This document discusses internet memes and provides context on their history and evolution. It defines memes as ideas that spread from person to person, and internet memes as units of digital information that mutate as they spread online. It outlines the major eras in the development of internet memes from the 1980s to today, tracking their progression from text-based to multimedia. It also examines memes as a medium of self-expression, a bridge between people and mainstream media, and an approach to studying media and culture. Finally, it speculates on how the definition and role of memes may change in the future.

1. Know Your
Meme
YouPix Festival: Porto Alegre 2012

2. Ice Breaker #1: Weird Girl Dancing

3. What is a Meme?
• Meme: An idea that spreads from one person to another.
o Richard Dawkin's The Selfish Gene (1976)
o Ex: Slang, Expressions, Gestures, Methods, etc
o A concept that runs parallel to genes in Biology
• Internet meme: A unit of digital information passed from one
internet user to another or one site to another that
significantly mutates in form or content along the way
o Ex: Image, Video, Article, Hyperlink, etc
o Memes that are highly documentable

4. The Know Your Meme Database
• An online database that researches and archives Internet
memes, viral media and other online phenomena, powered
by the community and moderated by staff and power users.
• A hybrid of research community and daily internet news blog,
we track and study the latest trends on the web and older
classic memes.
• The world's largest resource of information on Internet
memes, with more than 3,200 entry submissions, over 1,200
confirmed memes and 10 million unique visitors per month.

5. A Brief History of Know Your Meme
• December 2007: Began as a short documentary series on
YouTube by co-founders Kenyatta Cheese, Ellie Rountree
and Jamie Wilkinson, later joined by Patrick Davidson and
Mike Rugnetta.
• December 2008: Spun off into a website as a Wikipedia-
style database and a research community.
• April 2011: Joined Cheezburger, a network of internet
famous blogs including FAILBlog, I Can Has Cheezburger,
Memebase and The Daily What.

6. About Cheezburger
One of the world’s largest internet humor publishers with 20
million daily users and 500 million monthly page views

7. The Know Your Meme Research Process

9. What is not a meme?
• An idea that is mass-produced and promoted by a single
individual or an organization is generally unqualified.
o Mainstream News Media vs. Memes
o Forced Meme vs. Memes
• A viral video is not necessarily an internet meme
o YouTube's VEVO Channel music videos are not memes
o Needs evidence of organic spread through mass participation
(active) rather than mass consumption (passive) of the media
• Notable Examples: #1 / #2 / #3 / #4 / #5

10. Ice Breaker #2: The Hitler Roll

11. A Brief History of the
Term "Internet Meme"
From 1980s ~ Now

12. 1980s to Mid-1990s:
Internet & Programming Culture
• Environment: Bulletin Board System (BBS) communities,
Usenet newsgroups, ICQ or Internet Relay Chatrooms
• Characteristics: Memes were self-referential in nature
(internet memes about the internet) and text-driven
conversations, such as ASCII art, emoticons, slang terms,
hoaxes and rumors, "rules" about online communications
• Timeline of Memes (80s to 90s): http://bit.ly/80sto90s

13. Late 1990s to Mid-2000s:
Humor & Geek Consumer Culture
• Environment: Male-centric humor websites ("no girls on the
Internet), Anonymous and socially exclusive communities,
multiplayer online games
o Bro communites: Newgrounds, Something Awful, FARK, General
Mayhem, B3ta, 4chan, YTMND, Bodybuliding Forum, FunnyJunk,
o Early Social networks: DeviantART, LiveJournal, MySpace
• Characteristics: Tech news, Video games, concepts of FAIL
(schadenfreude), WTF (non-sequitur) and N00b, shocking,
weird and unfiltered media, Digital Cameras, Flash
Animations
• Timeline of Memes: http://bit.ly/90sto2000s

14. Mid-2000s to Now: Viral Video &
Participatory Culture on a Global Scale
• Environment: Global Media-Sharing Sites, Social Networking
Platforms, Convergence of mainstream and the Internet
o YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Etc
• Characteristics: Multimedia conversations, viral video,
accidental stardom, participatory and inclusive culture, real
life consequences
• Examples: Click Here

15. Ice Breaker #3: Ultimate Muscle Roller Legend

16. The Current State of
Internet Memes
From Passive to Participatory Culture

17. 1. A basic medium of self-expression and
online conversations
• We express ourselves through multi-media objects with
recurring messages, themes or symbols.
o Ex: Reaction Images Macros, GIFs, Videos, Rage Comic Faces
• Humor and conciseness (being short) are powerful
currencies in online conversations. It says a lot without
saying too much.
• Already seen on internet humor forums of the 90s, but
now it has spread to virtually all social networking and
media-sharing platforms.

