dissertation submission memes

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• CAREER COLUMN
• 12 May 2021

The 100 memes that immortalize my PhD defence

• Sophie Dufour-Beauséjour 0

Sophie Dufour-Beauséjour works as a policy analyst for the Government of Canada’s Climate Change Preparedness in the North Program.

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

I finished my PhD on sea-ice dynamics in Nunavik, an Inuit territory in the Canadian Arctic, during the pandemic. My defence took place on 30 October 2020, over Zoom.

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doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-021-01273-8

This is an article from the Nature Careers Community, a place for Nature readers to share their professional experiences and advice. Guest posts are encouraged .

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PhD Memes About Research Life | High Impact PhD memes

ilovephd phd memes

Explore the world of “High Impact PhD Memes,” where humor meets academia. This collection of memes delves into the unique challenges and relatable moments of the PhD journey. From battling writer’s block to celebrating small victories, these memes capture the essence of research life. Join fellow doctoral candidates in sharing a laugh and finding solace in shared experiences. Get ready to dive into the comical side of academia!

Check this impact meme, interesting and funny PhD memes about research life from iLovePhD Memes Facebook Page

This is how I Run my PhD Life with Research Problems and Life Problems

Research Gap Identified

A Night Before Thesis Defense

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I heard he’s doing PhD in stress management

ILovePhD’s Meme Presented in the Final Thesis Defense

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Motivation During First and Final year of the PhD

Can you Proof Read my Article

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Ph.D. Couple Goals | We Love PhD

Forget Princess I Want to be a Scientist – PhD Memes

Difference between First and Fifth year in LAB

PhD Scholar after Thesis Defence

Graphical Abstract vs. Abstract – PhD Memes

Welcome to PhD – Memes

When you notice people reading your research work but no one citing it.

Where is the novelty

PhD advisor before and after PhD admission

What if someone had published your idea

Eat and Innovate

Difference between Theory and Practice

Procrastination to write a research paper

Advisor with new project ideas

What I am doing in Life | Why I joined PhD

Show the difference between existing vs proposed work

Before deadline vs after deadline

When your experiment gives outstanding result but you don’t know how

The idea of graduating and having to write my thesis

When scholar says he/she will submit manuscript draft tomorrow, but it’s been 6 months now

When everything is going wring in your life but you’re used to it

Study vs Stress Meme

Lab on Sunday

When you start thinking about your research during dinner

“High Impact PhD Memes” offers a humorous and relatable glimpse into the world of research and academia. These memes resonate with the experiences of doctoral candidates, highlighting the challenges, victories, and moments of camaraderie that define the PhD journey. As we explore this collection, it becomes evident that humor can be a powerful tool for coping with the rigors of research life. So, whether you’re in the midst of your own PhD adventure or simply curious about the world of academia, these memes provide a lighthearted and insightful perspective that brings a smile to your face and a sense of connection to the scholarly community.

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Thirty PhD Memes For The Grad Student Who's Checked The Eff Out

Grad school is no joke; you're stressed out all the damn time and you can't catch any sort of break ever. But if you do in fact find yourself with a fleeting moment to take a break, we think you'll like scrolling through these relatable memes for anyone in the thick of finishing up their PhD.

If you want to feel even more angry about your academic woes, click here for more grad school memes!

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• 40+ Hilarious research memes that will make you smile

Şeyma Beyazçiçek

Researches are part of our lives, especially if you are a forever learner. While doing research, we have been through similar difficulties or experienced the same feelings. In order to show these common points, internet memes come to our aid!

In this blog, you will see excellent any kind of material, such as UX research memes, clinical research memes, psychology research memes, and research paper memes. If you want to take a break and enjoy your time, you should definitely take a look at our 40 hilarious Research memes that will make you laugh :  

• 1. Tip of the iceberg

#1 Research meme - Source: Facebook - High Impact PhD

In the background of each research, there are nights, days, weeks, and even months spent time and effort for the research. So, the paper itself is just a little concrete form of all the effort and work. 

2. There is no destination!

#2 Research meme - Source: Make a meme

Researches are like living. There is no destination, but it is a journey! As you read and see, you will realize the limitless world of knowledge. 

3. But it sounds cool, isn’t it?

#3 Research meme - Source: Quick meme

When we need to do research, the first thing to do is to google it, right? We seem to have no better option as the first step in our era. 

4. Don’t want to check🫣

#4 Research meme - Source: Ah See it

Before submitting the paper, reading it might feel like it is not good enough. If you do not want to feel like that, all you need to do is submit it without the last check. 🤗

• 5. Memes matter🤨

#5 Research meme - Source: Reddit

When it comes to doing Research about anything not related to the Research topic, everything seems to be worth reading and learning. Especially if it is a meme!

6. They are always one step ahead!

#6 Research meme - Source: Facebook- High Impact PhD Memes

It is undeniable that applied research with sensational findings always gathers more attention and funding. Basic research is always doomed to lose spotlights. 😏

7. Vs the reality

#7 Research meme - Source: Pinterest

When you tell people that you are doing psych research, everybody imagines something different. However, the reality is completely different from their picture. But calm down; at least we know that you are drowning among the papers.

8. Don’t want to be THAT person

#8 Research meme - Source: Illinois

If you are the person who made somebody do psych Research or made them into psychology, you should definitely question yourself and your actions. 👀 

9. None can say the opposite!

#9 Research meme - Source: Giphy

If one has never done any research, s/he can assume that you begin a research, develop, and finish it. Nevertheless, of course, the process is way much more complicated than that! 

• 10. Welcome to the Research-lover club🫶

#10 Research meme - Source: Imgflip

If you are into research, any topic will be a duty for you. A new phone? A holiday plan? A trip abroad? Considered it done because the necessary research is done!

11. Me trying not to be a square

#11 Research meme - Source: Facebook- High Impact PhD Memes 

When you attempt to try a new research method for the first time, you might feel the anxiety of not knowing what you are doing. But as you do, it gets better, we promise. 

12. That’s the only smart thing to do 😎

#12 Research meme - Source: Meme-arsenal

Before making an important decision, no matter what, you should definitely do your research because it is how cool people act! 

13. UX Research is everything!

#13 Research meme - Source: Playbook UX

If you are a UX designer, you can share this meme with confidence. The picture given above summarizes the importance of UX research very well. 

14. Watch me, then 😈

#14 Research meme - Source: Pinterest

Yes, probably it is not a paper that can be written the night before; we know that. But if there is no other option left, it is possible turning into a writing machine. ⌨️

• 15. It is a serious job🧐

#15 Research meme - Source: Memes

While doing research, the most significant part is to collect data related to your topic in your most serious mood. It is essential but hard to keep this mood for a long time. 

16. Am I just perfect or bad at self-feedback?

#16 Research meme - Source: Tumblr

It seems like it is easier to find somebody else’s errors or criticize it. But when it comes to ours, our mistakes come suddenly invisible. Science needs to explain this!

17. I want to break free🎶

#17 Research meme - Source: McGill

While working on our research papers, we know that you do not completely feel free and work as you wish. Practicum supervisors are like a limit for research. 

18. Above the clouds☁️

#18 Research meme - Source: Imgflip

While doing the research, there is always a crowd of tabs that we cannot dare close. But, when we complete the research, it is the most satisfying feeling to close all the tabs finally.

19. So am I…

#19 Research meme - Source: Make a meme

This process is challenging both physically and psychologically, for sure. So, finishing a research paper might feel like someone who survived a battle scene. 

• 20. Look, I am famous!

#20 Research meme - Source: Twitter-High Impact PhD Memes

It is a really really satisfactory feeling to see your work online! Also, reading your work from someone else’s perspective is quite fun. 

21. It is hard to keep your energy stable 📉

#21 Research meme - Source: Meme-arsenal

At the beginning of the semester, we have big energy and motivation to start our paper. However, at the end of the semester, it is hard to feel the same enthusiasm and energy.  

22. Why would they?😭

#22 Research meme

Yes, we know that the question is optional, but still, it hurts us… When the respondents skip the question, we feel the rejection of the bone. 💔

23. So, what a medical researcher does?

#23 Research meme - Source: Mosio

When you tell people that you are a medical researcher, everybody might assume or imagine your work differently. This meme given above is a good illustration of the situation. 

24. The hardest part is done 👍

#24 Research meme - Source: Quick meme

Sometimes, it is hard to understand the topic or instructions of the research. When you understand it, it gets easier. However, when you complete your research and realize that you did wrong from the beginning, it is like a nightmare!

• 25. No kid, just no.

