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Total Members Voted: 42

[Putnam]

You make a convincing argument! I'll have to revise my claim. People use image macros for one of two purposes - shallow, low-content communication that would not be meaningfully improved by purely text formatting, and subversion of the stereotype that all image macros are used for shallow, low-content communication. In the former case, nothing of value is lost, and in the latter case the existence of the format allows people to add depth to a message (which may be shallow or not, but either way that's the fault of the message, not the format).

That relies on the idea that people actually think it's a subversion, which experience has shown me they really don't. May-may June last year showed that, for example, the fine euphoric folks at /r/atheism seem to think that image macros are good communication and that there was no stereotype to begin with.

[Bauglir]

Very unlikely, Leo, but only because they have a tendency to have fairly strict formatting guidelines. However, if you managed to construct something that used image macros for all of its figures, you might be able to get away with it. It wouldn't even have to be revolutionary, just well-done and informative. I have no idea how you'd do this, mind. You'd need to be able to convincingly demonstrate that this was a better way to present your information than anything else, and I can't imagine doing that in the context of anything that could be called a serious academic paper.

That relies on the idea that people actually think it's a subversion, which experience has shown me they really don't. May-may June last year showed that, for example, the fine euphoric folks at /r/atheism seem to think that image macros are good communication and that there was no stereotype to begin with.

That suggests to me that they're doing what they would've done with raw text, then. Which is mostly just ramble in an echo chamber. That falls under people doing stupid things with them. I don't think image macros are to blame. A better candidate for blame would be the Internet, for giving them a place to congregate.

In any case, to clarify what I'm trying to say in case it feels like I'm moving dem goalposts, I've got problems with two assertions: image macros (and Internet memes in general) are making our society stupider, and image macros (and Internet memes in general) are inherently inferior ways to communicate. Both of these seem to me like nonsense born out of a desire to feel superior to some other group.

I've got no problems with the idea that many people are stupid at all points throughout human history. I also have no problems with the idea that people rarely make full use of their chosen medium of communication. I also have no problem with the idea that people rarely have particularly deep or meaningful thoughts to communicate in the first place, although that doesn't make them stupid one way or the other.

[Putnam]

I disagree with the latter, but the latter isn't even remotely applicable. The problem is that you're arguing about their concept as opposed to how they're used. How they're used is stupid. Banal. Trite. "Unpopular opinion puffin" is actually "popular opinion for karma" puffin. "Confession bear" is "lying for karma bear". This is from the biggest community on the web dedicated to these things. You cannot ignore the fact that they are used entirely for stupid reasons in reality.

[werty892]

Yo dawg...

[Putnam]

Yo dawg has been replaced with thingception, haven't you heard?

[Graknorke]

I disagree with the latter, but the latter isn't even remotely applicable. The problem is that you're arguing about their concept as opposed to how they're used. How they're used is stupid. Banal. Trite. "Unpopular opinion puffin" is actually "popular opinion for karma" puffin. "Confession bear" is "lying for karma bear". This is from the biggest community on the web dedicated to these things. You cannot ignore the fact that they are used entirely for stupid reasons on reddit.

You missed an important detail.
Reddit is kind of a big festering pit of unoriginality. It thrives on repeating the same shit over and over.

[LeoLeonardoIII]

That sounds suspiciously like a good point.

[Putnam]

I disagree with the latter, but the latter isn't even remotely applicable. The problem is that you're arguing about their concept as opposed to how they're used. How they're used is stupid. Banal. Trite. "Unpopular opinion puffin" is actually "popular opinion for karma" puffin. "Confession bear" is "lying for karma bear". This is from the biggest community on the web dedicated to these things. You cannot ignore the fact that they are used entirely for stupid reasons on reddit.

You missed an important detail.
Reddit is kind of a big festering pit of unoriginality. It thrives on repeating the same shit over and over.

Then give me somewhere such things are used that aren't such places.

[Bauglir]

I disagree with the latter, but the latter isn't even remotely applicable. The problem is that you're arguing about their concept as opposed to how they're used. How they're used is stupid. Banal. Trite. "Unpopular opinion puffin" is actually "popular opinion for karma" puffin. "Confession bear" is "lying for karma bear". This is from the biggest community on the web dedicated to these things. You cannot ignore the fact that they are used entirely for stupid reasons in reality.

90% of everything is crud. That goes for conversation as well as it does anything else. I don't see the difference between an errant doge and graffiti. Unless you want to argue that the eruption was an act of divine judgment for stupidity, I don't see any evidence that writing stupid things actually makes people particularly stupid, or that a large number of stupid things written makes a society stupider.

EDIT: Actually, we have a 127040 post thread, at the time of this edit, which is mostly made up of people enjoying trite, banal conversation. Only rarely do the emotion threads deviate into matters of substance, by design, because idle chatter is a staple of a thriving community. Is it making Bay12 stupider?

[Putnam]

I'm not arguing either of those, just that image macros are generally used stupidly. Just because stupid people do stupid things don't mean everything is stupid.

[Bauglir]

Okay, then I'm confused. Communication is generally used stupidly. You don't need to specify image macros. What, exactly, is your point?

[i2amroy]

Generally my take on it isn't that things like image macros and the internet are making the population any more stupid/unable to express themselves. Rather what it has done is expose all of the people who suffered from those things and bring them into the common eye. We have just as many idiots now as we did before, it's just now all the idiots can find each other and have vast parties where they show funny pictures of cats to everyone in sight instead of all being hidden in basements and bars around the country.

[Putnam]

Okay, then I'm confused. Communication is generally used stupidly. You don't need to specify image macros. What, exactly, is your point?

The main problem is that it's twitter with a preset theme, basically quelling any chance of originality to begin with.

[Graknorke]

I disagree with the latter, but the latter isn't even remotely applicable. The problem is that you're arguing about their concept as opposed to how they're used. How they're used is stupid. Banal. Trite. "Unpopular opinion puffin" is actually "popular opinion for karma" puffin. "Confession bear" is "lying for karma bear". This is from the biggest community on the web dedicated to these things. You cannot ignore the fact that they are used entirely for stupid reasons on reddit.

You missed an important detail.
Reddit is kind of a big festering pit of unoriginality. It thrives on repeating the same shit over and over.

Then give me somewhere such things are used that aren't such places.

Well as far as I know Reddit is the only online community that actually has an official 'karma' system.

[Bauglir]

But people aren't generally original to begin with, either. What's the big deal? If I switched to Webdings halfway through this sentence, would that greatly improve my writing style? If I spend hours trying to work out a novel way to say, "Congratulations" to a married couple I'm casually acquainted with, would that really be a better way to spend my time? If I insist on greeting people by saying, "F'taghn!" in place of "Hello!", would they be wrong for getting annoyed with me?

The people being unoriginal with memes weren't going to be original anyway. And that's not necessarily a bad thing. It's definitely not a sign that they're stupid. Smart people aren't constantly doing clever, witty things with every last sentence that drips from their tongues.