A couple of years ago my kid took a funny picture of the cat and put some white text on it and said "look I made a meme!" I told her "No, you made an image macro. it's not a meme unless it goes viral." and even her mother who's older than me told me I was being pedantic and any picture can be a meme.

I hate it here.

[–] Zwiebel@feddit.org 9 points 1 year ago (2 children)

You don't get to dictate how others use language ʅ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)ʃ

[–] jsomae@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

but we all have the right to be bothered by it :)

[–] lolcatnip@reddthat.com 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Especially when the new meaning causes the old one to be forgotten despite it being a pretty cool idea.

[–] alekwithak@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

Then why'd I have kids???

[–] epidemian@lemmy.ml 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

it’s not a meme unless it goes viral.

If you want to be pedantic, it'd be good to know that that's not what a meme is. A meme is a unit of cultural information—analogous to a gene being a unit of genetic information. A meme may not go viral, just like a gene might not be successfully copied onto other generations, but it's still a meme nonetheless :)

[–] alekwithak@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

Yeah yeah I've read Dawkins :P My definition is based on earlier internet when things were what they were and became a meme as they were shared. Of course a popular image macro haz become meme but so can a questionnaire (wtf was wrong with us??)

[–] jsomae@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 year ago

it seems the meaning has changed, but to be honest I don't know what the new meaning is.