Friday, August 23, 2019

Meme Propagation

A lot of people sent me this meme, and said it was going around. I did the painting, but I don't know who contributed the quote. 



I think the idea is kind of fun, especially since the word balloon points to the dinosaur. It makes me wonder how you launch a meme, and how it spreads. Does anyone know? Is it just via 'word of mouth' and sharing on Twitter?

13 comments:

Marcus Carneiro said...

Here is a fun speech from Richard Dawkins talking about memes and its propagation, on a Saatchi event in 2013

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFn-ixX9edg

Bevan said...

They are pretty easy to make. Adobe even has a free Meme program called Adobe Spark. https://spark.adobe.com/make/meme-maker/

Tom C. said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Tom C. said...

Do people make money off of Memes?

Karl Kanner said...

James, they propagate via all social media, so you have reddit, imgur, twitter, tumblr, facebook, etc, and between all the social media you can reach about 45% of the world population

Stevie VanBronkhorst said...

You just make something and share it, and if someone sees it and reposts it, or tweaks it to be funnier for their experience or subculture, it may become popular. The same as starting a joke.

Randy Burman said...

James.
First, love receiving your daily blog and have recommended to artist friends who I thought would appreciate, including my grand daughter. What a joy to receive. Now, the meme thing... as soon as I saw, That wasn't a micro dose., meme in your email I thought it was funny and my natural (social media) inclination was to share with my Facebook friends/family. Chances are that many will simply like it and some will share it again. Normally, it's more likely I'd see something already on social media and most likely easier to share. That's the deal. People love sharing stuff on social media they find interesting, funny, making some point, educating, etc. A meme stands a better chance of "going viral" if a social media user has a lot of followers/friends. Most social media users are not making money by posting memes with other peoples art, they are simply sharing for their own and the pleasure of others. That does not mean memes cannot be monetized, but that is driving in a different lane. There's been a democratization of art-making, where everyone has a readily accessible camera and are taking and posting billions of images everyday. Previously is was rare that the average person would take much less share so many images. Apps make it extra easy to add items like speech bubbles, rainbows, silhouette even(!), and a lot more. Even animate still pictures? None of this wonderful technology replaces the profound talent such as yours, which can only be admired with awe and act as an inspiration to those who wish they had a smidgen of your abilities. I think, perhaps as you, that's it's wonderful someone got to play with one of your images in a way you never intended, and that it brought laughter to others. A fine endeavor if there ever was.

Anonymous said...

What is a Meme-ANYWAY? I have no idea what a meme is-I keep hearing the word, but damn if I understand what it is.

Thom Rozendaal said...

I was real confused when you posted this one to Instagram, but now I get it. Memes are just images that have gone viral on the internet. It starts with one person posting the image on a site like 9gag, imgur, or reddit or something and several people find it funny and repost it and out of the people who see the reposts there's another number of them that re-repost it and thus it gets spread around

No_Its said...

"A meme is a recurring subject, theme, idea, etc., especially in a literary, artistic, or musical work. Memes were also believed by some people to be the essence of a culture or a person.Examples of memes are tunes, ideas, catch-phrases, clothes fashions, ways of making pots or of building arches. Just as genes propagate themselves in the gene pool by leaping from body to body via sperms or eggs, so memes propagate themselves in the meme pool by leaping from brain to brain via a process which, in the broad sense, can be called imitation. If a scientist hears, or reads about, a good idea, he passes it on to his colleagues and students. He mentions it in his articles and his lectures. If the idea catches on, it can be said to propagate itself, spreading from brain to brain."

"Human memories, ideas, Culture, History, Genes dont contain any record of human history. Is it something that should not be passed on? Should that information be left at the mercy of nature? We've always kept record of our lives, through words, pictures, symbols... from tablets to books... But not all the information was inherited by later generations. A small percentage of the whole was selected and processed, then passed on. Not unlike genes really."

Mr. Wood said...

I saw this meme on Reddit. Which is a popular venue for memes. But I know Instagram has plenty too. Glad to see you mention it, I was wondering if you had seen it.

nilc said...

The comment was added by Dan Albee Deridder, and originally posted to the facebook group Mycological Memes

https://www.facebook.com/groups/961005927344722/permalink/2224742824304353 (private group, but anyone admitted who asks)
https://www.facebook.com/groups/961005927344722/user/1189751607/

Isaaclux said...
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