Memes:

A History
and Analysis
memes as gene analogues
● abiological, evolving replicators
● ‘exists’ informationally and is ‘expressed’ culturally
● filtered by minds--selective pressures of environments
What makes a good replicator?
Longevity: remaining in circulation long enough for
selective pressures to act

Fidelity: accuracy of copying process

Fecundity: the rate at which a thing is copied

(good memes are all three to various degrees)

Memes as viruses
● competition to infect minds or mindlike environments
● replication via hosts
● representations from one brain to another
meme meme

meme meme
Art History
● each era is influenced
by its environment
● reaction, quotation,
criticism, and
expansion of previous
era’s styles, ideas,
and techniques
Pre-modernism
● rigid style
● rigid conventions
● rigid themes
● rigid genres
● aesthetically pleasing
● technical prowess
Modernism
● rebellion against tradition
● “Make it new!”
● reason, individualism,
innovation, progress
● avant-garde vs kitsch
Postmodernism
● reaction to modernism
● conceptualism, deconstruction
● pastiche, eclecticism, remix
● cynicism, irreverence
Metamodernism
● reaction to postmodernism
● new sincerity
● reconstruction
● oscillation
● desire for sense and depth
 -_-

preserving building breaking rebuilding

“Post-Internet”
Post-Internet art and aesthetics are shaped by the
normalization of the social and technological
infrastructures on the internet.

Unlike ‘Internet art’, it is not about the Internet as

a novel object but the Internet itself as the mere
medium.
“Internet” vs “Post-Internet”
Pre-Ironic
● rigid format and usage
● impact font, top
text/bottom text
● prescriptivist - “you’re
using that meme wrong!”
● simple - meme as viral
objects
Pre-Ironic
● rigid format and usage
● impact font, top
text/bottom text
● prescriptivist - “you’re
using that meme wrong!”
● simple - meme as viral
objects
 Pre-ironics transition to facebook, twitter
Comic Old-style New-style

image, caption top text + bottom text superimposed on caption, image

image

italics, times new roman impact, b/w stroke helvetica

Sentence case. CAPS lowercase

Platforms
1. imageboards - conversation, dynamic,
2. aggregators - lots of exposure, static
3. blogs - curation, identity
4. facebook - synthesis of all three
reaction to cringy, kitsch normie pages
Ironic Memes
● irony of posting intent,
irony of style & narrative
● subversive
● intentionally ugly, bad
graphics
● dark themes
● memepage as organic art
entity
● “normie” memes as found art
Distortion Jpeg Artifact Watermarked
Stock Imagery
Visible Brush Stroke Glitch, compression
The Death of Pepe
The
Death
of
Pepe
Meta-Ironic
● structural irony
● conceptual
● meta-criticism directed at
ironic memers
● meme-concept/medium as
found art
The
dead-end
of
Meta-Irony
 post- meta-

The
irony irony

dead-end
of
Meta-Irony
Post-Ironic
● clear meaning
● is it a meme?
● context & usage
● complex
● new sincerity
● descriptivist
Mainstream Meme germline
● Traditionalist to Neo-Traditionalist: from extremely
simple, viral content to more complex reference humor
● birth of Pre-Ironic memes: from reference humor and viral
content to self-contained linguistic systems
● reactionary Ironic meme culture: subversion of linguistic
systems established as linguistic subculture
Underground meme germline
● from Traditionalist to Proto-Ironic: simple demand for
greater novelty results in accumulation of new traits
between generations/iterations
● generational turnover: continued demand for novelty means
continued demand for the subversion of the norm; Ironic
and Meta-Ironic memes arise organically as the result of
boredom with the old
reference
Dawkins, 1976. The Selfish Gene

Mauricio & Diaz, 2013. Defining and characterizing the concept of Internet Meme

Tamariz & Kirby, 2015. Culture: Copying, Compression, Conventionality

Weng & Menczer, and Yong-Yeol Ahn, 2013. Virality Prediction and Community Structure

GCF, accessed Dec 2015. http://www.gcflearnfree.org/internet101/1.3

Eberly College of Science, accessed Dec 2015. https://online.science.psu.edu/biol011_sandbox_7239/node/7359

MRG Science, accessed Dec 2015. http://www.mrgscience.com/yr-8-topic-5-materials.html

Bioteaching, accessed Dec 2015. http://bioteaching.com/natural-selection/

reference
The Philosopher’s Meme, 2015 https://www.facebook.com/thephilosophersmouth/?fref=ts

PIMCC, 2015 https://www.facebook.com/PIMCCII/?fref=ts

Shitpostbot5000, 2015 https://www.facebook.com/shitpostbot/?fref=ts

Parallel Universe Memes, 2015

https://www.facebook.com/Parallel-Universe-Memes-920229471371578/?fref=ts

Know Your Meme, 2015 http://knowyourmeme.com/