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this post was submitted on 21 Aug 2023
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Star Wars Memes
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264 users here now
Hello there. Somehow, Star Wars memes have returned. It's not a trap, this is where the fun begins.
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Other universes to visit:
Separatist systems:
Oh hey some real SW content for a change (perhaps):
!starwarstelevision@lemmy.world
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IMPORTANT
Please do not post the "good friend" or similar copypasta
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Our galactic citizens have requested more specific rules, so here are a few.
The general idea is, if you're looking here for rules, you're probably someone who doesn't need to have them spelled out. You're fine. But anyway:
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This is a community for Star Wars memes. This means typically screenshots of Star Wars media with some text or context that's meant to be funny and/or thoughtful. All SW media is welcome: movies, games, comic books, fanart... Other kinds of content, like video links or meta memes (about this community, or Lemmy), are fine as well, just keep it on topic.
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We are all friends here, and love (sometimes love to hate) Star Wars. Be nice to each other.
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As fans of fictional media, we can be passionate. If you very strongly disagree with something or someone, take a deep breath before reacting. Anger leads to the dark side!
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Everything in Star Wars has happened a long time ago, in a galaxy far away, and it's a rich universe of millions of words and millions of years of history. So current Earthly matters really shouldn't concern us here. In other words, leave politics, philosophies and convictions behind the door. This applies even if it's about something related to Star Wars.
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Original content is preferred. Reposts are fine, just please limit to a maximum of 3 per day, per citizen. It is recommended, but not required, to mark original memes as (OC) and reposts as (repost).
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Local mods are the Jedi council. They may take actions that are necessary to maintain peace and stability of the Republic, even beyond the rules outlined here. Follow their guidance.
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Regular rules of the Lemmy.world instance apply.
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I was going to ask what people mean when they say "meme" now, because they do not seem to be using the word the way that I use it.
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
Is it a meme now?
I am pretty sure you still fail to understand the difference between the original meaning of the word and the meaning that you are using. www.tfd.com/meme.
By the original definition, no, it's not a meme. By the definition that you appear to be using, an image that has been modified, then sure, it's a meme.
I think you're getting really tunnel visioned on a single definition and not taking into account the context to which we are interacting, which is on the internet. An internet meme is not the same exact concept as what Dawkins originally was conveying when he coined the term meme. I'm not out here in academia so you'll have to forgive my shorthand of internet meme to just meme. In my defense before all you meme Scholars got on my case, the internet was included in my ~~thesis~~ title. Are the card signatures memes in a generational sense? No, but yet here we are discussing them four decades later, so maybe?
An internet meme has two defining characteristics in reproduction and intertextuality. Were they reproduced? Before today not to my knowledge, they could have been as I have demonstrated. However not every gene strain reproduces, are they less of a gene than others that do? If memes are the cultural analogues to genes then the capability to reproduce is what is needed. If the original image is a template then do his jokes count as a single reproduction? As for intertextuality well Mark did that by changing the context of the original image.
Is it a meme now?
These are really bad. Please stop.