• @lugal@sopuli.xyz
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      338 months ago

      I think that OP’s sentiment is more against gatekeeping what a meme is. Like if this is a meme, than political cartoons are too

        • @lugal@sopuli.xyz
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          68 months ago

          Well, defining words narrowly is pretty much the definition of gatekeeping. I hope you’re not gatekeeping what gatekeeping means?

            • @lugal@sopuli.xyz
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              08 months ago

              But who decides what the proper definition is? Your proper definition is for me a narrow if it doesn’t take into account the common usage. The definition of meme is widening. Cope with it.

              • @kleenbhole@lemy.lol
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                -28 months ago

                I’m perfectly happy to give orthographic dominion to Webster. They can be our Academie Francaise. They can control the definition drift. And the pedants can use their educational privilege to suppress the poors. As it should be.

                • @lugal@sopuli.xyz
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                  08 months ago

                  As it has always been. As God himself intended it as we see in the story of the tower of babel

            • Gormadt
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              18 months ago

              Not only is it a great origin, that’s a fantastic article on it

              Thank you so much for sharing

            • Gormadt
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              38 months ago

              Correct

              So basically what I’m saying is that there’s a lot of people gatekeeping what a meme is without understanding what a meme is

              Or if they’re referring to the first of the definitions in the screenshot I shared, not understanding that different people can find things humorous

              The biggest meme of all is our spoken languages

          • @kleenbhole@lemy.lol
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            8 months ago

            I didn’t say they weren’t. I just reject the notion that proper definitions aren’t gatekeeping. I’m not joining the above argument. I understand the definition is based on usage and the usage has changed. Most humans are morons and don’t know how to use words properly so they let language change over time.

  • @I_Clean_Here@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    People no longer understand what meme means. Memes are old as time. Stories, jokes, funny images. Pretty much every form of information can be a meme.

    So, yes, this is a slightly older meme.

    • @M137@lemm.ee
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      78 months ago

      Eh, what “meme” actually means and what it currently means in popular culture are two different things. People never understood what it really means, but the most commonly used meaning of it is constantly changing.

      The word itself was coined by Richard Dawkins in 1976. But it wasn’t a commonly used term until around 2005, even then it was used exclusively for specific things and few people knew its actual meaning. But memes in their literal sense have almost always been a thing, and they’re common among many species.

        • @cholesterol@lemmy.world
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          48 months ago

          In Dawkins’ sense of the word, memes are ‘units of cultural inheritance’. So melodic movements in bird song, that birds teach each other, could be considered memes. Any other place you might find cultural inheritance, you could describe it in terms of memes. Memes were simply meant to be a cultural analogy to genes.

      • @I_Clean_Here@lemmy.world
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        18 months ago

        Your post is an “uh, actually” version of what I said. You are not disagreeing with me but still somehow making it sound like you do.

        I meant the term meme never applied to only sharing “image macros” but to inside jokes, coming shared references, common cultural knowledge. It is an absolutely fascinating term and concept if used like that, and I wish more people would understand it and use it in the same way.

    • @Even_Adder@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      108 months ago

      The chad vs. virgin meme was originally the reverse. Virgin did things the way you would expect them to be done, and Chad did things in a reckless or incorrect way.

      • UlyssesT [he/him]
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        98 months ago

        There’s a much longer use case now for “chad good” and that must make the originally intended users seethe. gigachad

  • Izzy
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    348 months ago

    Were photos really called flashlights in 1920?

  • @kleenbhole@lemy.lol
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    118 months ago

    Meme has come to mean cartoon. Your usage is no different.

    Meme doesn’t NOT originally mean cartoon, it just means a viral idea.

      • @PM_ME_FAT_ENBIES@lib.lgbt
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        68 months ago

        The gods are memes. Ideas that have reproduced and evolved to secure their own existence, so much so that they can accurately be said to have their own agency, as forces directing the will of society. This proves the existence of gods.

  • @clearleaf@lemmy.world
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    108 months ago

    Meme actually means something and isn’t just “funny image.” We no longer have a word for what a meme actually is. I didn’t care about the meaning of ironic changing because there’s still words for that but this is different.

    • Gormadt
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      78 months ago

      So, uh, yes.

      Yes (IMO) it does count.

      It was passed down for centuries in a non-gene based way among people