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Yes, assembling Ikea furniture is very easy, but memes are not really based on reality. Maybe it's the opposite. Mayonnaise is the most popular sauce ever; yet

by bambax 9y ago

Yes, assembling Ikea furniture is very easy, but memes are not really based on reality. Maybe it's the opposite. Mayonnaise is the most popular sauce ever; yet the meme is that it's "disgusting". Almost everybody has Ikea at home; yet the meme is that it's impossible to assemble. Maybe memes are trying to tell us something... but I'm not sure what.

stcredzero 9y ago
memes are not really based on reality We should take this back to the original formulation of "meme" by Richard Dawkins. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme#Origins https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme#Origins Maybe it's the opposite. Memes, in the academic sense, are just ideas that can propagate very well. Ideas don't have to be true to propagate. Mayonnaise is the most popular sauce ever; yet the meme is that it's "disgusting". Disgust is a very useful emotion to aid in the propagation of an idea. Outrage is another. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE3j_RHkqJc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE3j_RHkqJc https://hbr.org/2016/05/research-the-link-between-feeling-in-control-and-viral-content https://hbr.org/2016/05/research-the-link-between-feeling-in...
smelendez 9y ago
Assembling Ikea furniture is easy in the sense that most people can do it eventually, but it's kind of tedious, easy to make an annoying mistake that requires backtracking and often stressful. People elsewhere in the thread mentioned assembling it with kids around, and often you're putting it together at a hectic time because you've just moved or need the furniture ready and the house clean before having guests, etc. Enough people have had these experiences that the meme is popular. I don't personally care for mayonnaise. I think the memes are popular precisely because mayonnaise is so popular. A lot of the anti-mayo memes I've seen complaining about mayonnaise are about finding it where you don't expect it or ordering sandwiches without it and still getting it. There are fewer memes ranting about less common ingredients like Buffalo sauce or hummus because you don't have to go out of your way to avoid those.
- ghaff 9y ago
  Yeah. It’s usually fairly straightforward and is pretty easy for small pieces. Something like a large dresser though, while perhaps not being hard, can be rather tedious to plow through.
maxerickson 9y ago
True Mayo meme is true.
dfxm12 9y ago
Maybe memes are trying to tell us something... but I'm not sure what. Just spit balling here: 1. Exaggerations can be funny 2. We, as a society, have a general tendency to go with the flow when it comes to trivial overstatements, even if we don't agree with them ourselves (maybe in an effort to "fit in") 3. If you hear the same lie enough times, you might believe it 4. Picking on a particularly popular name brand makes a generalization stick in your mind better 5. Lazy writers rely on cliche to get their points across

by bambax 9y ago

stcredzero 9y ago

memes are not really based on reality We should take this back to the original formulation of "meme" by Richard Dawkins. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme#Origins https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme#Origins Maybe it's the opposite. Memes, in the academic sense, are just ideas that can propagate very well. Ideas don't have to be true to propagate. Mayonnaise is the most popular sauce ever; yet the meme is that it's "disgusting". Disgust is a very useful emotion to aid in the propagation of an idea. Outrage is another. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE3j_RHkqJc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE3j_RHkqJc https://hbr.org/2016/05/research-the-link-between-feeling-in-control-and-viral-content https://hbr.org/2016/05/research-the-link-between-feeling-in...

smelendez 9y ago

Assembling Ikea furniture is easy in the sense that most people can do it eventually, but it's kind of tedious, easy to make an annoying mistake that requires backtracking and often stressful. People elsewhere in the thread mentioned assembling it with kids around, and often you're putting it together at a hectic time because you've just moved or need the furniture ready and the house clean before having guests, etc. Enough people have had these experiences that the meme is popular. I don't personally care for mayonnaise. I think the memes are popular precisely because mayonnaise is so popular. A lot of the anti-mayo memes I've seen complaining about mayonnaise are about finding it where you don't expect it or ordering sandwiches without it and still getting it. There are fewer memes ranting about less common ingredients like Buffalo sauce or hummus because you don't have to go out of your way to avoid those.

ghaff 9y ago
Yeah. It’s usually fairly straightforward and is pretty easy for small pieces. Something like a large dresser though, while perhaps not being hard, can be rather tedious to plow through.

maxerickson 9y ago

True Mayo meme is true.

dfxm12 9y ago

Maybe memes are trying to tell us something... but I'm not sure what. Just spit balling here: 1. Exaggerations can be funny 2. We, as a society, have a general tendency to go with the flow when it comes to trivial overstatements, even if we don't agree with them ourselves (maybe in an effort to "fit in") 3. If you hear the same lie enough times, you might believe it 4. Picking on a particularly popular name brand makes a generalization stick in your mind better 5. Lazy writers rely on cliche to get their points across