Am I The Only One Around Here

I disagree, I think it's not only okay to steal memes, but commendable. Memes don't contain original material and the whole point of memes is to disseminate them across different platforms and repost them. If you're not reposting you're not doing it right.

lol you stole that meme from me, personally i like to see new memes, and being original is something everyone should try to be

The point of jokes is to get retold. That's how they get popular.

By the way I didn't steal your meme on purpose, must have just seen it a while back and had it on my mind. Feel free to repost one of mine (if you can find a good one lol).

i disagree, the point of jokes are to laugh, and nothing beats a joke you haven't heard before. unless you have a short term memory i find it extremely banal to repeat the same shit. luckily a lot of the young kids on here haven't seen the reposts so they probably still get a laugh but it makes this sites purpose redundant if you can find the same joke anywhere else. examine this quote from acuity12 mod to see that the site is trying to be unique: "If you made it on another site, then you can share it on that site. You'll notice Imgflip does not have an "upload image" button, and that is deliberate. By uploading an image through the meme generator without captioning it, you are circumventing our system, which is not appreciated."

Okay fair enough. I'm not talking about people that repost 2 days after it hits the front page. But basically memes are not really "original" material (except the ones that are from real-life situations, or the absurd ones). Most of them are T-shirts, bumper stickers, well-worn jokes, movie & TV lines, put on the internet with a picture and caption format, maybe sometimes with a new twist.

I definitely see your point about not wanting to hear the same joke over and over. Memes should be done in fresh ways. I'm kind of more trying to criticise the people who shout "Repost" just when the joke sounds familiar to them. Or people who think that a good meme is something made out of air.

it's like saying music can't be original because all the notes have been played before in various order. there's no problem borrowing from all sorts of sources but most bands don't want to play cover songs their whole life and are never really respected by musicians if that's all they do. acuity12's previous comment was "This is not your work. Do not submit captioned images from other websites. This is a site for creating images, not reposting images."

Yeah, I see your point, about the music. The analogy isn't 100% though. A song and a joke have different purposes.

I've looked through Acuity12's images. Some of the early ones didn't have captions, and seem to be clever pictures etc from other sites.

they both entertain, comedians get the same venues and crowds musicians do, but if you try the comedian analogy instead, you'll notice they too lose respect if they steal material, i haven't looked at acuity12s images, are you saying he is being hypocritical

I'm just saying that I've seen images in his submissions that seem like they're directly uploaded from other sources on the web, without imgflip captions (in fact I saw someone comment somewhere that in the beginning imgflip didn't have captions at all).

But I don't think that means he's being hypocritical necessarily. He could have developed the guidelines you've cited after he posted the images, as a way of improving the site or refining its purpose (those were pretty early images, I went as far back as I could).

Also remember, from my point of view, if he was uploading other content from other sites, I see nothing wrong with that.

Just out of curiosity, what kind of range ratio of memes to reposts would you think is ideal for this kind of site?

i believe the intention is to avoid reposting, so 0% would be ideal

Also, what's your definition of a repost, please? Where would you say the line is?

if you don't add a new element that enhances the joke, it is reposting

Imgflip guidelines are "no obvious reposts," which is a reasonable guideline. And it does have an "Upload Image" button (I'm not sure if we're thinking of the same thing). You can take a picture from elsewhere, or a meme from another site, and upload it to Imgflip and generate a meme without having to put captions on it.

The original definition of meme (Dawkins') is that it is a unit of "cultural transmission" and "imitation." That is, memes are meant to be reposted. If a meme hasn't been reposted, it's not technically a "meme" yet (it's something more a like a 'wannabe meme' or a 'meme in training').

And as for the comedy aspect, if you ask anybody what elements comprise humour, one of the elements that is always on the list is "repetition."

Memes are reposts. To hold them to any other standard is arbitrary, and will serve to take away from creativity rather than enhance it, since part of the creativity of a repost is taking the same joke and putting it in a different frame or different context, for people to enjoy, and to hold a mirror to the culture by seeing which ideas disseminate and repeat effectively, and which don't.

btw i was quoting a mod talking about upload image, it means they don't want you to just upload an already existing meme without captioning etc. and yes like you say they don't want 'obvious reposts' so i'm baffled at your efforts in showing reposts are commendable. also, repetition as a comedic device is akin to using a template, and i don't think there is any confusion that templates are required for memes, which also explains repetition and imtitation, neither of which are reposts. if you believe the guidelines of 'no obvious reposts' are reasonable, and you also believe 'memes are reposts' then don't you think they would have to remove every single meme from this site, rendering it completely empty and pointless. i am convinced you are desperately trying to confuse templates with reposts. reposts are reposts. memes are the idea used to gather creativity, reposting is the opposite of creativity because you have merely copied.

By "reasonable guideline" I mean one I can abide by, not one I would have as an ideal if I were making the rules.