#25 Research meme - Source: Memes happen

Yes, Wikipedia is also a source of information. But when the data is taken as copy and paste, it is an unacceptable mistake that a professional never ever does!

26. It is worthy ✨

#26 Research Meme

Looking at your final work and being able to be proud of the paper feels like a real victory! Is the paper good? Yes. Am I okay? Doesn’t matter. 🤝

27. Hard to tell🤔

#27 Research meme - Source: Make a meme

Both quantitive research and qualitative research have pros. But it is like a dilemma to make a decision between these two. 

28. But I googled it 😏

#28 Research meme - Source: Quick meme

Yes, it is not possible to do our research in libraries. Instead, we google our questions and topics. Still, it is research, isn’t it?😇

29. Do not confuse me, please🙏

#29 Research meme - Source: Twitter - Iopsyche Memes

Sometimes, our research does not give us what we want. However, we can turn these opposite ideas into the next work. Looking on the bright side is our job! 

• 30. Which one are you?

#30 Research meme - Source: 9GAG

If you want to be the muscled dog, take your job seriously. Otherwise, you will be the weak dog if you do not work like a professional! 

31. 🥁Drum rolls🥁

#31 Research meme - Source: Memes happen

Imagine that you have already prepared the 15 pages of your research, and your PI tells you to start over. The pain🤡

32. It is time to be serious

#32 Research meme - Source: Cheezburger

Yes, the research is important. There should not be any spelling errors. But memes never allow spelling eros. Check it once, twice, three times, four times, five times….

33. That critical decision

#33 Research meme - Source: Meme-arsenal

It is essential to read the important papers related to the topic. But when it takes too much time and delays the time of starting your own research, it might feel anxious.😶

34. Let’s calm down

#34 Research meme - Source: Joey deVilla

One cannot deny that Google is a source of information today. But still, simply scrolling through pages on Google does not give you a good research paper. 

• 35. Let your confidence speak!

#35 Research meme - Source: Giphy

When you are well-equipped for a topic that you have done your research before, and you witness that someone is talking totally wrong about it, you can let your self-confidence speak!

36. A product without UX Research?!

#36 Research meme - Source: Twitter - Doug Collins

The importance of UX research can be fully understood when a product is launched without UX research. 

37. Let’s make it spicy🪩

#37 Research meme - Source: LinkedIn

If your cries for help are ignored, all you need to do is to name the docs in a fun way, just like the example given above. 😊

38. The moment of confusion

#38 Research meme - Source: Memes

When you think about too much of your research, it starts to seem wrong and correct at the same time. So, not to feel burn-out, avoid thinking about too much. 

39. Social media and research?

#39 Research meme - Source: Ah See It 

Digital culture has changed many things. When we witness someone on social media mention their research, it does not sound reassuring, right? 

• 40. It is what it is

#40 Research meme - Source: Make a meme

I have not slept, and I have not eaten properly lately. I am also not socializing in these last days. But it does not matter because I finished my research. 👍 

In this post, we have collected funny research paper memes, UX research memes, funny clinical research memes, or research memes in gif forms to make you smile. Memes are an excellent form of common feelings, and if these memes were able to help you have a great time, we are even happier than you! 

Şeyma is a content writer at forms.app. She loves art and traveling. She is passionate about reading and writing. Şeyma has expertise in surveys, survey questions, giveaways, statistics, and online forms.

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If You've Ever Struggled With A PhD, You're Going To Find These 41 Memes Hilarious

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Painfully Hilarious Dissertation Memes Any Final Year Student Can Relate To

The end of March may mean that we are one step closer to Summer, but unfortunately it also means that students across the country are one step closer to deadlines.

While exams can be pretty terrifying, the one universal fear all final year uni students have is the dissertation. Handing in such a huge piece of work is intimidating, and writing it is even more stressful. Even though you have practically a whole year, the last month is usually filled with lots of long days at the library and having nightmares about being over the word count.

If you’re in the thick of it now, why not give yourself five minutes off frantically writing your bibliography and citing endless sources to laugh at some memes? I suppose one positive of diss season is that you’re not alone, and there’s a whole internet out there of people going through the same thing.

Like this person, who is so close and yet so far away. But they’re not letting that stop them from seeing the end in sight.

I've written 4000/7000 words for my dissertation!! We're getting there! I can taste the freedom already! pic.twitter.com/bajX3wduXx — Rachel 💕 (@Nixiebee1) March 26, 2022

Yep, there’s not much time to enjoy any other books when you’re having to consume so many already for your diss. There’s not much time to enjoy anything at all, come to think of it.

The thing they don’t tell you about being close to finishing your dissertation is the amount of books you begin to hoard for pleasure reading since you haven’t been able@to in the last 3 years. #books pic.twitter.com/vqmZYQgcpl — Deja Boom (@boom_deja) March 26, 2022

A question we ask ourselves everyday.

but would my dissertation defend ME 🥺😭 — Andréa “Dre” Becker (@andreavbecker) March 24, 2022

I thought it was just me who did this, but turns out it’s human nature to be incredibly nosy. A dissertation topic says a lot about a person though, right?!

As we enter dissertation season please post a clear photo of your dissertation title with your dissertation submission posts because I'm nosy — muir (@leispiachh) April 23, 2021

This sums up how it feels to bash out 12,000 words including footnotes, citations, and a bibliography. No, we’re not okay.

[apologies for being very slow on the new content side of things ! dissertation season is killing and i currently look like this :))] pic.twitter.com/Bq1af8Zr2i — out of context bts (@BTS_nocontext) February 16, 2021

Yes, we are excited for Summer, but Spring just comes with so many responsibilities. There’s Mother’s Day, dissertation deadlines, final assignments, exams, job interviews, post graduate applications. The list is endless.

It's registration advising season. And spring application season. And conference season. And thesis/dissertation crunch time season. And family members need gift ideas for the kids season. And… pic.twitter.com/kmvJl5K4mI — Kevin R. McClure (@kevinrmcclure) November 1, 2021

Literal footage of me running back to the library every time I remember how much of my diss I have left to write.

✊🏾✊🏾✊🏾 Runs back to barely-filled dissertation document. pic.twitter.com/UC1QP8EqqP — Metaphors & Memes (ABD) (@CulturedModesty) March 23, 2022

This picture of Harry Styles is such a dissertation mood.

Me when it’s time to submit my dissertation tomorrow https://t.co/axyGww9VxB — Laura🪆 (@krystkiewiczl) March 23, 2022

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York student’s dissertation a ‘first’ on memes

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Posted on 19 October 2017

A University of York English graduate has gained a top grade for his trailblazing dissertation on the social media phenomenon of ‘memes’.

Memes are virally-transmitted symbols and ideas – generally knowledge, jokes and gossip – that spread rapidly via social media, often changing slightly as they travel from person to person.

Julian Porch’s 8,000-word dissertation, which was awarded a First, takes stock of where we are with memes today and how we got there. It also analyses memes as a form of political discourse, and explores how they are pushing the boundaries of how people communicate and create comedy.

Despite their popularity and reach, relatively little academic work has been done on memes. This allowed Julian to seize the opportunity to do some really original and up-to-date research and thinking.

Professor Helen Smith, Head of York’s Department of English and Related Literature , said: “It was hugely exciting to have the chance to work with Julian on this cutting-edge project.

“The history of communication - how people create and convey meaning - is a central part of literary studies these days, and an area where English at York has real strengths. We study everything from the question of how scribes transformed the works of Chaucer, to how the printing press created new media possibilities.

“So Julian's work draws on a very rich tradition of scholarship and research, and poses important questions about how meaning is constructed on line, how reading communities are created, and how they deliberately exclude those who aren't in the know.”

Julian acknowledges that memes have undergone many transformations since their infancy and identifying exactly when they began is not easy.

He said: “It’s hard to pinpoint ‘the rise of the meme’, but certainly some of the earliest examples of memes as we understand them today are Rage Comics. Characterised by stock photos with an accompanying caption in Impact font, Rage Comics are the grandparents of the multifaceted memes we see today.”

Julian particularly likes ‘post-ironic’ memes – memes which are completely abstract. He said: “Post-ironic memes are often completely absurd images coupled with near-incomprehensible captions which have been deliberately misspelled. And yet a lot of people in online communities find these really funny. That's a real interest of mine - how comedy is being created in these abstract and bizarre ways."

Political discourse

Through his dissertation, Julian identifies both the positives and negatives of memes in terms of political discourse. For example, he believes memes are successfully engaging a generation of younger people in politics and world events.

However, he points out that there is a risk of memes oversimplifying the nuances of specific policies and party politics into simple titbits produced for comedic or entertainment value as opposed to sincere political engagement.

