“is this meme a fake?”
No. If an idea is out in the wild, being reproduced by folk then it’s not a fake meme – it is actually a meme. The given basis for starting the meme could be a total crock, but the meme itself is real. You know that because you can see it: look, there it is!
For a meme to be fake, we’d have to be talking about an activity or idea that wasn’t real, e.g. if we were all tweeting something likeLOL the #fizzwhizzcheesewhizz meme where you make a video of someone snorting spray cheese & popping candy ROFLCOPTER
and there was no shared practice of making those videos, then we’d be talking about a fake meme. Of course, if lots of us started tweeting and blogging and chatting about #fizzwhizzcheeswhizz then referring to the fictional video phenomenon would actually be a meme in it’s own right.
That’s pretty meta right there. I need to lie down.
By Canling He December 5, 2010 - 10:11 pm
What kind of “fake memes”? is reproduced in reality?
By Jon Hickman December 5, 2010 - 10:26 pm
I’m specifically referring to people asking about a thing on facebook – to do with changing your avatar to a cartoon character.
By Paul Vincent December 6, 2010 - 10:27 am
But are people – other than you – REALLY talking about “fake memes”, or is your “fake meme” meme really a fake “fake meme” meme?
By Jon Hickman December 6, 2010 - 10:36 am
folk were genuinely talking about “fake memes” on facebook and twitter all weekend. Mostly down to that NSPCC but I did a search and it’s more common than that.see this screen cap from a minute ago https://skitch.com/jonhickman/rdcrm/twitter-search-fake-meme