Well, yeah, basically. Evolution of the idea as it spreads is also an important part.
It’s funny to me how so many loud linguistic prescriptivists (not you necessarily, but seemingly the person you responded to) don’t even know the original definitions of the words they’re so ferociously and futilely trying to gatekeep. It’s like being mad at new generations of kids for making up their own slang, good luck slowing that train down.
They don’t say what they mean. People aren’t trying to portray the original archaic definition in their posts, they are trying to invoke the newer much more modern meaning of the word, and it’s disenchanting because if any social evolution is a meme then the word becomes arbitrary. “Memes” today are just images for pointless engagement on that train.
I genuinely don’t believe anyone who thinks this way is over the age of 20. Memes being funny pictures on the Internet is all they’ve ever known because they never had any other experience. No one had that talking point you quoted until recent years, and they regurgitate it just like they do with everything else on the web.
“Noooo a meme is any idea conveyed through social contagion”
Well, yeah, basically. Evolution of the idea as it spreads is also an important part.
It’s funny to me how so many loud linguistic prescriptivists (not you necessarily, but seemingly the person you responded to) don’t even know the original definitions of the words they’re so ferociously and futilely trying to gatekeep. It’s like being mad at new generations of kids for making up their own slang, good luck slowing that train down.
They don’t say what they mean. People aren’t trying to portray the original archaic definition in their posts, they are trying to invoke the newer much more modern meaning of the word, and it’s disenchanting because if any social evolution is a meme then the word becomes arbitrary. “Memes” today are just images for pointless engagement on that train.
I genuinely don’t believe anyone who thinks this way is over the age of 20. Memes being funny pictures on the Internet is all they’ve ever known because they never had any other experience. No one had that talking point you quoted until recent years, and they regurgitate it just like they do with everything else on the web.