But whether positive or negative, Julian firmly believes memes are much more than a passing fad.  

“Memes are absolutely here to stay,” he said. “They have ingrained themselves into the essence of social media consumption and communication via digital media more generally.  As long as these platforms exist, so will memes.

“Due to the speed at which social media can absorb and disseminate information, the viral nature of memes enables them to be created and spread and viralised within moments of an event occurring. When responding to significant world events, memes can very simply encapsulate those situations, ideas, thoughts and feelings in an easily consumable medium. They satisfy both a desire for immediacy in an increasingly interconnected world and a wish to have a voice in those conversations.”

Julian graduated from York’s Department of English and Related Literature this summer with a 2:1 honours degree overall and is now working as the Academic Officer with the University of York Students’ Union (YUSU).

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Article Contents

Memes in a digital world: reconciling with a conceptual troublemaker, memes: from academic to public discourse (and back), memes' promises and pitfalls for analyzing digital culture, unpacking internet memes, leave britney alone, acknowledgments, about the authors.

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Memes in a Digital World: Reconciling with a Conceptual Troublemaker

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Limor Shifman, Memes in a Digital World: Reconciling with a Conceptual Troublemaker, Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication , Volume 18, Issue 3, 1 April 2013, Pages 362–377, https://doi.org/10.1111/jcc4.12013

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This paper re-examines the concept of “meme” in the context of digital culture. Defined as cultural units that spread from person to person, memes were debated long before the digital era. Yet the Internet turned the spread of memes into a highly visible practice, and the term has become an integral part of the netizen vernacular. After evaluating the promises and pitfalls of memes for understanding digital culture, I address the problem of defining memes by charting a communication-oriented typology of 3 memetic dimensions: content, form, and stance. To illustrate the utility of the typology, I apply it to analyze the video meme “Leave Britney Alone.” Finally, I chart possible paths for further meme-oriented analysis of digital content.

Memes are a pain. Or so at least a glance into the world of academic literature would suggest. Ever since Richard Dawkins coined the term in 1976 to describe gene-like infectious units of culture that spread from person to person, memes have been the subject of constant academic debate, derision, and even outright dismissal. Recently, however, the concept once kicked out the door by many academics is coming back through the Windows (and other operating systems) of Internet users. In the vernacular discourse of netizens, the phrase “Internet meme” is commonly applied to describe the propagation of content items such as jokes, rumors, videos, or websites from one person to others via the Internet. According to this popular notion, an Internet meme may spread in its original form, but it often also spawns user-created derivatives.

The uptick in vibrant popular discourse about memes in an era increasingly defined by Internet communication is not coincidental. While memes were conceptualized long before the digital era, the unique features of the Internet turned their diffusion into a ubiquitous and highly visible routine. Memes, since at least as early as the 1990s, have been said to “replicate at rates that make even fruit flies and yeast cells look glacial in comparison” ( Dennett, 1993 , p. 205). In what follows, I explore the utility of memes for understanding digital culture, positing throughout the following two premises: First, that the intense emotions and dramatic statements characterizing both sides of the memes debate need to be toned down. While enthusiastic advocators argue that the meme explains everything and their opponents assert it explains and changes absolutely nothing, it might be worth asking whether the meme concept may be useful for something . In this endeavor I follow the footsteps of researchers such as Johnson ( 2007 ), Knobel and Lankshear ( 2007 ), Jones and Schieffelin ( 2009 ), Benett (2003), and Burgess ( 2008 ), who used the meme as a prism for understanding certain aspects of contemporary culture without embracing the whole set of implications and meanings ascribed to it over the years.

The second premise is that we should look at memes from a communication-oriented perspective. Coined by a biologist, the term meme has been widely adapted (and disputed) in many disciplines, to include psychology, philosophy, anthropology, folklore, and linguistics. For the most part, however, it was utterly ignored in the field of communication. Until the twenty-first century, mass communication researchers felt comfortable overlooking memes. As units that propagate gradually through interpersonal contact, they were considered unsuitable for exploring content that is transmitted simultaneously from a single institutional source to the masses. But this is no longer the case in an era of blurring boundaries between interpersonal and mass, professional and amateur, bottom-up and top-down communications. In a time marked by a convergence of media platforms ( Jenkins, 2006 ), when content flows swiftly from one medium to another, memes have become more relevant than ever to communication scholarship.

The questions I address in what follows are rather straightforward: How, if at all, is the meme concept useful for understanding digital culture? What important obstacles stand in the way of its being accepted in research, and how can these barriers be overcome? The answers to these questions unfold serially in five parts. In the first section, I interpret the meme concept and its controversial status in academia, as well as its revival in the vernacular discourse of Internet users. I then look at the promises and pitfalls of memes for understanding Internet culture, suggesting that some previous premises about the concept should be put aside. In the third part of this essay I delve into the problem of defining meme units, charting a communication-oriented typology of memetic dimensions. To illustrate the utility of this typology, I provide a detailed analysis of Chris Crocker's video meme “Leave Britney Alone” and its various imitations, as well as a short corroborative analysis of the more recent “Pepper-Spraying Cop” meme. Finally, I offer some thoughts about the potential meaning and relevance of this paper to the field of diffusion studies, charting possible paths for further meme-oriented analysis of new media.

The term meme was introduced by the biologist Richard Dawkins in his book The Selfish Gene (1976). As part of his larger effort to apply evolutionary theory to cultural change, Dawkins defined memes as small cultural units of transmission, analogous to genes, which are spread from person to person by copying or imitation. Examples of memes in his pioneering text include specific signifiers such as melodies, catchphrases, and clothing fashions, as well as abstract beliefs (for instance, the concept of God). Like genes, memes are defined as replicators that undergo variation, competition, selection, and retention. At any given moment, many memes are competing for the attention of hosts; however, only memes suited to their sociocultural environment spread successfully, while others become extinct ( Chielens & Heylighen, 2005 ).

The word meme derives from the Greek mimema , signifying “something which is imitated,” which Dawkins shortened to rhyme with gene. Interestingly, a similar term to signify cultural evolution had appeared a century earlier. In 1870 the Austrian sociologist Ewald Hering coined the phrase Die Mneme (from the Greek mneme , meaning memory), which the German biologist Richard Semon used as a title for his 1904 book Die Mnemischen Empfindungen in ihren Beziehungen zu den Originalempfindungen ( Hull, 2000 ). Unaware of this existing terminology ( Dawkins, 2004 ), Dawkins' expression proved an accidental but successful imitation in itself: His concept survived and proliferated in the scientific world.

After more than a decade of sporadic and stuttering growth, memetics —understood as “the theoretical and empirical science that studies the replication, spread and evolution of memes” ( Heylighen & Chielens, 2009 , p. 1)—began to take shape as an active research program, drawing scientists from many fields in the 1990's ( Hull, 2000 ). Important landmarks on this path included contributions made by the prominent philosophers Douglas Hofstadter (1985) and Daniel C. Dennett ( 1990 , 1993 , 1995 ), the emergence of the Journal of Memetics between 1997 and 2005, and the publication of several meme-oriented books ( Boyd & Richardson, 2005 ; Brodie, 1996 ; Distin, 2005 ; Lynch, 1996 ). Of this stream, Susan Blackmore's The Meme Machine (1999) may well be the most influential, yet also the most disputed.

Since its early days, memetics has drawn constant fire. Among the criticisms raised against it, four positions are particularly relevant to our context. The first is the concept's ambiguity: There is disagreement about what precisely a meme is, which leads to difficulties in quantifying and measuring it. Second, the analogy between nature and culture feeding the field has been criticized as reductive, materialistic, and ineffective in describing complex human behaviors. Third, the conscious selection and mutation of memes has generated heated debates over human agency and memetic control. Finally, some critics claim that memetics has no added value: It does not offer tools or insights beyond those employed in traditional disciplines such as cultural anthropology or linguistics ( Benitez-Bribiesca, 2001 ; Chesterman, 2005 ; Rose, 1998 ). We shall return to these four quandaries—and to possible ways of addressing them.

