A meme is an idea, behavior, or style that spreads by means of imitation from person to person within a culture and often carries symbolic meaning representing a particular phenomenon or theme. A meme acts as a unit for carrying cultural ideas, symbols, or practices, that can be transmitted from one mind to another through writing, speech, gestures, rituals, or other imitable phenomena with a mimicked theme. Supporters of the concept regard memes as cultural analogues to genes in that they self-replicate, mutate, and respond to selective pressures. In popular language, a meme may refer to an Internet meme, typically an image, that is remixed, copied, and circulated in a shared cultural experience online.
Per Wikipedia, emphasis on what I consider the relevant bits. What way do you use it?
By your own highlighted parts, the cards in the OP are not memes. People don’t alter pictures of those signed cards and they don’t mutate. They don’t change via selective pressures as we don’t see new versions where people change the image or the text. Additionally, those pictures of the trading cards are not remixed. They’re shared unaltered. The OP is missing key traits of being a meme. The OP is a picture of some funny jokes that Mark Hamil wrote on some trading cards he autographed. They’re certainly entertaining, but they’re not memes.
I don’t think you understand what the concept of mutation/remix is then. “A horrified Luke sees his family killed” and then writing over it something cheeky about newfound freedom vastly alters (mutates) how the image is interpreted. “Selectice Pressures” could be something like a topical joke based on current events, in this case it’s the fact that he was signing cards at a convention, so the fan boy joke was informed by that situation.
A meme doesn’t need a multitude of variations to be considered a meme, that’s just going viral. It also doesn’t need to be a photoshopped image, changing the text is creation of a new meme, think advice animals. Simply changing how the image is received by a viewer is enough to be a meme, it’s nothing more complicated than that.
I use the first definition. To use the word simply to mean a picture that is shared doesn’t really match the original usage of this word. The act of sharing pictures is a meme. Some pictures that get shared a lot are memes. Mark Hamill writing on a picture is something obviously some people call a meme, but I think those people are using a new, and as far as I can tell, pointless, meaning of the word.
For it to be a meme, other people should also be doing something similar optimally in different variations - either before or after he signed these. For example to burn a funny message + signature in wood.
If this happened, idk. Potentially, this was/became a meme
Per Wikipedia, emphasis on what I consider the relevant bits. What way do you use it?
By your own highlighted parts, the cards in the OP are not memes. People don’t alter pictures of those signed cards and they don’t mutate. They don’t change via selective pressures as we don’t see new versions where people change the image or the text. Additionally, those pictures of the trading cards are not remixed. They’re shared unaltered. The OP is missing key traits of being a meme. The OP is a picture of some funny jokes that Mark Hamil wrote on some trading cards he autographed. They’re certainly entertaining, but they’re not memes.
Is it a meme now?
I don’t think you understand what the concept of mutation/remix is then. “A horrified Luke sees his family killed” and then writing over it something cheeky about newfound freedom vastly alters (mutates) how the image is interpreted. “Selectice Pressures” could be something like a topical joke based on current events, in this case it’s the fact that he was signing cards at a convention, so the fan boy joke was informed by that situation.
A meme doesn’t need a multitude of variations to be considered a meme, that’s just going viral. It also doesn’t need to be a photoshopped image, changing the text is creation of a new meme, think advice animals. Simply changing how the image is received by a viewer is enough to be a meme, it’s nothing more complicated than that.
So, just so I understand, you are using the word meme to mean images that are altered?
Is it a meme now?
I use the first definition. To use the word simply to mean a picture that is shared doesn’t really match the original usage of this word. The act of sharing pictures is a meme. Some pictures that get shared a lot are memes. Mark Hamill writing on a picture is something obviously some people call a meme, but I think those people are using a new, and as far as I can tell, pointless, meaning of the word.
Is it a meme now?
For it to be a meme, other people should also be doing something similar optimally in different variations - either before or after he signed these. For example to burn a funny message + signature in wood.
If this happened, idk. Potentially, this was/became a meme