on the internet? Does it have to be "in vogue" to get our attention? Or is it just a specific set of images/ideas/etc that gets passed around. Would, say, Shintoism or Cubism be a meme as defined by this site?

I ask this because senpai noticed me.
I could, hypothetically, write an article on utilitarianism. (I am an English major with a specialization in philosophy and criticism, so it's kinda my thing *own horn tooting intensifies*)
However, when it comes to internet culture, the only time it seems to pop up is in reference to the writer Gen Urobuchi. Ergo, I'm not sure if it's "relevant" to this community. What do you think?

All you need to know and more about memes:

Basically, the "unit of communication" has to be recognizable enough to be self-replicating without force, passed around the internet for all to know. There needs to be a suitable origin and significant spread.

Freakenstein got the basics. I'll repeat the points and elaborate further.
1) Spread. Has to be more than a community injoke. A large website isn't typically treated as a community, and thus a single-website meme may still be treated as a meme.
2) Not forced. It currently spreads because people like it, not because they want it to be a meme / want it to spread more.
3) Variants. Mutations are a sign of a well-aged meme. For example, melding two memes together, or having an ever-so-slight change put into the standard model while still being recognizable as the original.

I'm not sure exactly why Nihilism got an entry, but I assume it's because it has a large online following, with actual jokes made about it. There are 3 memes listed under it on the entry, after all. Utilitarianism probably doesn't get the same jokes outside of the kind you'd find in a joke book or posted by your cousin on Facebook. Note that this is different than memes, due to it being a subculture, not a meme.

Religions might technically fit the categories for a subculture, but it would be awfully vague and broad. Like, try defining "Christianity". If you think you have a strong, clear, straightforward dictionary, you probably don't know a whole lot about it. The "About" for the entry on KYM tries, but as a Christian, I can definitively say it failed. It serves its purpose, but it's wrong regardless. Religions in general are just too nuanced to sum up in anything short of a several page essay.

…due to it being a subculture, not a meme.

What is the difference?
On this site Youtube Poop is a Subculture, but Youtube Poop Music Videos are a meme. Where is this site's line drawn?

By KYM's (albeit rather loose) standards, a subject worth documenting is anything with significant impact or prominence on the internet. We've long since abandoned the pretense of only documenting memes, and many of our articles cover bland, serious, and all-around boring topics that couldn't possibly be interpreted as jokes or "memes". Nihilism got an entry because of its significant following (fanbase? cultbase?), and as you pointed out, this makes many other philosophies and schools of thought valid research topics for KYM. The site itself has shifted towards documenting internet culture as a whole, and many of these ideas fit into that scheme beautifully. As Prof mentioned, the same standards still apply:

• The subject in question is/was prominent, and shows obvious signs of spread within/outside the internet. This probably goes without saying, but if nobody has ever heard of it, it probably doesn't need an entry.
• The subject isn't forced, or deliberately placed everywhere (this could be called "false spread"). A good example of an entry that doesn't meet this criteria is the I peed in your soup thing we hid a while back. The key to internet "culture" is that it spread on its own merit, not deliberately by the creator.
• The subject in question shows obvious signs of change or development. A news article that gets passed around the web a bunch isn't noteworthy if no change ever occurs, but if image macros and specific lines from the article begin circulating it becomes noteworthy (and thus articleworthy).

Really, as long as its relevant to internet culture you're allowed to document it. So like Meme Daddy said, DO IT

…with significant impact or prominence on the internet

So, basically any cultural phenomena from the late noughties onward?
Eyebrows on fleek yay and abracadabra nay?

any cultural phenomena on the internet.

abracadabra is a meme, but it originated and spread to the popular conscious way before the internet so it doesn't really qualify for an article here.

A similar thing can be said about the phrase "Git-R-Done" existed in the early 90s and became popular in a pre-internet age. It's definitely a meme, but it's not an internet meme

That's because YTP has an entire community based around it. YTPMVs are just one of the types of videos that that community makes.

YouTube Poop is supposed to be a meme, I just forgot to change the category.

:/

Did you?

Well, in that case, ignore what I said…