While widely disputed in academia, the meme concept has enthusiastically been picked up by Internet users. A search of Google Trends suggests a spurt of interest on the subject since data collection began in 2008, and a quick Google query of the term “Internet meme” yielded around 1,550,000 hits (January 4, 2012), many of them leading to large interactive depositories of memetic content. For example, on the popular website Know your meme , “resident Internet scientists” appropriately dressed in white coats provide various explanations for the success of certain videos in generating wide attention ( http://knowyourmeme.com ). According to Knobel and Lankshear ( 2007 ), the word meme is employed by Internet users mainly to describe the rapid uptake and spread of a “particular idea presented as a written text, image, language 'move,' or some other unit of cultural 'stuff''” (p. 202). This vernacular use, the authors submit, is utterly different from the one prevalent in the academic study of memetics: If the former tends to describe recent, often short-lasting fads, longevity is the key of “serious” memetics, since successful memes are defined as the ones that survive in the longue durée . Another difference relates to the object of analysis: Whereas in memetics the unit of analysis itself is abstract and controversial, Internet users tend to ascribe the meme tag to concrete phenomena such as particular YouTube videos that lure many derivatives. “Leave Britney Alone,” the “Star War Kid,” Hitler's “Downfall” parodies, and the “Numa Numa guy” are particularly famous drops in a memetic ocean.

The yawning gap between popular and academic uses of memes may serve as a fertile site for an improved meme theory. Here I follow Johnson's ( 2007 ) assertion that memes may be of particular relevance for cultural analysis that is interested in deciphering the meaning of “seemingly superficial and trivial elements of popular culture” (p. 27). Thus, a promising starting point for this exploration would be in identifying and mapping memetic dimensions of texts previously crowned as successful Internet memes, with an eye toward examining whether Internet memes enrich our understanding of this controversial concept.

But before such an expedition begins, we need to get rid of some excess baggage. During its 25 years of existence, the term meme accumulated many meanings. Some of them seem very useful for understanding contemporary digital culture; others somewhat less. In the next section I will catalog and differentiate between them.

Three main attributes ascribed to memes are of particular relevance to the analysis of contemporary digital culture. First, memes may best be understood as cultural information that passes along from person to person, yet gradually scales into a shared social phenomenon . 1 Although they spread on a micro basis, memes' impact is on the macro: They shape the mindsets, forms of behavior, and actions of social groups ( Knobel & Lankshear, 2007 ). This attribute is highly compatible to the way culture is formed in the so-called era of Web 2.0, which is marked by application platforms for facilitating user-generated content. YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Wikipedia, and other similar applications are based on propagation of content, to paraphrase Lincoln, of users by users for users. Such sites represent “express paths” for meme diffusion: content spread by individuals can scale up to mass levels within hours. More broadly, this decentralized, nonhierarchical, and user-based model also drives new mindsets and social norms occupying media use ( Baym & Burnett, 2009 ; boyd, 2008 ; Jenkins, 2006 ; O'Reilly, 2007 ).

A second attribute of memes is that they reproduce by various means of imitation . In oral communication, people become aware of memes through their senses, process them in their minds, and then “repackage” them in order to pass them along to others ( Dawkins, 1982 ). In the digital age, however, people do not have to repackage memes: They can spread content as is by forwarding, linking, or copying. Yet a quick look at any Web 2.0 application would reveal that people do choose to create their own versions of Internet memes, in startling volumes. Two main repackaging strategies of memes are prevalent on the web: mimicry and remix. There is nothing new about mimicry —people have always been engaged in impersonating others. However in the web 2.0 era everyday mimetic praxis have turned into a highly visible phenomenon in the public sphere. Websites such as YouTube are flooded with imitations—almost any user-generated video that passes a certain threshold of views inspires a stream of emulations ( Shifman, 2012 ). The second strategy of memetic repackaging, remixing , is also extremely prevalent, as digital technology and a plethora of user-friendly applications enable people to download, re-edit, and distribute content very easily ( Lessig, 2008 ; Manovich, 2005 ). User-driven imitation and remix have become highly valued pillars of contemporary participatory culture, to the extent that one may argue that we live in an era driven by a hyper-memetic logic. 2 The term “meme” is particularly suitable to describe this glut of re-works, as the concept —deliberately connoting “mimesis”—is flexible enough to capture a wide range of communicative intentions and actions, spanning all the way from naïve copying to scornful imitation.

A third attribute of memes that makes them appealing for scholars interested in digital culture is their diffusion through competition and selection . Memes vary greatly in their degree of fitness, that is, their level of adaptiveness to the sociocultural environment in which they propagate ( Aunger, 2000 ). While processes of cultural selection are ancient, digital media have afforded researchers with the ability to trace the spread and evolution of memes ( Shifman & Thelwall, 2009 ). But it is not only experts who can now analyze digital traces on the Web—in many Web 2.0-friendly websites, metadata about viewing preferences, choices, and responses is constantly aggregated and displayed for all users to view ( Benkler, 2006 ; Burgess & Green, 2009 ). Thus, metainformation about competition and selection processes is increasingly becoming a visible part of the process itself.

The analysis so far presents memes and digital culture as a match made in heaven: The Internet is not only saturated with memetic activity, but also allows for its investigation in unprecedented ways. However, some controversies surrounding memes—in particular those I shall refer to as “biological analogies” and “who's the boss”—have hindered the wide uptake of the concept in studying digital culture.

Two biological analogies are especially prevalent in the discourse about memes: viruses and genes. The meme-as-virus analogy sees the similarity between memes and disease agents. Taking epidemiology as its model, it considers memes the cultural equivalents of flu bacilli, transmitted through the communicational equivalents of sneezes ( Alvarez, 2004 ). In Internet culture, this metaphor is prevalent in the highly visible discourse on “viral” content. Yet Jenkins et al. ( 2009 ) rightfully assert that this metaphor has been used in a problematic way, conceptualizing people as helpless and passive creatures, susceptible to the domination of meaningless media “snacks” that infect their minds.

The second prevalent biological metaphor for memes —deriving directly from Dawkins' work—takes evolutionary genetics as its model. However, some works have “pushed the analogy with the gene to its logical extremes” by seeking cultural equivalents for all principal evolutionary genetic concepts, including genotype, phenotype, transcription, and code ( Alvarez, 2004 , p. 25). This effort was criticized not only because memes behave very differently than genes ( Atran, 2001 ), but also since the reduction of culture to biology narrows and simplifies complex human behaviors. The prevalent notion is thus that the meme-gene analogy should be taken with many grains of salt ( Blackmore, 1999 ). Put differently, it is not necessary to think of biology when analyzing memes. The ideas of replication, adaptation, and “fitness” to a certain environment can be analyzed from a purely social/cultural perspective.

Another fundamental controversy in memetics, tagged here as “who's the boss,” relates to the issue of human agency in the process of meme diffusion. On one end of the spectrum, we find scholars such as Blackmore ( 1999 ), who claims that people are “meme machines” operated by the numerous memes they host and constantly spread. Nonetheless, I contend here that the undermining of human agency is not inherent to the meme concept itself—only to one strain of its interpretation. A number of works within the field of memetics are clearly opposed to it. Most important to this essay is Rosaria Conte's ( 2000 ) suggestion to treat people not as vectors of cultural transmission, but as actors behind this process. The dissemination of memes, she submits, is based on intentional agents with decision-making powers: Social norms, perceptions, and preferences are crucial in memetic selection processes. This conceptualization of people as active agents is highly appropriate for understanding how memes travel on the digital highway, particularly when examining cases in which the initial meaning of a meme is dramatically altered in the course of its diffusion.

If the biology-driven and power-driven controversies hinder the wide scholarly usage of memes, a third site of struggle—around the meme concept itself—may provide a path forward.

A core problem of memetics, maybe the core quandary, is the exact meaning of the term. The jury is still out on what is meant by “meme.” As mentioned above, Dawkins' ( 1976 ) initial definition of meme was quite ambiguous: He referred to it as “a unit of cultural transmission, or a unit of imitation” (p. 206). His set of meme examples spanned ideas (God), texts (nursery rhymes and jokes), and practices (Christian rituals). Ever since, the study of memes has been subject to disputes centering on the mind/body or genotype/phenotype dichotomy, yielding three positions regarding the nature of memes: mentalist-driven, behavior-driven, and inclusive.

Mentalist-driven memetics, represented by leading scholars in the field such as Dawkins himself (in his 1982 clarification of the theory), Dennett ( 1995 ), and Lynch ( 1996 ), is based on the differentiation between memes and meme vehicles. According to this school of thought, memes are ideas or pieces of information that reside in our brain. They are not simple ideas such as red, round, or cold, but complex ones that “form themselves into distinct memorable units” such as the ideas of alphabet, chess, or Impressionism ( Dennett, 1995 , p. 344). In order to be passed along from one person to another, memes are “loaded” on various vehicles: images, texts, artifacts or rituals. According to this view, those observable meme vehicles are equivalent to phenotypes—the visible manifestation of genes. In other words, memes are idea complexes and meme vehicles, their tangible expressions.

