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Are we not mistaking fashion for people? Memes are the fashionable aspect of a given movement and a movement's success isn't the quality or even quantity of its
by Quarrelsome 5y ago
Are we not mistaking fashion for people? Memes are the fashionable aspect of a given movement and a movement's success isn't the quality or even quantity of its memes but whether it resonates with a target market and that target market has the numbers. Whether it represents a need or belief of the people.
The reason that the GME meme worked is because there are more than ever available small-time investors called the "WFH COVID crowd". Furthermore there are countless people that believe the market is rigged in one way or another so the story was appealing. Added to that, there's a crowd of millennials that have fond memories of Gamestop and browse reddit and all of that combines into a powerful movement with a lot of energy behind it. The memes (to the moon, diamond hands) are just the gaseous by-product of that activity.
- __MatrixMan__ 5y agoThe word "meme" was coined in the 1970's. It's a biology term which describes behaviors like cooking our food or wearing pants or voting. Things that one organism might notice another doing, and do the same themselves. It had a resurgence in the 2000's where it was only used to describe media: image macros, phrases, that sort of thing. If you take the latter usage, then you're right. There's more to this stuff than the pictures or words that we share about them. But if you take the original meaning then > Whether it represents a need or belief of the people. is indeed a quality of the meme.