689
the Woman with no face
(lemmy.nz)
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 02 Oct 2026
689 points (95.0% liked)
memes
22884 readers
1879 users here now
Community rules
1. Be civil
No trolling, bigotry or other insulting / annoying behaviour
2. No politics
This is non-politics community. For political memes please go to !politicalmemes@lemmy.world
3. No recent reposts
Check for reposts when posting a meme, you can only repost after 1 month
4. No bots
No bots without the express approval of the mods or the admins
5. No Spam/Ads/AI Slop
No advertisements or spam. This is an instance rule and the only way to live. We also consider AI slop to be spam in this community and is subject to removal.
A collection of some classic Lemmy memes for your enjoyment
Sister communities
- !tenforward@lemmy.world : Star Trek memes, chat and shitposts
- !lemmyshitpost@lemmy.world : Lemmy Shitposts, anything and everything goes.
- !linuxmemes@lemmy.world : Linux themed memes
- !comicstrips@lemmy.world : for those who love comic stories.
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
Sure - a meme is a unit of cultural information, such as a cultural practice or idea, that is transmitted verbally or by repeated action from one mind to another, often propagating throughout a community and frequently subject to a form of cultural evolution.
I know what Dawkins wrote but that definition is so all-encompassing to be unhelpful outside a specific area of discussion which is why in everyday parlance it's not used.
If you don't like the meaning of the word "meme", you don't need to use c/memes.
The meme is the idea of the serial killer that was propagated through the law enforcement community.
True. Alrighty, I'll accept that in the very original Dawkinsian sense, this can be considered a meme, if you squint. I still think it goes against the spirit of the community because the context is the internet in which the word means something else.
While I sympathize with your frustration, this is the same question we were asking at the fin de ciecle over Duchamp's Fontaine over "is this art?" - and has been repeated in "what is theatre/fiction?" "Is borat fiction?" "Is an advertisement a movie?" "Are documentaries neccessarily non fiction?" which leads you all the way back to epistemology, the Socratic method, and a state of aporia.
The only reasonable conclusion is "if anyone says it's a meme it's a meme"
I don't think I agree. I'd define an "internet meme" as an inside joke (in the very broadest of senses) shared on the internet. There needs to be a certain number of people who agree that it's funny and worth repeating and propagating for it to qualify. Like the original ~~idea~~ definition of a "meme", really, where an idea only becomes a cultural unit once it leaps from one mind to another. Also, Milhouse is not a meme.
I mean per my previous comment: define "inside" "joke" "shared" "internet" "certain number" "agree" "one mind" "another mind"...
I could email myself the letter "e" and then say "this is funny" to myself and it would meet this definition
There's still only one mind involved in your scenario.
Myself at two different points in time could be considered "two minds": my mind now, my mind at the point of sending the email, especially if the time period involved is a long time and I forgot about it.
Failing that I could email it to anyone - they don't even need to recieve the email as the qualia of receiving the communication wasn't specified in the definition.
Reminder my original point was that eventually this conversation will lead to aporia.
The mind in your past has ceased to exist. The content of that email remains in one mind, it just a different one, by your definition.
They do need to receive it and read since it has to at the very least enter their minds and ideally they have to think it's funny/interesting/worth sharing/etc.
My point exactly. But ignoring that?
Define recieve, is inbox OK? Is a glance ok? Do they have to understand it? (Is an Italian meme a meme if I don't speak italian?)
You were saying the OP wasn't a meme, but it was recieved by at least you and me, and unknowably countless others.