In contrast, the stream of thought surrounding behavior-driven memetics sees memes as behaviors and artifacts rather than ideas ( Gatherer, 1998 ). In the behaviorist vocabulary, the meme vehicle and meme are inseparable: The meme has no existence outside the events, practices, and texts in which it appears; that is, it is always experienced as encoded information. Moreover, this approach claims that if memes were indeed only abstract units of information, it would be impossible to identify them separately from their manifestation in the outside world. Defining memes as concrete units enables their evolution and diffusion to be studied empirically. This brand of memetics is closely related to the scholarly approach known as “diffusion studies” (Aungar, 2000). Many studies in this rich tradition focus on the diffusion of “innovations,” occasionally adapting the term meme and the general memetic framework (For recent overviews of the field, see Rogers, 2003 and Katz, 1999 ). However, as detailed in the concluding section, diffusion studies tend to cling to narrow definitions of memes, thus overlooking the complexity and richness that may be ascribed to the concept.

Whereas members of the mentalist- and behavior-driven schools see memes as either ideas or practices, what I tag as the inclusive memetic approach , represented by Susan Blackmore, uses the term “indiscriminately to refer to memetic information in any of its many forms; including ideas, the brain structures that initiate those ideas, the behaviors these brain structures produce, and their versions in books, recipes, maps and written music” (p. 66); that is, any type of information that can be copied by imitation should be called a meme.

But this inclusive approach may lack analytical power, as it assembles very different elements under its big conceptual tent. I therefore suggest a fourth approach: moving forward by looking at diffused units as incorporating several memetic dimensions . Since this paper focuses on digital culture, I will demonstrate this approach through the analysis of memes that spread via the Internet. Internet memes are defined here as units of popular culture that are circulated, imitated, and transformed by individual Internet users, creating a shared cultural experience in the process. I suggest looking at Internet memes not as single ideas or formulas that propagated well, but as groups of content items that were created with awareness of each other and share common characteristics. Going back to Dawkins' original idea—that memes are units of imitation —I find it useful to isolate three dimensions of cultural items that people can potentially imitate: content, form, and stance .

The first dimension relates mainly to the content of a specific text, referencing to both the ideas and the ideologies conveyed by it. The second dimension relates to form : This is the physical incarnation of the message, perceived through our senses. It includes both visual/audible dimensions specific to certain texts, as well as more complex genre-related patterns organizing them (such as lip-synch or animation). While ideas and their expression have been widely discussed in relation to the meme concept, the third—communication-related dimension—is presented here for the first time. This dimension—which relates to the information memes convey about their own communication—is labeled here as stance . Expanding Englebertson's (2007) definitions, I use “stance” to depict the ways in which addressers position themselves in relation to the text, its linguistic codes, the addressees, and other potential speakers. Like form and content, stance is potentially memetic; when re-creating a text, users can decide to imitate a certain position that they find appealing or use an utterly different discursive orientation.

Since I use stance in this context as a very broad category, I wish to clarify it by breaking it into three subdimensions, drawing on concepts from discourse and media studies: (1) participation structures -- who is entitled to participate and how, as conceptualized by Phillips ( 1972 ), (2) keying -- the tone and style of communication, as defined by Goffman ( 1974 ) and further developed by Blum-Kulka et al. ( 2004 ), and (3) communicative functions , as conceptualized by Roman Jakobson (1960). Jakobson identified six fundamental functions of human communication, concisely presented as follows: (a) Referential communication, which is oriented toward the context, or the “outside world”; (b) emotive, oriented toward the addresser and his/her emotions; (c) conative, oriented toward the addressee and available paths of actions (e.g. imperatives); (d) phatic, which serves to establish, prolong, or discontinue communication; (e) metalingual, which is used to establish mutual agreement on the code (for example, a definition); and (f) poetic, focusing on the aesthetic or artistic beauty of the construction of the message itself.

This analytic framework, consistent with the three memtic dimensions (content, form, and stance), as well as the three subdimensions of the latter dimension (participation structures, keying, and communicative functions) will be developed and applied in the following section to the analysis of a successful YouTube meme, featuring one somewhat upset fan.

On September 10, 2007, a young gay blogger and actor named Chris Crocker uploaded a YouTube video in which he reacted to the harsh criticism following pop star Britney Spears' lackluster performance on the MTV Music video awards. Crying and shouting throughout most of the clip, Crocker implored his viewers to “Leave Britney Alone”:

And how fucking dare anyone out there make fun of Britney, after all she's been through! She lost her aunt, she went through a divorce, she had two fucking kids, Her husband turned out to be a user, a cheater, and now she's going through a custody battle. All you people care about is readers and making money off of her. SHE'S A HUMAN! What you don't realize is that Britney is making you all this money and all you do is write a bunch of crap about her. She hasn't performed on stage in years. Her song is called “give me more” for a reason because all you people want is MORE, MORE, MORE, MORE, MORE!. LEAVE HER ALONE! You're lucky she even performed for you BASTARDS! LEAVE BRITNEY ALONE! […] Leave Britney Spears alone right NOW! I mean it. Anyone that has a problem with her you deal with me! because she's not well right now. Leave her alone…

The video gained over 2 million views within 24 hours, and many more in the following days and months (current view count is over 42 million). The Crocker sensation was reported on various mainstream media stages and generated worldwide attention ( Salvato, 2009 ). The video soon spawned a stream of derivatives: imitation-based memes (in which known actors and ordinary users impersonated Crocker), as well as remix-based memes (in which music, graphic elements, or dubbing were re-edited with the original).

In exploring “Leave Britney Alone” as a meme, we need to examine the distribution of the original video, but perhaps more importantly, we should investigate the structure and meaning of the new variations created of this video. People may share a certain video with others for many different reasons (spanning from identification to scornful ridicule), but when they create their own versions of it they inevitably reveal their interpretations of the text. The conceptualization of Internet memes as trinities of content, form and stance suggests that we need to follow separately the uptake—or rejection—of each memetic dimension by the text's imitators. In what follows, I will implement this strategy to evaluate the ways in which Crocker's video-meme was transformed in the course of its digital lifespan. The main dimensions embedded in the original video and their alternations by users are summarized in Table 1 .

Memetic Dimensions and Their Manifestation

Crocker's 2007 video was a complex potage of ideas, textual practices, and communicative strategies. While in practice these dimensions are importantly intertwined, feeding off each other in multifaceted ways, I attempt to disentangle them here for analytical purposes. Our starting point is the video's content, namely the ideas and ideologies that it conveys. The text includes, among other things, facts about Britney Spears' life (e.g., her two children) and castigation of people criticizing fallen celebrities. More broadly, in this video and others, Crocker wishes to convey the ideological message that being gay and effeminate is a legitimate practice. In terms of form, or textual construction, the video's layout includes one talking head, filmed in close up and in one-shot and situated in front a white cloth. It further includes repetitions of certain phrases, raised voice pitch, tears, and distraught hair-hand gestures.

The most complex dimension for analysis in Crocker's video relates to the dimension of stance. In relation to the subdimension of participation structure , the video, by virtue of its existence, reminds the viewer that a gay, overtly effeminate individual is openly expressing his opinion in the public sphere. Keying , as noted above, is the tone, or modality, of the internal framing of discursive events as formed by their participants. People can key their communication as funny, ironic, mocking, pretend, or serious ( Blum-Kulka et al., 2004 ). In the case of “Leave Britney Alone,” Crocker keys his utterances as extremely serious and as ultraemotional—sometimes so serious that, at a remove, it can even appear comical and ambiguously parodic. While some commentators questioned the sincerity of the video, Crocker insisted it was utterly genuine ( Christian, 2010 ). In an illuminating analysis of Crocker's video as a case for examining the borders between amateurism and professionalism in contemporary culture, Salvato ( 2009 ) describes it not only as being serious and emotional, but also marked by lack of self-control. Crocker embodies the allegedly amateur avocation to “lose it,” his body “deemed so wholly out of control in its production of fluids, movements and sounds” (p. 11). In relation to the communication functions defined by Jakobson (1960), of the six described above, the ones that seem most prominent in the video are the referential (Crocker provides us with facts about Britney's life), the conative (viewers are indulged to change their behavior), and above all the emotive, as this video is all about the addresser and his emotional state. In addition, a contextual examination of this video may lead to the identification of a certain phatic function to it. “Leave Britney Alone” is one of a stream of videos uploaded by Crocker on his YouTube channel. Through these frequent feeds, Crocker aspires to maintain the communicative path between himself, his budding acting career, and his faithful YouTube (and MySpace) viewers.

