• just_an_average_joe@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    3 hours ago

    Have you ever heard of the phrase “a picture says a thousand word”?

    Memes became a thing at a time when even emojis weren’t even a thing; though smilies were present, it was too cumbersome and not mainstream. At that same time “personalized content” was only a capitalist wet dream. Most people watched the same selected channels thus creating a “mono culture”.

    Then phones with image sharing, widespread internet, and a bunch of other things became widespread enough that we needed way to quickly express complex emotions without both us and the other partner needing to know obscure name of that emotion/feeling. And that’s how memes became so popular.

    Nowadays, we no longer have that same mono culture. So only memes we have today, are the ones became viral on the internet.

    Sorry for the lecture…

    • glimse@lemmy.world
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      2 hours ago

      The words aren’t even the same tone of the original. The image isn’t being used to convey an idea, it’s just…there.