About Memes and Their Patterns |
A meme is cultural information that is copied from one person to another through expressions of our creativity. The ability for memes to make us laugh, learn, or waste a lot of time has existed since... well... who knows.
Examples of traditional memes:
Check out what Wikipedia has to say about memes.
All memes follow an easily-recognized pattern. It could be a set of moves in a dance, rules for a game, or what types of elements went into the meme. A cultural pattern is both expressed and transported through memes.
Like a recipe for something good to eat, once you see a memorable meme, you should be able to go home and bake one one for yourself!
Patterns form the central organizing principle of Memecat. More on that later.
The world wide web is a medium in which memes emerge and proliferate more quickly than before. Often a new pattern pops up out of nowhere and becomes an instant fad with thousands of people creating memes to spread it and millions of people enjoying the outcome.
The web made it easy for us to create memes and for others to link to what we created. Because of these factors, some very interesting patterns for internet memes emerged:
And video memes are the ultimate sort of internet meme: compelling, easy to make, easy to link to, and easy to embed anywhere. They have encouraged the emergence of hundreds of new cultural patterns in the last several years:
Check out what Wikipedia has to say about internet memes.
This community is focused on tracking video and internet memes that are created by amateurs. Not every pattern in Memecat may be amateurish, but every meme ought to be.
In order to track memes and their patterns, we make sightings of memes in places like YouTube or Break.com and then classify these sightings.
There are three different ways that Memecats classify memes:
1. Expresses Some Pattern
Self-explanatory. Without a recognizable pattern, a video or image is simply not a meme. Therefore, Memecat requires all videos tracked here to express at least one pattern.
Check out patterns that are creations, commentaries, observations, and performances.
2. Reflects a Culture
Get enough people together and they start to define a culture for themselves. Whether at the office, in a clique of young people, or in an activist movement, cultures are especially good at are generating memes. What is fascinating is how memes can reflect the culture they originated in.
Check out our subcultures section.
3. Contains or Refers to Something
Video and image memes often refer to a cliché or a common, recurring theme. The re-use of these devices in montages can be humorous, downright annoying, or horrifying. The postmodern concept for this sort of reference is "intertextuality" or, if you're literary, an "allusion."
Take a look at some of the themes and clichés that are tracked in Memecat.
If you'd like to point out a meme that you see out there, learn about how to make a sighting.
Random Memes |
| More... |
