Our very own grounded investigation understood four head categories of meme quiddities you to joined occasions to the exact same members of the family: Target, certain profile, simple reputation, step, and you will keywords. Pursuing the difference in concrete artwork quiddities and you will abstract textual of them (Lewis, 2012 ; Spitzberg, 2014 ), we created a description to have quiddity concreteness. The initial a few classes-objects (eg Mentos in the “Diet plan Mentos”) and specific letters (including Bert when you look at the “Bert try Worst”)-are extremely visible and you can concrete. Universal letters (for instance the some cats within the “LOLcats”) and steps (like the dancing motions for the “The new Development out-of Dance”) are visible, however their symptom could move from one to such as to a different. Eventually, in place of apparent stuff, sentences will be the least tangible or the very conceptual of all groups. Next department, i mentioned the newest percentage of times into the for every relatives one to contains has of each one of the groups. Per meme such as for example Introvert Sites dating site into the children was required to include no less than one type of quiddity. The fresh quiddity concreteness level is obtained for each meme nearest and dearest dependent to the adjusted countless the five-quiddity teams: target and particular profile (1), generic profile and you can steps (0), and you can statement (?1).
Quiddity products
For the RQ1 we asked which are the prevailing kind of quiddities that join meme parents together with her. Our analysis indicated that action is considered the most commonly used quiddity regarding the attempt (42.2% of meme hours), with terminology (38.5%). Certain character (29%) and you may object (23%) was indeed less frequent, having universal character (fifteen.7%) behind trailing. It is essential to observe that our findings demonstrate that brand new head quiddity are mostly not the same as this new general features searching within the the new codebook for almost all meme group. Indeed, inside the ninety% of your own meme parents, the fresh new quiddity was certain which means that wasn’t within the universal properties. Including, regarding the “Celebrity Battles Son” friends, the newest work off attacking having laserlight swords try an incredibly particular quiddity, which means that could not getting caught by common features of the codebook.
For the RQ2 we requested and therefore templates, models, and you may participation structures is commonplace (and you will limited) within the contemporary internet sites memes. We learned that common society (twenty six.5%), restaurants (19.1%) and you can the fresh new news (sixteen.3%) was basically the best subject areas; nationality (2.6%), current occurrences (step 3.2%), and you may functions and a position (3.3%) had been the least prominent information. In terms of sex, male participants (59.4%) was basically depicted twice as often once the females professionals (twenty seven.3%). Kids and young adults (38.7%) checked very, if you are older professionals had been at least illustrated (5.6%) when it comes to generation. Caucasian players (49.5%) was basically many represented cultural class, whenever you are Latina or Latino members at least (0.2%). Finally, regarding means, really days was in fact images (56%) otherwise clips (42.6%) as opposed to absolute textual memes (1%). Overall, such conclusions validate a number of the observations built in the new qualitative education explained over, the spot where the memetic sphere try named dominated from the more youthful, white boys. With regards to layouts, media-mainly based playfulness seemingly have become a whole lot more tall than engagement which have government. So based on detailed statistics at the least, government is rather marginal regarding the memetic sphere. But really, as unfolded below, circle investigation will inform you a complex story.
The cohesiveness of generic functions in the meme household
Because the in depth above, among the many seeks in the studies was to view the fresh new extent regarding cohesiveness of meme family members with regards to the generic characteristics (RQ3). Profile dos suggests the network from memes revealing comparable content services. Which will make the latest artwork study sharper, i reveal right here merely four meme family members you to definitely express a couple of otherwise significantly more attributes. The size of the brand new node is short for their network knowledge, quite simply, how many other meme hours it shares posts characteristics having. Eg, the initial meme of “Hop out Britney By yourself” is the biggest node, sharing no less than a couple of blogs services which have 56 (from 83) most other meme instances. “Graffiti” and you will “Birmingham” is each other cases of this new “Pepper Squirt Cop” meme household members. They are the smallest nodes from the community, revealing one or two content qualities having one or two other meme era. The fresh thickness of your tie is short for how many shared attributes. Eg, new ties between cases of this new “Leave Britney Alone” are thick, which means that they are very similar to both when it comes off articles. The first meme as well as era share to nine (of sixteen) articles properties collectively.