I've figured out how to make something prime material for memes

glennmagusharvey

Make something that displays unexpected or nonsensical behavior or associations.  Point out these unexpected nonsensical behaviors or assumptions with a humorous light, drawing attention to them and possibly emphasizing them.

See, a lot of memes arise from people doing stupid things (such as Miss Teen South Carolina) or silly things ("That's 'Mama Luigi' to you, Mario!") or very quirky, unique things (be they mostly meaningless like "Moe, moe, kyun" or awesome like the Star Wars Kid).

RedEyedAbyss

In other words, anti-humour.

glennmagusharvey

No, not quite.

it just needs to be distinctive and iconic.

A college thesis is neither distinctive nor iconic.
A college thesis performed in interpretive dance is distinctive but not iconic.
A several-minute video of a college thesis performed in interpretive dance is distinctive and iconic.

That said, these are just necessary conditions to make a meme; these are not sufficient.

Chagen

Also, being catchy and easy to remember helps.

As does having a "variable". The recent forum fad is partly due to the fact that we could replace the original thread's "Weapon Styles" part with....pretty much ANYTHING.

glennmagusharvey

Thing is there are a lot of memes without variables.  Though in some cases people just edit the variable into it, such as with image manipulation.

Alternatively, they edit the meme into a variable context.  For example, sticking AYB quotes into other things.

(BTW, I meant catchy and easy to remember with "iconic".)

MillerCross

But distinctive and iconic is basically the definition of a meme, Glenn.

so it's practically a tautological statement.

Gelzo

^That's sort of what I was thinking...

LouieW

glennmagusharvey,
Make something that displays unexpected or nonsensical behavior or
associations.  Point out these unexpected nonsensical behaviors or assumptions with a humorous light, drawing attention to them and possibly emphasizing them.

I am not sure if I am just pointing out the obvious or not, but it seems to me that you basically just defined humor itself there. At least, that is true if you follow the dictionary.com definition of humor as "a comic, absurd, or incongruous quality causing amusement."

Essentially, I wonder how you can really determine if something is nonsensical or unexpected without an incredible amount of subjectivity, which from what I can tell just brings us back to square one as far as memes go.

MillerCross

Memes are unpredictable, really. What the internet will accept as amusing enough to repeat over and over again depends both on the places where it happens and the timing.

Not to mention that memes are also relative subjective and limited to a fandom, meaning that what some people from X fandom know and repeat endlessly would come off as wutworthy to others.

For example

This image is based in an injoke that only people familiar with Dr Who would understand, as Jack Harkness is both homosexual and an immortal, it comes off as obvious hypocritical humor.

Now, if you didn't have said explanation, it would be just another run-of-the-mill macro on the internet, but the in-joke is what makes it relatively witty.

Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that even if you could somehow harness what makes and what doesn't make a meme, you'll never be able to create a universal meme, as memes are relative to the groups you frequent.

Nyktos

I am pretty sure Jack is not homosexual.

ClockworkUniverse

Yeah, he's definitely bi.

Nyktos

> implying he is only attracted to things that have genders

MillerCross

Self declared omnisexual, but for RTD's purposes, entirely gay.

Nyktos

On Torchwood he's more or less gay, yeah, but on Doctor Who he mostly shows interest in women (and the Doctor).

Although even on Torchwood it definitely seemed at times as if he had a thing for Gwen.

MillerCross

I suppose, although his interest in rose seems to be something more akin to flirting for flirting's sake. That might be just me.

and we're talking about Jack, who thinks entirely with his penis