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Why memes succeed
- snowwrestler 12y agoThis makes intuitive sense to me, but the question is why it works this way. Let's say that there is a finite number of upvotes that any one meme can get. For example if 1,000,000 unique accounts log into a site during a week, the most upvotes a single meme could get during that time is 1,000,000 (assuming a vote scheme like Reddit or HN--one vote per account per item). The idea in this paper is that a highly original meme is more likely to receive closer to the maximum possible number of votes, than a meme which is a variation on a known theme (like yet another Socially Awkward Penguin). This seems to imply that readers apply a higher standard (of whether to upvote) to variations on a theme. Why? Perhaps it is related to the "tyranny of choice". Perhaps having a million minor variations on a theme devalues the reader's opinion of the entire theme, regardless of how good the content is in any one variation. Or perhaps the willingness to say "this is the best" declines in proportion to the processing power needed to consider all possible variations. If someone has seen hundreds of Socially Awkward Penguins, to confidently say a new variation is good, they would need to have a reliable index of all previous ones they've seen, in order to make a complete comparison. If they're not confident that they have a reliable index, then they just revert to the mean and say "meh". Whereas if something seems totally new, they could feel more confident deciding whether to consider it good or not.
- TeMPOraL 12y ago> “There must also be some value in the content itself,” said Coscia during a Skype interview. I notice I'm confused. Why is this (presented as) a somewhat new or unexplored avenue? I mean, isn't it obvious that the important - probably most important - factor will be the meme content itself? It's not like jokes are fungible.