The first rule of meme-making: no meme is 100% original

He sent my meme back to submission a week ago because it wasn't original.

All the memes I've made FROM MY OWN MIND, and the one time I put something on ImgFlip from Facebook, it gets sent back to submission! And I've seen about FIVE MEMES that are reposts on the front page since then!!!

I’ve always been a rule breaker 😉
Cheers

Yep, I can't take credit since my kids come up with most of mine and they're one in a million!

True Kate! Inspiring without even knowing it.
I can see what someone means when saying nothing’s 100% original, if you use a meme template from here, as in it’s still being used to put the same point across.
Or sometimes if people use real life photos and combine them with a “You don’t say” template underneath.
I also don’t get why some people call memes reposts, when a lot of the same types of memes like this, or a certain theme of meme, keeps appearing on the front pages, things like that come and go, just like anything else in life, and it’s actually quite funny to make a meme about it happening so often, in a fun way, until the memes template fun, does ware off and we’re onto something else.
Just don’t copy and paste from others work you’ve seen recently on this site unless you’re using a stream dedicated to this practice.
Sorry for the rambling
Cheers 👍

holy sh*t... Wow... thats a lot of words... but I understand it.👍

I had to shorten it down a little 😆
Cheers Dragonborn, have some upvotes for understanding 👍
2xe367.gif (click to show)

Thanks. You had to shorten it... i'm afraid to see it full lenght.😁

Here's 1 of my originals .

Lol!
That’s cool 👍
2xe367.gif (click to show)

LOL

All art is essentially an imitation of something else.

True story...

If someone knows exactly where it originated, yet claim as own, that's pretty douche baggery

Why are you bringing up some weird extreme example that never, ever happens? (At least, I've never seen it.)

No one, when submitting a meme, claims that it's their own. Even if they write explicitly in the the title, "I totally made this up and didn't get it from anywhere", I would just take that as some kind of ironic title and wouldn't take it seriously. That's just not what memes are.

Bc I've seen users on here say great meme and OP take credit. It's happened is all I'm saying. I totally understand not wanting to track down the originator of a meme from seeing it at a different site or some social media. I just meant why not cite if you know who originated?

More importantly, seeing a meme, knowing where it originated, and recreating it to submit it on another site is the complete opposite of douche baggery. It is literally what you are supposed to do with memes. It's what memes are and what they're for. Also, it's the most noble and helpful thing you can do for the user who posted it. Because if it's a funny meme, you're helping more people enjoy it (which is what they wanted), and if it's a political message, you're helping that message spread (which is what they wanted).

The only time it wouldn't be seen as helpful by the user is if the main reason they posted it is to get "credit" for it - in which case, they're just a dick, and they have no business submitting memes on the internet in the first place (and then you should repost their stuff, just to annoy them).

When I see reposts of things I've made, it almost makes me weep with gratitude. It's the best feeling. It's not quite enough to make up for all the pointless arguments we users have about what a meme is, and when it's okay to repost, but it helps me forget those arguments temporarily.

The philosophy of a meme doesn't say take credit either. Which is what people do. I've passed on plenty of jokes and when someone asks, I'll say made it up or heard it from somewhere. It's pretty simple to follow that concept.

I certainly don't have to go to other sites to see a popular meme because it'll show up on here days later.

Some users on here take a lot of time to think of something original and for you to say that it's not art is.... Kind of a low blow.

Nice one. Sometimes i feel that my memes are reposts or resemble a past meme. The meme life is a hard life.

Here's 1 I did a while back ! imgflip.com/i/2ihe05
2ihe05.jpg (click to show)

Cool

This isn’t original?

still parroting that lie, eh?

So even if you take your own photo and write your own words on it it's not original?

Absolutely not, at least by socrates' logic.

I think he means that ideas are not confined to one person's brain. Some ideas are very common because they are easily thought of by many people. For example, we all know (well, most of us know) the feeling of laying awake half the night then falling deeply asleep an hour before the alarm clock goes off. ANY one could meme about that with out ever having searched for it or seeing it elsewhere. So yeah, it would be original in that you made the meme from your own mind, but not so in the fact that other people have also thought of it too. I could be wrong though. Maybe he means something else.

I'll have to disagree with you on that one to a point. While memes are meant to be shared, there are original memes out there. Memes that have never been done. I've seen them and I have created some of my own.

Nope. If it's 100% original, it's not a meme, by the very definition of what that word is.

Once something been reposted a whole bunch of times, then and only then has it earned the privilege of being called a meme. (Yes, I'm aware people use the term in a broader sense, e.g. 'captioned picture on the internet', but that's not what the word means).

Also, I'm not a fan of argumentative comments on my memes. If you disagree with something I put in a meme, I would prefer you make your own meme on the topic. I don't make memes for them to serve as a platform for opposing views. (And when I disagree with yours, I don't argue with you in comments on them - well, at least I hope not.)

I wasn't arguing with you, just stating I disagree. If you can't handle someone else's opi6, then o would say don't post memes that people might give their opinion on. You seem very thin skinned lately and I don't know why.

But this is all I'll say about this. Have a good day.

Even so it is extremely annoying to see the same exact memes on here week after week, or just ones ripped off of reddit

Yes

I have no problem with unoriginal memes, but I try and make as many original memes as possible, and when a new meme comes out it is %100 original at the time because no one else did it, so no I disagree with you. People need to be orginal so we can get new memes to use in our own way, so the cycle continues and memes, as a whole, don't die off.

https://i.imgflip.com/2xewso.jpg
I have to admit some of memes, or at least the crux of their messages, get overdone at times.

Yeah literally. I could take a picture of myself, put a caption on it, post it on the internet, and I'd be the fifth guy to do that

More like thousand thousandth, or more.

I never have a problem with it being a case of people having the same idea about a meme, but this site is full of people simply doing the copy/paste route off of other meme sites, Facebook, or Google images. It was my understanding that you were supposed to be original here based on the policies put in place to curb such actions, as well as the need to review before it's allowed to feature. Why it runs so rampant here with "all these efforts" to keep it from happening I don't know! LOL! ;)

Meme: an element of a culture or system of behavior that may be considered to be passed from one individual to another by nongenetic means, especially imitation.

Even the definition talks about imitation...
Congrats on making front anyhow :D

these are golden memes right here

Lol wtf! Wasnt expecting to see that lol.

Modern art.

Lol. I like it.