Meme people: Prevalent types of content, means, and involvement

Our rooted data understood five chief kinds of meme quiddities one to united period to your same family: Target, specific character, general character, action, and terminology. After the difference between real visual quiddities and conceptual textual of these (Lewis, 2012 ; Spitzberg, 2014 ), i developed a description to have quiddity concreteness. The initial two classes-things (including Mentos in “Diet Mentos”) and certain characters (for example Bert when you look at the “Bert is actually Worst”)-are extremely apparent and you will tangible. General emails (for instance the various kittens when you look at the “LOLcats”) and you will actions (like the dance movements in the “This new Evolution from Moving”) will always be visible, but their manifestation you can expect to go from you to for example to another. Ultimately, rather than obvious things, sentences may be the minimum real or the really abstract of all kinds. After that division, i measured this new portion of instances for the per nearest and dearest you to consisted of keeps of each of the groups. For every single meme such as for example into the a family group must include at the very least one kind of quiddity. New quiddity concreteness peak are received for each meme relatives situated on weighted millions of the five-quiddity communities: object and you can certain profile (1), simple profile and you will procedures (0), and you will terms (?1).

Quiddity brands

During the RQ1 i requested do you know the prevalent style of quiddities that join meme household together. Our studies showed that action is among the most commonly used quiddity in the attempt (42.2% from meme era), followed closely by statement (38.5%). Particular reputation (29%) and you may object (23%) was indeed less frequent, that have general reputation (fifteen.7%) trailing behind. You should remember that the conclusions show that the fresh head quiddity is largely unlike brand new universal services searching inside the newest codebook for some meme household. In fact, in 90% of your meme group, the fresh new quiddity was particular and therefore wasn’t within the simple qualities. Like, regarding the “Star Wars Child” family members, the brand new act out-of attacking having laser beam swords are a very specific quiddity, and thus could not become caught of the generic attributes of this new codebook.

Into the RQ2 i expected hence layouts, forms, and you may participation formations is commonplace (and you will marginal) inside the modern websites memes. I found that popular society (26.5%), food (19.1%) and the new media (sixteen.3%) have been the most popular subject areas; nationality (2.6%), latest situations (3.2%), and you may work and you can employment (step 3.3%) were the least popular subject areas. With regards to sex, men users (59.4%) was indeed represented twice more frequently as the female members (twenty-seven.3%). Young ones and you can young people (38.7%) seemed extremely, if you find yourself senior players was basically at least portrayed (5.6%) with respect to age group. Caucasian participants (49.5%) was indeed the absolute most depicted cultural group, if you find yourself Hispanic otherwise Latino players the least (0.2%). Eventually, when it comes to mode, very circumstances have been photos (56%) or films (42.6%) instead of absolute textual memes (1%). As a whole, this type of results validate some of the observations manufactured in the latest qualitative education described more than, in which the memetic areas are called reigned over by more youthful, white people. In terms of templates, media-built playfulness seems to have already been much more high than just involvement which have government. Very according to detailed statistics at least, government is quite limited regarding memetic sphere. Yet, as the unfolded lower than, network research will inform united states a more complex story.

The latest cohesiveness of common characteristics within the meme household

While the detailed more than, one of the aims for the analysis would be to have a look at brand new the total amount out-of cohesiveness away from meme household when it comes to its common functions (RQ3). Contour dos suggests the new system of memes revealing comparable stuff features. To make the brand new visual investigation sharper, we inform you here simply five meme parents you to definitely show a couple of otherwise much more qualities. The dimensions of new node is short for the system studies, put another way, the other meme times it shares blogs attributes which have. Like, the original meme of “Log off Britney Alone” ‘s the biggest node, sharing no less than one or two stuff services that have 56 (from 83) other meme circumstances. “Graffiti” and you may “Birmingham” is actually each other cases of the brand new “Pepper Spraying Policeman” meme family. They are the minuscule nodes in the community, discussing several articles characteristics that have a couple other meme times. Brand new thickness of the link is short for what number of mutual attributes. Such as, the brand new links anywhere between instances of the latest “Hop out Britney By yourself” have become thicker, which means that he is nearly the same as each other when it comes out of articles. The Sapiosexuelle Dating-Webseite first meme and its era show around 9 (out of sixteen) content attributes with each other.