18. Wall of Text & TL;DR (Too Long; Didn't
Read)

19. Examples: Reaction Faces & Image
Macros
• We project our feelings and response through someone
else's facial expressions that are already familiar to us
o It is non-verbal and therefore concise and universally accessible
o Notable Examples: Click Here
• We express ourselves by changing the context of someone
else's image through text captions, or image macros
o An effect way to set the tone and context of your message
o Grammatical rules make the process more competitive and game-like
o Someone can beat to the same idea before you do!
o Notable Examples: #1 / #2 / #3 / #4 / #5

20. Rage Comics
• Began on 4chan in 2008 with
the Rage Guy (FFFUUUU)
• Rage Comic characters as the
universal building block of
Internet storytelling.
• Copying & pasting from
existing characters, rather than
drawing original characters
• Now it is an international
collaboration and many are
stencil art based on reaction
faces of famous people

21. 2. Internet memes as the Bridge between the People
and the Mainstream News Media
•
• Convergence of Pop Culture & Internet Culture
o Mainstream presence on the Internet grows => Wealth of remix
materials => Potential value in constructive criticism
• Memes can deliver feedback and criticism effectively
o TV Production Team <=> Audiences
o Manufacturers <=> Consumers
o The Government <=> Citizens
o The Public <=> Political / Social Activists
• Emergence of global hubsites amplifies its spread

22. Internet Memes as the Voice of the People
• Memes can deliver feedback and criticism to places with
suggestion boxes that are hardly ever opened
o Rage Against the Machine for No.1 Christmas, BP Oil
Spill, Mass Effect 3 Ending, Bronys' #SaveDerpy
campaign, Bring Back Toonami, #ExilePitBull, Wikileaks
• Viral success of "Oracao" by A Banda Mais Bonita da
Cidade vs. "Somebody That I Used to Know" by Gotye
o Both filmed in one take / Both became well-known after reaching
Facebook / there are snowclone jokes about the song and parody
songs with lyrics changed.

23. Internet Memes as a Propaganda Fuel or a
Promotional Tool
In Marketing & Advertisement: Click Here
Old Spice's Viral Ad Campaign: YouTube Channel & Participatory Videos
Keep Cooler's Marketing Campaign: MemeMaker & Rap Dos Memes (BR)
In Politics: Click Here
Herman Cain's Viral Campaign Ads: link
Mitt Romney's Amercia is with Matt app: link
In Activism & Movements: Click Here
- Arab Spring => 2011 Toronto Riot => Occupy Movement => 2011 UK Riot =>
2011 Toronto Student Protests => Russian Anti-Putin Protests => Mexico's
YoSoy132 Movement

24. 3. Memes as an Approach to Media & Cultural
Studies
• An explosive growth in availability of online media metadata
o They can answer when and where a piece of information was
uploaded, who uploaded it and how popular it has been.
o You can backtrace it and consequences will never be the same!
• Supercut as a microcosm of a pop culture meme
o It compiles, documents and deconstructs the history of a cliche or a
catchphrase in popular culture, thanks to standardization of metadata,
availability of source materials and cultural reference sites
o Notable Examples: http://bit.ly/SupercutVids

25. 3. Memes as an Approach to Media & Cultural
Studies
• By distancing away from a single author and focusing on the
variation and mutation by many, we can shed light on how
and why things spread that way. This perspective can help
us understand the distribution of power in cultural
influences.
o Ex: Shift in authority from 4chan to Reddit
• Identifying patterns that are found or spread universally
across different languages and Internet cultures:
o Misspelled language games: Tiopês (Brazil) / Preved
(Russia) / Dolan (Finnish-English) / Ermahgerd (English)
o Localization of Foreign Memes & Language Contact

26. Ice Breaker #4: I've Discovered Something Amazing

27. The Future of Memes
What Will "Memes" Mean in 2010?

28. Tomorrow's Definition of an Internet Meme
• Information that spreads rapidly on the Internet and lands the
headline on the next day (the buzzword status can lead to an
even faster meme cycle)
• It could become absorbed by the news media as a logical
replacement for the word "trend" (it may get hijacked by the
mainstream media altogether)
• Easy and acceptable like a text message and blurring the
line between pop culture and internet culture. Or music or
poetry of our generation that's looked down upon, but will be
recognized as culturally really important in the future.

29. Thoughts?
Thank You, YouPix and Porto Alegre!