Photoshop and Memes

I was interested, so I went on to read the actual study that prompted the writing of the article. While I think the results they found were interesting, I was left with some questions about the methodology they used as well. Specifically, I take issue with how in the abstract they state that they believe memetic success can be determined without information on social network structures. While coming up with evidence to support my argument would be difficult for the same reasons listed in the paper itself (namely the difficulty of indexing the internet, especially given how much meme culture is centralized around the darknet such as discord, unarchived image boards, or direct messages on social media) I believe a part of their own study helps support my claim. While they had moderate success with detecting what memes would be successful, they were extremely successful when it came to figuring out what memes were dead on arrival. My proposed explanation for this is that while even the best social manipulation couldn't save a bad meme, a good meme might still be unable to achieve success without being exposed to the proper social network structures.

I found the article about memes interesting. I agree with the author that memes show a lot about cultural trends. I feel that shorter memes can grab a readers attention more while also leaving room for creativity and interpretation. I am interested in this section of the course because creating memes can be a fun way to show creativity and can be humorous to the audience reading. 

This was an interesting study and the findings were pretty in line with what I expected. Unsurprisingly, the most viral memes are the ones that take the least amount of time to read/consume. This makes sense, naturally; however, I was a little surprised that those that use swear words are not as popular. I guess I never realized how family friendly the most viral memes are because there are just so many memes out there in the world right now and many of them aren’t so pure. To this point, I think they could’ve used more memes in their algorithm as test data to be considered a more reliable study. There are hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of memes out there and to say they took about 250 of them to construct their model is a bit worrisome. Nonetheless, this was still a very compelling study and article.

I agree with the results from the program that suggests that shorter memes are more successful. I believe the purpose of a meme is to share its message with as many audiences as possible in the lifespan of said meme. The shorter the meme would make it easier for people to digest and does not exclude anyone with its complexity. I question the validity of determining a meme’s success because they rely on people which are unpredictable.

I thought the article was very interesting. I personally did not know that the word for meme was as old as it is. As far as the system to evaluate what the success rate of memes will be, I was skeptical at first and when I saw the accuracy of it, I was surprised. I was also surprised to see the difference in success rate when swear words are used. What did make sense to me was the fact that shorter memes are more successful. This made sense because obviously shorter ones require less attention and time so it would be easier for it to reach more people. I also think that a good predictor of success is the number of people that understand it or can relate to it. Like if there is a meme relating to a tv show that only a small amount of people watch, it probably won't be as big. 

I found the article about memes very interesting because I did not know they dated back so far. I thought they were a new trend that showed the latest internet joke. I would agree with the article that it makes sense that the shorter memes grab more peoples attention because they don't take as much time to read/understand. I don't think it would be productive to have lots of words on a picture. I am excited about this part in the course and to see if I can make a meme that is funny, relatable, and successful. 

Before I read this article, I had never even thought about there being a science behind what made some memes more popular than others. While I agree with the author's idea that memes tend to follow social trends, I do think there's more randomness to their success than suggested. The biggest surprise for me was the history of the meme. I had always assumed they were fairly modern, and had no idea that the premise of them dated back all the way to World War II. I think they're a great way to get people to connect, but I also believe that trying to use science to determine what makes a good joke is a little bit over the top.

I was really surprised that the origin of memes dates back to WWII. I am personally not very up to date with the most popular memes, but it's interesting how our culture now is so full of them. With so much technology everywhere, platforms everywhere seem to be championing the idea that less is more. In all my journalism classes, we are advised to write all the important facts in the first two sentences of our stories because that's all that people normally read. This makes sense as to why shorter memes do so well. I think one of the challenges for our next project will be understanding how to capture our audience's attention with so few words. 

In my honest opinion, I believe that this article was written very poorly. To me there wasn't enough evidence that supported why some memes were greater than others. There is a science behind what makes things funny, and it is different for everyone. This is why people tend to find different things funny. For me it is the subversion of expectations between the words and the picture. The words convey a relatable message and it is the image that subverts our expectation to the relationship of the words. Take any meme and isolate the words imagine you acting out those words, it is that difference between your expectations and the exaggerated image which creates the comedy in my case. 

I think the article made a few good points concerning meme culture, but it also missed the mark on a few. The researchers certainly were correct in the importance of the length of a meme. Shakespeare would agree, as he was quoted saying, "brevity is the soul of wit." In my personal experience, I'm looking for quick-hitting humor from a meme, and I move-on from anything that requires more than 10ish seconds of attention. The researchers commented saying that they hoped their findings would help people track the evolution of human culture. While this may be true to an extent, I believe the success of a meme stems primarily from an innate human response and other acultural factors. Moreover, while maybe somewhat overly critical, I felt the researchers were trying to hard to make sense of a mostly random/non-sensical phenomenon. 