So far, I have charted the memetic dimensions embedded in Crocker's initial video. The question to be addressed now is: Which of these dimensions was taken up and imitated with accuracy by Internet users in their derivatives, and which ones were altered? In other words, which of these dimensions succeeded in the memetic competitive selection process? Since it is virtually impossible to track and examine all of this meme's offsprings, I compiled a sample of 20 highly viewed derivative videos. To create the sample, two queries where used in YouTube's internal search engine: the string “Leave Britney Alone,” and the words “leave” “alone” “Crocker.” I then sorted the results according to their view count, and selected the 20 most viewed videos (above 100,000 views) in which people were seen imitating Crocker. Analyzing them qualitatively, I aimed at identifying patterns of memetic uptake.

Among the three memetic dimensions, the one that viewers imitated with a high level of accuracy is the video's form. The mise-en-scène of one person in front of a white cloth filmed in one-shot was evident in virtually all texts. Men were featured in 16 videos out of 20, often bearing feminine markers similar to Crocker's (such as a wig or eyeliner). In addition, the composition of Crocker's sentences, as well as key phrases such as “leave X alone” and “s/he is a human,” were repeated throughout the sample.

In contrast to the relative accuracy in the imitation of the videos' form, radical changes take place on both the content and stance dimensions. These alternations are related, to a large extent, to the construction of all the videos in our sample as parodies . A major feature of parody is its construction with a critical difference from a source text that it mimics ( Hutcheon, 1985 ). While all parody includes some kind of imitation, it is important to note that not all imitations are parodies. Many YouTube videos are emulated without mocking their protagonists. For instance, the “Evolution of Dance” hit—itself capturing an openly self-parodying event—has spawned numerous imitations in which people copy the performer's dance movements in various contexts, without lampooning him. This is distinctly not the case in “Leave Britney Alone,” where the parodic intentions of the original are at best ambiguous and highly exploitable. As I demonstrate below, parody targets both the ideological and communicative aspects of the original meme.

To begin with, hardly any of the ideas conveyed by the original video were further circulated by its imitators: In only 2 texts out of 20 did speakers repeat Crocker's words; in all other cases, imitation involved a significant alternation of the original utterances. Videos divide evenly between two types. The first (commonly labeled “Leave Chris Crocker Alone”) includes clips mocking Britney Spears and Chris Crocker. In these clips, Crocker's message about the legitimacy of being an overtly effeminate homosexual is lampooned in various ways. Thus, for instance, the comedian Seth Green, in a heavily viewed parody, shouts and “implores” the audience to leave Chris Crocker alone, pausing occasionally to fix his black eyeliner: “You can't talk about someone when you are not willing to do what they do! You have not spent a mile walking in his sneakers, or, platform pumps…I don't know what he wears… BUT I BET IT'S STYLISH!” The second type of parody videos includes clips that mock a battery of other pop stars and celebrities. In such videos—including, for instance, “Leave Justin Bieber Alone,” “Leave Miley (Cyrus) Alone,” and “Leave Rebecca Black Alone”—the presenters mock Crocker's outcry to pity celebrities by performing the opposite: they publicly bash these celebs. Thus, for example, in one video the protagonist implores his viewers to “Leave Michael Jackson Alone”: “He had sex with a few people, who turned out to be under 13… He's only a human! I think […] And so what if he dangled his child off a balcony. You bastards are even lucky he bothered to show him to you…”

A radical alternation of meaning also takes place in the communication-oriented dimension of stance. In relation to participation roles, the notion that users who upload videos may be overtly effeminate gays is disdained through scornful imitations of Crocker's effeminate traits. Another major shift is related to keying (the tone and style of communication): User-generated derivatives abandon Crocker's overtly emotional performance in favor of a cynical and ironic one. No one says what s/he means in those videos. When a speaker “pleads” with his audiences to “leave Michael Jackson alone” because he “loves his monkey,” it is quite clear that the words spoken are not those meant. The same is true for the clip that implores “Leave Miley [Cyrus] Alone,” praising her with the following words: “She made you guys a movie in 3-D. She didn't have to do that. We would have been OK with 2-D, but she went the extra mile.” In all these cases the humorous effect derives from the gap between the uttered words and their diminishing meaning, or intention. Interestingly, the vast majority of the sampled videos employ common ironic keying: These videos are more similar to each other than to Crocker's original.

Regarding the communicative functions, I found that the most prominent ones in the original video—emotive and conative—are marginal in its derivatives. While imitators do convey a certain feeling (scornful amusement), and seem to want to generate a similar amused reaction, both the emotive and the conative components are not as explicit and strong as in the original video. Rather, imitations stress a different communicative role: They draw attention to the communication process itself, thus performing more closely to the metalinguistic function. This analysis follows Hariman's ( 2008 ) description of parody as “talk beside itself,” a mode of communication in which subtle communicative strategies become manifest. In our case, imitations draw attention to the communicative codes and strategies Crocker uses. Shouting, dramatization, and repetitions are all exaggerated and thus scorned as artificial and inappropriate. On a broader level, Crocker's imitations may also be fulfilling the phatic function. In an environment characterized by the rapid propagation and diversification of content, producing a takeoff of a popular and well known YouTube video such as “Leave Britney Alone” helps the person who uploads it stay in touch with the wider YouTube community. Uploading such videos may thus serve as another way to maintain the links underscoring a huge and highly heterogenic crowd.

My analysis so far yields a complex web of imitations and memetic dimensions. While users emulate the forms manifested in Crocker's video, they imitate the other imitators to construct opposing memes at the content and stance dimensions. In other words, the process of imitation combines overt copying and reversals of aspects of the original event. It may be that the most powerful communication-oriented meme spread by users in this process—one that has been replicated in almost all the videos we examined—is that of ironic communication: communication that veers from a definite commitment to one's uttered words, using language in a playful and nonobliging way.

So far I have demonstrated the utility of the threefold meme typology through a video-based example. I wish to further illustrate its applicability to other formats, such as image and text. To this end, I'll briefly look into the recent example of the “Pepper-Spraying Cop” meme. On 18 November 2011, students from the University of California - Davis campus gathered as part of the Occupy Wall Street protest. When they refused police orders to evacuate the area, two officers reacted by pepper-spraying a row of still-sitting students directly in their faces. Shortly after the incident, videos documenting it were uploaded to YouTube, generating uproar against the excessive use of force by American police officers (Dearen, 22.2. 2011 ). A photograph in which one of the cops, John Pike, was shown spraying the students quickly evolved into an Internet meme. Users Photoshopped the so-called casually pepper-spraying cop into an endless array of contexts, spanning historical; artistic; and pop-culture-oriented backgrounds (Jardin, 23.11. 2011).

The plethora of images constituting the “Pepper-Spraying Cop” meme can be analyzed through the lens of the three dimensional model of content, form and stance. Such an exercise reveals that while most versions share a similar Photoshop-based form, they vary greatly in terms of content. Content-wise, two main groups of meme versions were identified. The first group focuses on political contexts: Pike is shown pepper-spraying iconic American symbols such as George Washington crossing the Delaware; the former U.S. presidents on Mount Rushmore; and the Constitution itself, as well as freedom fighters across the globe (e.g., in Tiananmen Square). These political versions share a clear idea: that the officer brutally violated the basic values of justice and freedom as represented by the protestors. A second group of user-generated images is pop-culture oriented. In these versions, Pike is pepper-spraying icons such as Snoopy and Marilyn Monroe, as well as a battery of stars identified with other Internet memes, such as little baby panda and Keyboard Cat. The ideas conveyed by this group of pop-culture oriented memes are often polysemic. In one case, in which Pike is portrayed as spraying Rebecca Black—a widely scorned teen singer and Internet phenomenon—the original meaning of the photo as criticism of Pike seems to be almost reversed.

This differentiation between two types of memetic content can be further associated with alternations in stance. For instance, the utterly serious keying of the original photograph has been transformed in the process of memetic uptake, which involves explicit playfulness. Yet if in the politically oriented versions of the meme the keying is mainly sardonic, in the pop-culture-oriented ones the main tone is amused and humorous. The analysis of the “Pepper-Spraying Cop” meme according to the three memetic dimensions thus reveals that in contrast to the unified pattern of memetic uptake characterizing “Leave Britney Alone,” other memes might encompass a more divergent mode of diffusion and evolution. And this differentiation, as elaborated below, should be subjected to further empirical analysis.

This article is essentially about matchmaking. While memes and digital culture seem like an ideal fit, scholars—particularly in the field of communication—have so far been timid about coupling them. The forgoing essay thus both identifies and explores a fledgling field of knowledge. As such, it addresses three basic questions: (a) how, if at all, is the meme concept useful for understanding digital culture; (b) What important obstacles stand in the way of its being accepted in research; and (c) How can these obstacles be overcome?

