I was just remarking the other day on the (usually boomers) dismissal of memes: long tirade on the subject, ending with "memes are after all the raw building blocks from which sprang all language originally, so maybe don't diss memes."

Wait how are memes the building block? Most of them require text.

probably refering to meme in the academic sense i.e. in the original meaning of the term meme.

Oh makes sense

Most, not all. The most basic definition of meme from linguistics is simply a symbolic representation of an idea. Hieroglyphics and ideograms are memes. A cave painting might have been a meme, there isn'tenough info to be sure. I may have conflated the modern colloquial usage wuth the linguistic one, but they are not functionally different. If one had a visual format that included tfw for example, once the format was familiar, the tfw could be omitted, and then show a cartoon of a guy rocking back in a chair, with a startled look. This would then translate to that feeling when you rock back in a chair and almost fall but then you don't fall, with no words used. My meme culture knowledge is limited and my linguistics pretty rusty so maybe I' m off base. The spirit of my critique holds though, in that there's no reason to disrespect memes per se unless one's goal is to prevent the transfer of ideas since memes are pretty demonstrably good at doing that.

Tldr: what we call memes is a subset of the entity linguists call memes and both boil down to a symbolic method of information transfer. Does a painting with some text on it cease to be a painting because it has some text?

Hmm ok thx

i think the ambiguous and qualitative “better” is debatable but i’d say they’re at least equal and are good. at the least they get people interested in a subject, at best they explain a whole concept and can replace a book or essay, podcast or video.

a good example i’d argue is that the concept of mutual aid can easily be explained in a meme and that reading the book is not necessary to understanding the concept.

can one thoroughly critique a concept or theory based off a meme though? with my previous paragraphs i’d have to say yes but i guess “thorough” is subjective

Here is a huge advantage of memes over those ponderous texts. Memes do not have a thick stack of misrepresentative quotes to throw around sowing confusion. This seems to currently be the primary use of those old books.

I think memes do have draw backs. Though I think it would be funny to validate getting ones thoughts from memes. Being pro autonomy and doing anarchy isn't difficult or complex. You can do it well if you know very little.

Also a lot of concepts you can get a good understanding. Genuinely I think for people who aren't big readers memes are almost certainly better forms to gain understanding than books for people who are just ok at reading or have some sort of neurodivergence or disability that makes reading hard.

I think for a lot of people in an hour they will be wa better at implementing egoist practice into their life if they read good max stirner memes than if they tried to slog through the unique and it's property and even willful disobedience.

So I think from an accessibility standpoint memes portray a pretty decent grasp of knowledge in a far more accessable way. This isn true for everyone because there is no one size fits all accessibility

So I agree basically

I usually just end up having shouting arguments with my friends cuz I can't explain myself well 😭

all of this, well said

I just end up chanting: abolish all hierarchy, it isn't hard to understand. Lol. I used to get all worked up and into arguments but the chanting is soothing.

Pro: simplistic

Con: simplistic