I think there were some good points made in the article, but overall it was very limited in it's explanation of what makes a meme popular. The article was only focused on memes that are just a picture with an exact template of words on it, when nowadays a meme can take many more forms. This isn't necessarily putting the blame on the author/creators of the study, since the article is 3 years old. I had trouble believing the findings that "shorter memes" and "template memes" were more successful whereas memes with curse words in it were less successful. I feel like what makes a meme popular is its context and how it is spread, not it's length or how many curse words it has. The background on the history of what a "meme" is was interesting though, particularly the WWII-era meme of "Kilroy was here". 

The article was definitely one of the more interesting articles I have read in the past few days, but it seemed a little outdated for the ever-changing culture of Memes. This article was published in 2015, and memes has drastically "evolved" since then. The article only shows examples of basic, almost obsolete memes which has a picture and the same format of words on it. However, nowadays memes are not limited to just photos and words on it, but can take many forms, such as a video or music. I don't necessarily agree with the article's argument that shorter memes usually have greater chance to be successful because memes don't rely on its length, but more on the context of the meme. 

While I was reading the article, I was mostly surprised by the fact the word 'meme' originated in 1979. I thought the word, along with the practice, was a new sensation instead of something that dates back decades. I was also fascinated by the fact memes with curse words are more likely to fail when compared to memes that don't contain curse words. The reasoning presented in the article makes logical sense, but I've seen countless memes through social media forums or outlets that contain profanity. Finally, I was astonished by the fact that their success rate was extremely high, I would have guessed an approximately fifty percent success rate. In the future I hope to learn more about they can accurately predict the popularity of memes on social media platforms.

The concept of memes is one that is especially hard to articulate, as we have all discovered when trying to explain a meme to our parents. There are so many different styles of memes, as many Twitter users know. This article is interesting in that it puts memes into a more concrete light, by discussing an algorithm that can tell whether or not the meme would go viral. It is interesting to see that shorter memes tend to do better than longer ones, but it is not especially surprising in a culture that communicates in 6 second videos and 140 characters.

I thought this article was interesting, although the outcome of the study was pretty much what I expected. One part that surprised me was importance of capital letters in a hashtag. I thought it was interesting that people will put in the extra effort for legibility when creating a meme and I can say form personal experience it does make a difference. Even though memes are short and may seem easy to create I think it will be hard to get a story into a few words, I am excited to do this project. 

I thought this article was interesting, although the outcome of the study was pretty much what I expected. One part that surprised me was importance of capital letters in a hashtag. I thought it was interesting that people will put in the extra effort for legibility when creating a meme and I can say form personal experience it does make a difference. Even though memes are short and may seem easy to create I think it will be hard to get a story into a few words, I am excited to do this project. 

I have contemplated what it takes to create a successful meme before, simply out of curiosity. What makes something go viral with an endless amount of content out there? I wasn't surprised to read that shorter memes do better, because I am certainly much more likely to read something in passing that doesn't take much head space. I was a bit surprised by the conclusion on cuss/swear words, but it does make sense given most people wouldn't want to have that kind of content on their public pages. One thing the article failed to mention is the importance of the photo itself... there's a card game called "What Do You Meme?" that I play with my siblings fairly often. It can get hilarious, but it all depends on the actual photo in play. I was also surprised that the word meme was coined to mean something of cultural importance. Memes, to me, have always been rather stupid (yet funny), but to say they represent our society and culture seems like a stretch. I guess one could argue that they might represent our senses of humor.

I really enjoyed the article because of how it rationalized memes, their functions, and effectiveness. Before reading this, I never really thought that people put enough thought into memes for there to have been a science behind it. However, after reading about them and watching a couple videos on them, I'm actually intrigued about memes in a way that I wasn't before.

I found this article to be very thought-provoking. As someone that encounters memes on a daily basis, I never thought to consider what makes memes worthwhile or what elements interest me most in memes that I favor. I look forward to seeing what my classmates and I come up with in this section. Very cool!

I really enjoyed reading this. I find it really interesting to look into the science and statistics behind pop culture trends or just normal everyday things that people normally wouldn't use that lens to analyze. It gives a lot of insight into the way that social media and online spaces control, influence, and moderate our trends and popular culture. It also offers insight into the way that meaning can be extrapolated from the marriage of images/visuals and text. I had actually heard of the Kilroy was here story before but was surprised to hear it framed as a meme. I had always heard of it as a standalone story so this was an interesting context to see it added to. However, I think some things can be learned by looking at data like this, aggregated from the averages of all memes, but I think it is far more variable and subjective than they originally let on.