Three attributes ascribed to the meme concept were highlighted here as particularly useful for exploring digital culture: Memes diffuse at the micro level but shape the macro structure of society; they reproduce by various means of imitation; and they follow the rules of competitive selection. These features were discussed here not only as apt descriptions of the technological affordances of the Internet in the Web 2.0 era, but also as key logics and perhaps even highly valued ideological pillars of a so called “participatory culture.” Yet two different features identified with the meme concept—close linkage with the biological metaphor and the undermined role of human agents—have hindered its uptake by media scholars. Two possible paths to overcoming these barriers were suggested: Forsaking the aspiration to find biological equivalents to all things cultural and conceptualizing humans in a more active way.

Another stumbling block to wider interest in memes relates to the ambiguity surrounding the concept. Since there is still dispute over what memes are, it is virtually impossible to study them empirically. Responding to this lacuna, I suggest in this article to define memes as complex systems incorporating three dimensions: content, form, and stance. When scrutinizing the propagation of memes, we should therefore examine them as trinities rather than as unified entities: The embracement—or rejection—of each dimension must be followed separately.

This distinction between memetic dimensions may serve as an invaluable tool for tracing the ways memes promulgate and shape digital culture. For instance, in the aforementioned “Leave Britney Alone” case, users chose to systematically undermine the ideological and communicative memes conveyed by Crocker's video, while simultaneously constructing and spreading opposing memes entailing ironic communication. Thus, while each user-generated video is ostensibly discrete and free to take its own form, a closer look reveals that Crocker's imitators chose to follow similar ideological and communicative routes, emulating each other's imitations. This pattern suggests that the ostensibly chaotic world (wide web) may in fact follow more organized cultural trajectories than meets the eye.

The differentiation between memetic dimensions may also advance our ability to create distinctions and draw borders between Internet memes. If we think of Internet memes as groups of interconnected content units that share common characteristics, we may further posit that such shared features may include content; form; and stance, and various combinations thereof. Therefore, the definition of a certain meme's scope may rely on the memetic dimension through which it is examined. For instance, if our prism is that of content, or ideas, we may argue that the same memetic content can be expressed in a video, a text, or a Photoshop image. In this case, what we define as a particular “Internet meme” will incorporate various formats. Alternatively, we may identify memetic formats, such as Image Macros or Lip-Sync, which are used for conveying various ideas. This differentiation thus allows for a nuanced, flexible, and dynamic account of what constitutes an Internet meme.

In providing a close reading of only two cases, this article implicitly suggests the need for further studies charting a large-scale map of Internet memes. Such works could ask what ideologies, textual conventions, and communication forms are conveyed by popular Internet memes, and what are the webs of relationships between these memetic dimensions. Eventually, this line of research will provide a comprehensive overview of prevalent assumptions, norms, and ideologies behind the memetic construction of digital culture.

As a concluding note, I wish to offer some preliminary thoughts about the potential meaning and relevance of this paper to the field of diffusion studies. At the turn of the century, Elihu Katz ( 1999 ), one of the founding fathers of the field, claimed that although questions about “how things get from here to there” (p.145) are at the heart of all disciplines in the social sciences and humanities, the field of diffusion studies has gone significantly undertheorized. He describes a gulf between the skyrocketing numbers of diffusion case studies and the lack of substantial efforts to theorize across discrete case studies and fields 3 One of the reasons Katz mentions for this impasse is the fact that “the items themselves refuse to hold still” (p.145). Another problem he hints at but does not articulate explicitly relates to the definition of the diffused unit. The study of diffusion until now has tended to focus on specific entities: In most text books, diffusion is defined as the propagation of “an idea, practice, or object” (e.g. Rogers, 2003 , p. 12). The “thing” itself which is diffused is always a well-defined entity, with clear boundaries. It is unchanging; its constant nature is what makes diffusion analysis possible.

This paper suggests a different route. Its three-dimension typology for analyzing Internet memes highlights the fact that, in diffusion or other types of communication research, the cultural object itself is a composite. In many cases, an item is at the same time an idea, a practice, and an object. Diffusion studies may therefore benefit from exploring the degree to which these dimensions work in cooperation or competition with each other. Indeed, looking at the diffused unit as an amalgam may also provide a key for a more nuanced account of cultural change. So far, the focus of diffusion studies has been mainly on the diffusion of innovation . But if we differentiate between content-, form-, and stance- based memes, we might discover that so-called “innovations” are sometimes old ideas or communicative practices in new textual gowns. This framework may therefore allow us to think about the delicate balance the between diffusion of innovation and the diffusion of tradition . Such a trajectory seems to fall in line with Benjamin Peters' ( 2009 ) recent suggestion to reconceptualize “new media” as “renewable media”: Rather than just asking if a medium is new or not, it might be more rewarding to trace the various forms that certain technological ideas take in the course of history. 4

To provisionally conclude, the meme is a natural for studying Internet and digital culture. Memetic behavior is not novel, but its scale, scope, and global visibility in contemporary digital environments are unprecedented. In this hyper-memetic era, user-driven circulation of copies and derivatives is a prevalent logic, or as Henry Jenkins (2009) aptly puts it: “if you don't spread, you are dead.” Copies become, in this sense, more important than the “original”: They are the raison d'etre of digital communication. It is clear that much more work is needed in excavating the wealth deriving from the coupling of the meme concept and digital communication. The fit between the two displays all the reluctance, enthusiasm, and pragmatic negotiation that one might expect of the marriage of an odd couple. Like it, it may be messy and complicated, but continuously interesting.

I am indebted to Menahem Blondheim, Benjamin Peters and two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments on this manuscript. I would also like to thank Elihu Katz, Paul Frosh, and Zohar Kampf for their useful advice.

In this sense, one might argue that memes are equivalent to signs. Indeed, signs have much in common with memes, to the extent that it has been argued that memes are no more than newly labeled signs ( Kilpinen, 2008 ). Yet two fundamental differences between the concepts justify their discrete existence. First, as described above, the meme is not just a sign, but a complex sign: Whereas “god” is a meme, “red” is not ( Dennett, 1995 ). Second, while each meme is comprised of signs, not all signs are memes. For instance, Beethoven's Fifth Symphony is composed of many signs, but only its first four notes have evolved as a meme. Over time, these notes were replicated as a discrete entity, separate from the symphony, thriving in contexts in which Beethoven's works were utterly unknown ( Dennett, 1995 ). To put it differently: A meme is a sign—or a set of signs—that gets replicated by many individuals. Borrowing from Simone de Beauvoir, we can thus argue: “One is not born a meme, but rather becomes one.”

This “hyper-memetic” existence may be related to new modes of thinking about copies, and copying. In his recent In Praise of Copying , Marcus Boon ( 2010 ) addresses the pervasive presence of copying in contemporary culture, claiming that it should first be celebrated as an integral and fundamental part of being human, and only then be thought of as something that should—or should not—be regulated. For a rich analysis of the concept see also Schwartz, 1996 .

In the decade following Katz's article, diffusion studies where reenergized by the ascent of the World Wide Web. “Diffusion of innovations” has so far been cited in a startling number of 31,598 works, according to Google Scholar. Some of these new studies strive to retheorize the field (e.g. Peres et. al, 2010), yet to the best of my knowledge, they still do not account for the problems of defining the propagated unit—and the changes it undergoes—more sensitively.

This mode of thinking of media as renewable, or as re-mediating well entrenched social structures, is evident in some historical works about the emergence of particular media, such as the telegraph ( Blondheim, 1994 ).

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Limor Shifman is a Senior Lecturer at the Department of Communication and Journalism, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Her main research interests are new media, popular culture, and the social construction of humor.

Addresss: Department of Communication and Journalism, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, 91905, Israel

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dissertation memes

This collection contains 7 memes related to "dissertation"

The ultimate collection of the best dissertation memes across the internet, sorted by popularity.

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Memes are now common form of discourse we should embrace in digital economy- but they are risky

For many, memes have become synonymous with online culture, whether on social media, in group chats, or on politician's accounts. They are aesthetic expressions of digital culture and society, which we must consider as valuable contributions to communication. However, as Lucie Chateau states, they are compromised by their place in digital capitalism. She defends her thesis on May 24th.

In today's digital world, memes have surpassed their status as mere online jokes to become powerful forms of cultural expression and political discourse. They emerged through the relentless flow of digital images and the dynamics of digital capitalism. Chateau clarifies the complex relationship between aesthetic forms, cultural structures, and the evolving preferences of digital users. She examines the communities producing memes, exploring various meme categories such as depressive memes, degraded memes, and futuristic memes.

