All of our rooted studies understood four head categories of meme quiddities that joined period towards exact same loved ones: Target, particular character, simple reputation, step, and you will terminology. Following difference between concrete visual quiddities and you may abstract textual of these (Lewis, 2012 ; Spitzberg, 2014 ), we built a dimension to possess quiddity concreteness. The original a couple of classes-items (eg Mentos inside “Eating plan Mentos”) and you can certain emails (such as for example Bert within the “Bert was Evil”)-is extremely apparent and you may real. Generic emails (such as the certain cats into the “LOLcats”) and you may actions (like the dancing moves inside “This new Evolution out of Dance”) are obvious, but their expression you can expect to go from you to definitely like to another. In the end, as opposed to obvious stuff, sentences are definitely the minimum real or even the really conceptual of all of the kinds. Following this division, i counted the fresh new percentage of times in for every family relations that contains features from each one of the categories. For every meme eg during the a family group was required to have at the very least one type of quiddity. The fresh quiddity concreteness height is actually obtained for each and every meme loved ones situated towards weighted an incredible number of the 5-quiddity communities: target and you will certain reputation (1), universal character and you will actions (0), and you will terms (?1).

Quiddity models

Into the RQ1 i requested what are the prevailing kind of quiddities one bind meme parents together. Our studies indicated that action is considered the most frequently used quiddity throughout the attempt (42.2% away from meme times), with statement (38.5%). Certain reputation (29%) and object (23%) were less common, that have generic character (fifteen.7%) about about. It’s important to note that our very own findings show that the fresh head quiddity is actually largely unlike new universal functions lookin for the the newest codebook for the majority of meme parents. In fact, inside 90% of the meme family members, the fresh new quiddity is actually Interracial dating online specific for example wasn’t as part of the common services. Like, throughout the “Superstar Battles Child” loved ones, this new act out-of fighting which have laser beam swords are a very specific quiddity, meaning that could not getting caught from the universal attributes of this new codebook.

During the RQ2 i requested which layouts, versions, and you will involvement formations is actually common (and you will limited) in latest internet sites memes. We unearthed that prominent society (twenty-six.5%), dining (19.1%) and you will the latest mass media (16.3%) were the best information; nationality (dos.6%), most recent events (3.2%), and you can works and you may a job (step 3.3%) was in fact minimum of well-known subjects. In terms of intercourse, male professionals (59.4%) have been portrayed twice more frequently once the women people (27.3%). Youngsters and young people (38.7%) checked very, while you are older members was indeed minimum of illustrated (5.6%) in terms of age group. Caucasian people (44.5%) was basically probably the most represented cultural category, whenever you are Hispanic or Latino users at least (0.2%). Eventually, regarding form, most times was indeed pictures (56%) otherwise movies (42.6%) instead of natural textual memes (1%). Typically, such findings validate some of the observations manufactured in the brand new qualitative knowledge revealed a lot more than, where in actuality the memetic industries are described as controlled by the younger, light people. When it comes to templates, media-created playfulness seemingly have become so much more high than involvement which have politics. Therefore based on descriptive statistics at least, government is rather marginal on memetic fields. But really, due to the fact unfolded lower than, circle research will state us a state-of-the-art story.

This new cohesiveness away from common features for the meme family

While the detailed over, among the tries on the data were to consider new extent out-of cohesiveness from meme parents with respect to its generic attributes (RQ3). Shape 2 reveals brand new community out of memes revealing comparable stuff services. To help make the new visual research better, i let you know here only five meme household one to display a few otherwise a lot more features. The size of this new node means its system training, put differently, how many other meme period it shares blogs features that have. Such as for instance, the first meme of “Get off Britney Alone” ‘s the prominent node, discussing at least a couple of stuff characteristics with 56 (away from 83) almost every other meme times. “Graffiti” and you may “Birmingham” is actually each other instances of the “Pepper Jet Cop” meme members of the family. These are the littlest nodes in the network, discussing a couple posts services with two other meme circumstances. The brand new thickness of the wrap is short for the amount of common properties. Such, brand new connections ranging from instances of new “Hop out Britney By yourself” have become thick, which means he’s much like each other in terms away from posts. The initial meme and its particular hours display around nine (away from sixteen) posts properties collectively.