Memes - Good Or Bad?

True. Bad phrasing there I guess.

I will say that the translation of internet culture into real life isn't something I've seen on such a large scale before "epic fail", I guess that's another reason it bothers me.

While I was working last week I met a few folks around the age of 25, really funny.

The girl kept saying "Winning", and so I had to ask "So do you drink tiger blood or?" and her gentlemen friend answers "Naw she mainly has Adonis blood in her family."

And day before that someone had used the wrong credit card to pay and they went "Herp derp, wrong card."

Was pretty funny.

Memes are outrageously funny and creative.
Image Macro Memes
Local News gone global Memes
Youtube/blog Celeb Memes
"Trollin" Memes

It's part of the internet forever now.

I disagree. Cliches and catch-phrases (similar to the examples you've listed) only make up a fraction of what are considered "memes" nowadays. If "Memes" stuck to being catch-phrases, I believe they would be more palatable, less obnoxious, and less common.

However, "memes" started with catch-phrases, but have exploded in such a way that lots of internet users have substituted re-hashed jpegs for wit and creativity. Like I said in an earlier post here, that "levels the playing field" between smart people and not-so-smart people on the internet. If the audience expects, desires, and applauds a "U mad??" type of statement, then that's the type of response many people will post. And if everyone's posting "U mad??", then any semblance of real discussion or debate is lost, and everyone becomes predictable clones.

I think that's the great irony of the whole meme culture: you've got geeky/nerdy and social-outcast types of personalities, turning to the anonymity of the internet, where they think they'll be able to "express themselves" and showcase their individuality ... and yet, what they get instead, is they end up acting all the same.

I think memes are awesome when the first appear, months and months after umad? just kind of gets old. The internet people don't generally know when enough is enough.

I think it's less of what exactly memes are, and more of the fact that it's the equivalent of someone screaming "WAZAAAAAAAAAAAP" while taking a massive dump in your face for the fiftieth time.

Fact.
I mean, would you really still laugh at Wayne and Garth saying "schwing!!" or Steve Urkel saying "did I do that?" nowadays? No.

Memes need to be sent out to pasture.
However, as I said earlier here, the meme culture promotes stagnant unoriginality and condones the status quo. Asking meme geeks to come up with new material is like drawing blood from stone. So, they just keep on beating the dead horses.

elanabelle's incredibly predictable responses a new meme? I think so

Agreed.

Though the problem I just thought of is this.

Most memes start out as original jokes. If a person uses the joke and it catches on, there's a chance it'll spread (especially on big sites like 4chan), maybe turning into a meme. So really, it's a cycle, which is fine when people know when to stop using it.

The other thing is that some people discover them very far after they've reached their peak. 9000 is a good example of this; this is pretty old but it's still pretty popular because people think it's still relevant and cool. To these guys, 9000 is new.
What they aren't realizing is that we've all heard it.

It's not really a problem that can be fixed, but I'd love see memes stay what they were intended to be: inside jokes.

Agreed.

The problem therein is that while "inside jokes" are cool while they remain "inside" a small group of friends ... you can't have an "inside joke" with a million people on the internet.

Memes have basically taken the "inside joke" and bastardized it and sold it out to the internet.

I hope you've never used the term "Cool" or any other buzzwords/phrases in your life.

That would make you terribly hypocritical.

He used cool in the line you quoted.

But I like memes :(

I can't say I have come across any memes that were inside jokes, I find I can relate to them in one way or another and always find them amusing.

i generally agree with you

in summary, they allow unfunny people to pretend they're funny

kojo was really the ffxiah archetype of what you were referring to, and he was pretty much intolerable

that said, and as others have said, the best of them are actually pretty funny for a while, it's the people who spam them ad nauseum that create the problem

I think they can be funny when who uses them is witty and knows when it's a good time to post one. People that just spam them over and over are just boring. Same goes for any kind of joke, if you know when it's a good time to say it others will laugh, if you repeat it endlessly others will get annoyed.

:D:D:D

I don't know if OVER 9,000!!! will ever die as it simply has too much of a common use. Any time something dealing with numbers comes up, Over 9,000 can be in play. I've accepted that one will never die.

Also, someone mentioned 'TP for my bunghole' as a meme. There wasn't internet around back then (at least not in the form it is today). We'd get our lines we'd repeat over and over from TV and movies. Commercials were always full of little ones. "I feel like chicken tonight". Not the best example, but say that around anyone that's 30 today and they'll probably recognize it.

Where are the TV, movies, and commercial phrases for kids to latch onto these days? TV. Does MTV play anything with humor in it these days? All I've heard about is Snookie and people trying to screw each other. Movies? I can't think of any movie recently, off the top of my head, with a catchy witty phrase. Commercials? Do kids these days even have to watch those anymore? Adblock and Noscript should fix any commercial issues if you have it set up properly.

That leaves the internet. The original funny things from the internet mostly still hold some credibility due to their age. "All your base are belong to us" even made it's way into FFXI. "All your Jeuno are belong to us" is said at some point in the WotG storyline. However, the ones that were so lame will die away in a pasture out of our thoughts... until someone mentions a dancing baby screensaver and then you're all: Dang it Esy! I had forgotten about that.

Here, you need one of these:

lol'd

Oh god, I'm a hipster and I didn't even know it

Millhouse is my favorite meme.

I'll be honest I probably use /foreveralone more then I should... But half of the forever alone ones seem to be lifted straight from my life so meh

aren't most memes meant to troll/piss people off? >.> It seems they have succeeded.

You all really need to take the internet out of the equation here. Although the word "meme" is quite new, they've been around since the dawn of time as someone said. Look at any terrible, recycled stand-up comedy. All rehashed jokes that aren't funny only because we've all heard them all before. I bet you any money the first comedian to ever say "I just flew in from Chicago, and boy are my arms tired!" got a hell of a laugh.

Any of you that has a social life out in the real world away from the internet will probably have your fair share of in jokes, just like you'll have that one friend that insists on repeating those jokes long after they've ceased to be funny. Memes are exactly the same, just in a wider spread community. Yo Dawg might be pretty *** lame now, but I'll bet each and every one of you laughed at a few recreations of that when it was still new.

The reason memes are created is because they are funny. They're not funny because they're memes, they're memes because they were funny. So the only problem really, is the sheer size of the internet, and how many people try too *** hard to be funny when they're anything but.

I think that for me, it's not really fair to say one way or the other. Even after reading this thread - which is kinda making me hate the idea in general - sometimes they just fit a situation too perfectly. But I can say that they are often misused/abused, and that's pretty irritating.

Ugh... 30 seconds of reddit is enough time to get the idea.

"I don't always drive, but when I do, I wear a seatbelt."

That's unfunny and douchey.

Or posts like, "Hey guys here's my cat. I tried to think of a caption for this picture but can't. Can reddit help?"

I really hate that place.

But, on the other hand, I ran out of bowls the other day and I really considered having a glass of cereal, FBF style. It made me smile. And I think that's good.

I enjoy memes that actually can relate to real life, like "foreveralone" situations. I use "not bad" with my best friend very often because we think that Obama face is just hilarious. We even imitate it every time we say it, haha.

*gets hit in FF for 4k*
"ARE YOU SERIOUS?!*
*Counters for 8k*


I also like "Me Gusta" since I would say that anyway, along with "no es bueno" with friends.

"No u" pisses me off now thanks to a certain someone. That's all the *** she would say.

They're hit or miss, but they give me a laugh. Also, being that person that hates memes is also mainstream. You cannot escape it.

heres a old school one "You are the weakest link, goodbye."

Agreed. +1.


Agreed. +1.