I really think I have just about the opposite view of this issue as you do.

What's funny is we both seem to have the same overall goal (entertainment and enjoyment of memes) and yet we are so polarised in how we want to go about it. You seem to feel that fresh ideas are important for entertainment. I agree that that's part of the picture, but I wouldn't want a meme site where the old classic jokes weren't being recycled every now and then (the good ones, obviously - the ones that "catch"). When I see a really good meme again, I love it. It's like an old friend (okay that's a bit cheesy and over the top).

But yes, I think the goal of memes is to become reposts. Until a meme is reposted it's like a proto-meme, or something else besides a meme, really.

This is a meme site. It's not a "caption the template competition" site. Because it's a meme site, it will include reposts. And I believe it should because anything else would not be an accurate depiction of what memes are.

if you look further at the origin of meme as a gene quality, genes also mutate and become something new, without that, that life will surely die, i believe the thread running through the meme needs to be continually updated to survive, that's why i've always found the term 'dead meme' to prove this

Genes don't "become" something new, all the information is there already and selection processes act on that. But I think we press the analogy too far there.

Please keep in mind that I'm not campaigning for "only" using previous jokes. I'm campaigning for us to grow up a bit, and acknowledge the reality that what makes memes funny is the situational humour, and not primarily new informational content. As I said before, what goes into most popular memes are phrases, jokes, and concepts that are already existing (T-shirts, bumper stickers, family jokes, internet phrases, life situations etc).

You're the one saying your ideal would be 0%. This is what makes me say that I am opposed to you as far as I could possibly be. Maybe we are using terms differently (ie, maybe we have a different definition of what a "repost" actually is), but when you say you want 0% reposts it makes me think you're not taking the discussion seriously at all.

This is a meme site. Even if for some reason I were to change my mind and agree with you about (what I think is) a completely arbitrary standard that "memes can only be original," we both know it would never happen.

The only difference is I'm saying it shouldn't happen. An old joke you know well can be pleasant to hear. And an old joke can be new and fresh, if you quote it in a different context, with a different purpose than the original, which is one of the ways to creatively use reposts. Also, memes can be improved.

It's true that some memes "die out" - probably a very high percentage. But the true memes catch on and are repeated, or have elements of them that are repeated (and this is more than just "templates," it's templates and concepts together).

But I'm not sure what else I can say to you. I'm not going to honour your opinion that memes should ONLY be original. It's a bad opinion.

lol, genes mutate which is to change in form or nature (become something new), and i never said memes can only be original or should only be original, that's a complete misread on your part, i am stating you as the creator should try to be original with your memes, but now that it is obvious you are blurring the terms 'repost' with 'meme' and then forwarding that conclusion to be reposts are memes i can see why you feel in the minority opinion

Once someone said I was a reposter. I looked at all their memes and each one was an original deep thought. in grumpy cats words, it was terrible ;) yeah some of my memes are original, some are reposts, and some are just similar idea that I changed a little to try to improve it. To try to submit original memes all the time is just not going to be good.

I don't think "reposting" is itself necessarily bad. I think there's good reposting and bad reposting (ie you can do it creatively and with an interesting purpose to entertain, or you can do it clumsily and heavy-handedly). I think reposting is necessary to the big picture of what makes memes memes, and what makes them propagate, and as such should be seen as a desirable thing (if done well). I don't know exactly what the line is between when it's done well and when it isn't, but I feel like we probably know that when we see it.

Well I'm always barked at for having a meme for that's apparently a "repost" so I just assumed its frowned upon, isn't it?

Well we're going to have to teach people a McLesson not to do that! Lol

Yes. It's definitely frowned upon. My view (that reposts are good) seems to be the minority view on imgflip (at least if you go by what people say, and not by their actions).

There's probably a lot of different views on here about what the purpose of memes is, or even what a meme actually "is" (it's hard to define what a meme is).

But not really something to worry about.

I'm in that 20%. You have my word on that.

i'd say 87%

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SHOTS FIRED!!

That's a repost, THAT'S a repost & YOU'RE a repost! EVERYONE = REPOST!! XD

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This is the first meme comment I've ever made! lol XD

You deleted it?

I never deleted it...WTF?!

Did you delete any of your images from your My Images menu? Because I found out if I delete it there, it deletes it in the comments too.

So I made this a while back and I can just see droves of comments taking this way too seriously, It's a joke, so take it as one. When I said 'Stolen' It was an over exaggeration I should have said 'Been used before' or similar, I was new to this website when I made this, so I didn't understand the terms or words people use, now I understand that word is 'Repost' I will use that instead. In short 'Stolen' is not the correct term and this was in no way intended to be taken seriously, by these paragraph long comments, that is all.

Maybe not stolen on purpose, but there are a lot of users who just google old jokes and puns, so the same jokes keep appearing.

Only 80%?...

REPOST!!!!

Couldn't resist.