Memes and socio-political shifts

Thus, the research contributes to domains such as visual culture, media studies, critical theory, and political philosophy. It underscores the transformative impact of the digital cultural economy and networked images on our engagement with aesthetics and representation. According to Chateau, the proliferation of memes reflects profound cultural, technological, and socio-political shifts in contemporary society. The thesis advocates for a nuanced understanding of memes as valuable forms of representation, urging society to recognize their role in negotiating the complexities of digital capitalism and user participation.

More information Lucie Chateau will defend her thesis on May 24th at 10:00 am in the university's auditorium. The title of the dissertation is: "Anxious Aesthetics: Memes and Alienation in Digital Capitalism". Link to the event.  

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Mom delivers baby in car hours before defending her Rutgers doctoral thesis

• Updated: May. 08, 2024, 3:05 p.m. |
• Published: May. 08, 2024, 11:30 a.m.

Tamiah Brevard-Rodriguez delivered her son, Enzo, hours before defending her dissertation at the Rutgers-New Brunswick Graduate School of Education. Nick Romanenko/Rutgers University

• Tina Kelley | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

Giving birth and defending a doctoral dissertation could easily be considered among the most stressful items on a bucket list. For Tamiah Brevard-Rodriguez, it was all in a day’s work. One day’s work.

She even grabbed a shower in between.

On March 24, Brevard-Rodriguez, director of Aresty Research Center at Rutgers University, was finishing up preparations for her doctoral defense the next day. Eight months pregnant with her second child, she didn’t feel terrific, but she persisted.

She was trying to hone down to 20 minutes her remarks on “The Beauty Performances of Black College Women: A Narrative Inquiry Study Exploring the Realities of Race, Respectability, and Beauty Standards on a Historically White Campus.” The Zoom link had gone out to family, friends, and colleagues for the defense, scheduled for 1 p.m. the next day.

“Operation Dissertation before Baby,” as she called it, was a go.

But at 2:15 a.m. on March 25 her water broke, a month and a day early.

As the contractions came closer and closer, her wife drove her down the Garden State Parkway, trying to get to Hackensack Meridian Mountainside Medical Center in Montclair before Baby Enzo showed up.

But the baby was faster than a speeding Maserati and arrived in the front seat at 5:55 a.m., after just three pushes. He weighed in at 5-pounds 12-ounces, 19 inches long, and in perfect health for a baby four weeks early.

“I did have to detail her car afterward,” the new mom said of her wife.

Brevard-Rodriguez was feeling so good after the birth that she decided against asking to reschedule her thesis defense.

“I had more than enough time to regroup, shower, eat and proceed with the dissertation,” she said. She had a quick nap, too. The doctors and nurses supported her decision and made sure she had access to reliable wifi at the hospital.

She gave her defense with a Rutgers background screen. When she learned she had passed, she dropped the fake background, and people could see Brevard-Rodriguez in her maternity bed, and Enzo in her wife’s arms.

“I said, ‘You guys missed the big news,’ and they just fell out,” said Brevard-Rodriguez, who waited for the reveal because she didn’t want extra sympathy from her dissertation committee.

Melina Mangin, chair of the Educational Theory, Policy & Administration Department at the Graduate School of Education, was astounded.

“Tamiah had delivered a flawless defense with zero indication that she had just given birth,” she said. “She really took the idea of productivity to the next level!”

Finishing her doctorate in education and having her last child were fitting 40th birthday presents to herself, Brevard-Rodriguez said. She turned 40 in November and returns to work in late August.

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It’s Still WallStreetBets’ World

We’re all just living in it..

A short story: At 8 p.m. Eastern time on Sunday, a man named Keith Gill sent his first tweet since June 2021. It was a meme of a guy sitting up in a chair, holding a video game controller. When Gill pressed send, stock in GameStop Corp., the video game retailer, immediately shot up in after-hours trading, and by Monday’s open, it was $26.34, a nice 51 percent jump from Friday’s close at $17.46. The stock got as high as $47 on Monday morning, and now, for old time’s sake, the financial industry can run back a conversation from January 2021: What is happening? How long will it last? Are a bunch of Reddit dudes revolutionizing the financial industry and sticking it to Wall Street ?

Fortunately, the conversation this time can be much more to the point than the last time GameStop’s stock ran wild. Nobody needs to pause and ask, “Wait! Why is the stock going up? It’s not as if this company released earnings over the weekend! This is entirely untethered from market fundamentals!” Keith Gill likes the stock, and Keith Gill is tweeting again, so the stock is going up. That’s pretty much it. The 2021 GameStop run—in which the stock went from five bucks all the way to the moon—originated when institutional investors took out big short positions against the stock, betting it would fall. The “short interest” in GameStop back then, the percentage of its stock held by people betting against it, was nearly all of the GameStop stock that anyone could buy. On Monday morning it was 24 percent, according to one market data provider . But Gill, aka TheRoaringKitty on YouTube, aka u/DeepFuckingValue on Reddit, tweeted. Retail investors did not need a hedge fund to run out of business.

After trading halted before lunchtime Monday, a Yahoo Finance segment asked , “Are meme stocks back?” No. They are not back because they never left. Meme stocks are now just a niche but durable category of stock, and GameStop having a big morning to lead the meme stock sector is only a little bit different than Amazon having a nice quarter to lead the e-commerce industry. “Keith Gill gets back on Twitter; GameStop stock soars” is basically the same as “Amazon announces significant savings in logistics and supply chains; stock up 10 percent.” These are both market developments now.

It is hard to know which companies the internet will bless with meme stock status. Even on Reddit’s WallStreetBets forum, there is not a politburo that decides what will get a big rally that week. A bunch of companies have made their own pick-me efforts to get the attention of the crowd, but most of them have been useless. AMC, the theater chain, has been the most high-profile success in the “intentionally becoming a meme stock” department. It bought a gold mine, started offering in-theater perks to retail investors, and saw its CEO appear on a publicly streamed call in his boxer shorts. Most companies are not AMC or GameStop, and the difference between the meme stock sector and, like, telecommunications is that we can’t be sure what will comprise the sector at any given time. But the sector will exist!

In fact it has continuously existed since the moment of GameStop’s first big boom. The meme stock thing never relented, because people on the internet never stopped talking to each other about stocks and the tools available to retail investors continued to make it easier than ever to act on that intelligence. Robinhood, the kind of sleazily gamified investing app, paved the way for zero-commission trading at the likes of established trading platforms such as E*TRADE and Fidelity. Every second of every day, there are stocks going up and down because nonprofessional traders are gabbing about them on Reddit and in Discord servers and group chats. Most don’t get Seth Rogen-America Ferrera movies, but the phenomenon doesn’t abate.

GameStop stands apart in two ways. It went first, so our attention spans hadn’t gone elsewhere by the time it was making its biggest moves. But GameStop also capitalized on its memestonk status in a way most companies have not. When its stock price was hilariously high in 2021, GameStop issued more shares and raised more than $1 billion to help its operations. It was a different company after its big meme moment than before. GameStop now trades at $10 or $15 even when it’s not the meme stock of the moment. In the late summer of 2020, the stock cost a dollar.

And that says something about GameStop’s durability as an object of online affection. People have figured out that if enough of them buy a stock and don’t sell it, the stock will go up. But laws of gravity still apply, and unless the company can turn that love into real dollars that help the business, the meme stock is at risk of no longer being a stock at all. Such was the story of Bed Bath & Beyond , a definitive meme stock that had people buying shares even as the company was spiraling toward its bankrupt death. Good vibes about a onetime heavyweight of the brick-and-mortar world did not save it, and the people who bought Bed Bath & Beyond stock in its final months lost all their money when shares went poof from exchanges in September 2023. Again, think of meme stocks as their own corner of the market. There are good, steady, durable meme stocks whose fortunes can rise with predictable market events, like a savvy dude with a webcam sending a tweet. And there are bad, scummy, volatile meme stocks like Bed Bath & Beyond. GameStop is the bluest of blue-chip meme stocks, the Apple or Nvidia of its little world.

When I started writing this blog post, GameStop’s stock was trading at $28. I took a two-hour break. And as I type now, the stock is going for nearly $29, a mild move. It’s possible that GameStop’s stock will keep trading at this price for several more hours, even days. Could it be a week? Could it be two? None of those is exactly the right question, though, at least not for GameStop’s board of directors. The question they should be asking is more practical: What’s the fastest a public company has ever been able to spin up a new stock offering? In, say, tech, what separates winning companies from losers is how well they serve their customers and control costs. In the memestonk economy, winners become winners again and again.