this post was submitted on 20 Jan 2026
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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.
Look, I'm all for words evolving, but if someone points at a dog and says "cat", its fine to say "actually its a dog"
Same thing with memes.
If someone posts a selfie and writes "feeling frisky, might buy a taco" and thinks that's a meme, they are entitled to be wrong.
I'm entitled to continue shouting "that's not a fucking meme" until I die, and if someone wants to tell me "that's a weird hill to die on" I'll tell them that they should shut the fuck up and post memes instead of lecturing me about language.
I have certainly never been one of the "memes are just image macros" people, and obviously I'm not very open to accepting anything shared online as a meme. But there's a certain spirit of posts in-between that just has more effort and thought put into it (even if it's a shitpost) that I think there's some, be it ironic, integrity in a post that should be upheld if communities on a forum such as lemmy are to prosper. Which is why I think OPs image is a high quality meme, because at least some thought went into it, unlike Sarah's random thoughts on twitter.
For the same reason my blog post doesn't belong in a News community, the effortless screengrabs don't belong on a meme forum.
The word meme was coined as a philosophic analogue to the biologic word gene. It was essentially just a metaphor, a way to visualize how human consciousness and, by extension, human culture have changed over time. Ideas (read: abstract concepts, beliefs, knowledge, awarenesses, etc.) are like genes, they're the basic building-blocks by which human nature evolves. One ape once decided to start covering his junk and the other apes thought he looked pretty cool actually...and now we have the Met Gala and fucking fashion week. Another ape learned how to start a fire anytime he wanted and showed his buddies...and now all life on earth is at constant danger of being ended by one narcissistic doofus with the single push of a button.
Now it just means funny picture. But GOD FORBID it be a funny picture that doesn't have a specific font and have a stupid alliterative nickname with a 30 paragraph write-up on knowyourmeme.com ✊💦 Sorry it's not "enchanting" enough for you, whatever that means.
Look in the dictionary what Archaic means. No one upon the advent of the Internet used that definition, that you took a paragraph to describe, and is not what current users are trying to invoke. I don't know what the fuck knowyourmeme.com is and don't care to. All I'm saying is if I'm going to create something or post something, I better damn well have some thought process backing it up and not just posting silly screenshots that are gonna hit some massive likes on your chosen platform. Either that or GTFO.
I was just trying to explain it in a way I thought you might be able to understand, based on the content of your previous comments. You seemed confused. You still missed the point, but I don't take it personally. I can rephrase it for you: prescriptivism and gatekeeping are for backwards, petty bitches. Language is a meme, so unless every word in the tweet is completely unique from every other word ever used, screenshots count.