Were the creation of Internet memes a mistake or a success?

[Deleted]

"An Internet meme (/miːm/ meem) is an activity, concept, catchphrase or piece of media which spreads, often as mimicry, from person to person via the Internet.[1] Some notable examples include posting a photo of people lying down in public places (called "planking") and uploading a short video of people dancing to the Harlem Shake.

A meme is "an idea, behavior, or style that spreads from person to person within a culture".[2] An Internet meme may take the form of an image (typically an image macro), hyperlink, video, website, or hashtag. It may be just a word or phrase, including an intentional misspelling. These small movements tend to spread from person to person via social networks, blogs, direct email, or news sources. They may relate to various existing Internet cultures or subcultures, often created or spread on various websites, or by Usenet boards and other such early-internet communications facilities. Fads and sensations tend to grow rapidly on the Internet, because the instant communication facilitates word-of-mouth transmission."

They spread like an Tu-4. Are they good or are they bad? Do they dumb down our society? Or do they encourage socializing and sharing with like minded people?

[Blueobelisk]

Those definitions mean every single thing you share on the internet is a meme. Even this post.

[Jester Joe]

I think it's just like any other form of humor. Some are great (The Kermit ones for me personally), and some are awful (What's so funny about planking?).

It's hard to label them all, but they definitely encourage some form of socializing at the very least.

[tumppu]

greatsuccess.jpg

Back in the day, people repeated tv-show quotess ad nauseam, before that, radio show stuff. It's just the meme for our time.

[unfilteredJW]

Those definitions mean every single thing you share on the internet is a meme. Even this post.

Those were my thoughts.

OP: Sometimes you gotta break it down and draw them a picture.

- - - Updated - - -

greatsuccess.jpg

Back in the day, people repeated tv-show quotess ad nauseam, before that, radio show stuff. It's just the meme for our time.

Bingo.

/10nameos

[Calfredd]

They spread like an Tu-4. Are they good or are they bad? Do they dumb down our society? Or do they encourage socializing and sharing with like minded people?

I was going to post this in your other thread before it got closed because you can't play nice but you obviously never ventured too far from the kiddy pool of the internet water park if you think memes are the only thing there is to like or complain about.

[Independent voter]

I don't see as many memes as I used to.

[Jester Joe]

I don't see as many memes as I used to.

You're not looking in the right locations then.

Or don't have the right type of friends on social media.

[Aucald]

Memes, even their modern-day "Internet" incarnation, are a lot older than the Internet itself. Before the Internet and the rise of social media we called them "fads," like the popularity of Hula Hoops, the brief craze for pacifiers, and more fashion trends than are easily enumerated. And if you're looking for things more meme-like from the pre-Internet days then look no further than things like Sator Squares, Toynbee tiles, "Andre the Giant has a Posse," and the character of Aldred E. Neumann or the phrase "Abracadabra."

[Docturphil]

Anyone can add anything they want to the internet. So the internet will always be anything that it can be, more or less.

Memes are a drop of water in the vast ocean that is the internet. They were inevitable just as everything that exists and happens on the internet is.

Whether memes are healthy or harmful for society really depends on the meme and the person viewing the meme. I'd say overall, memes are good just as overall the internet is good.

[Yunru]

Not everything is a JoJo meme.

What a meme is:
Not forced
Original
Shared a lot
Not being something retarded that some people do (planking is not a meme)
Catchy
Also funny
Randomly found (and not created)

[Jester Joe]

Memes, even their modern-day "Internet" incarnation, are a lot older than the Internet itself. Before the Internet and the rise of social media we called them "fads," like the popularity of Hula Hoops, the brief craze for pacifiers, and more fashion trends than are easily enumerated. And if you're looking for things more meme-like from the pre-Internet days then look no further than things like Sator Squares, Toynbee tiles, "Andre the Giant has a Posse," and the character of Aldred E. Neumann or the phrase "Abracadabra."

Also funny enough, this was more closer to what I was used to when I first heard the term "Meme" on the internet, since the game "The World Ends With You" had you using memes to influence the world in terms of fashion and in other ways.

[Kalis]

The problem I have with memes are the tedious people who post them endlessly, as they can't come up with any jokes themselves.

There was a poster on here who was genuinely funny and didn't need to rely on rehashing somebody elses jokes, their jokes often required the listener/reader to have knowledge in history, the classics and such like, so had probably fallen flat on most people and left them lacking confidence in their own talent.

They also had an odd obsession with a model who apparently can't walk, I have no idea how that works.