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Total Members Voted: 42

[LeoLeonardoIII]

If the conversation is earnest, the people probably won't be posting memes to join the conversation. Only to disrupt it. But if the people actually in the conversation care at all they mostly ignore the people posting disruptive messages - whether image macro or just text.

Maybe image macro conversations are a bit like donuts. It's great once in a while but if you do nothing but that you're gonna get hell of queasy.

[Putnam]

le reddit army has arrived XD

[Bauglir]

The problem isn't information density. The problem is when humor (no matter how poor) constantly takes priority over an actual meaningful message. It proves how...selective the average internet goer's attention is.

I agree, but people don't use memes for actual meaningful messages, so it's not a problem. People are gonna shitpost whether they've got memes or not.

le reddit army has arrived XD

Eh?

[Putnam]

That was a PTW.

The problem isn't information density. The problem is when humor (no matter how poor) constantly takes priority over an actual meaningful message. It proves how...selective the average internet goer's attention is.

I agree, but people don't use memes for actual meaningful messages, so it's not a problem. People are gonna shitpost whether they've got memes or not.

20 seconds on reddit.com/r/adviceanimals led me to this:

http://i.memecaptain.com/gend_images/aGyvnw.jpg

That's a message that at least the poster thinks is meaningful.

[LeoLeonardoIII]

If anything that's an anti-imagemacro. In the sense that an image macro generally says something pithy and pointless, that puffin is a reversal of the typical in saying something (hopefully) profound. Depending on context it could be shocking that the typical imagemacro meme style was reversed after seeing several standard imagemacro memes, or it could be shocking that an imagemacro meme was used at all during a text-only conversation already heavy with profundity.

[miauw62]

The puffin is reserved for people to get lots of upvotes for saying something that is common knowledge and everyone agrees with but that triggers a "hey we're not bad people!" reaction so some dude can get imaginary internet points.

Yes, I hate the puffin.

[Culise]

If anything that's an anti-imagemacro. In the sense that an image macro generally says something pithy and pointless, that puffin is a reversal of the typical in saying something (hopefully) profound. Depending on context it could be shocking that the typical imagemacro meme style was reversed after seeing several standard imagemacro memes, or it could be shocking that an imagemacro meme was used at all during a text-only conversation already heavy with profundity.

Indeed, I agree with this entirely.  There are a few others like this that recontextualize memes.  One such common entry, in addition to the puffin, is to rewrite the meme in a more loquacious manner while preserving the original meaning, or else to create a snowclone of it by applying its template to a more "intelligent" manner (whether this is defined by knowledge, relevance, or some other fashion).  These, however, tend to rely on recognizing and understanding the original meme, as the humour largely derives from the dichotomy between its original irreverence and the particular derivation presented. 

Spoiler: For instance, the chain rule (click to show/hide)

[Baffler]

I don't really see the problem with the message of the macro Putnam linked, but it's presentation as a macro changes the context that its message is viewed in. The question is whether or not that new context is a bad thing. An image certainly grabs more attention than a couple sentences of plain text. Taking a look at the comments, it seems to have spawned some serious discourse, though the subject may have had something to do with that. It also brought out this little gem:

http://www.reddit.com/r/AdviceAnimals/comments/21bq9w/the_unpopular_opinion_that_made_me_hated_in_my/cgbmfve

All in all, I don't think the discussion would've been much different without the puffin.

[Putnam]

The puffin is reserved for people to get lots of upvotes for saying something that is common knowledge and everyone agrees with but that triggers a "hey we're not bad people!" reaction so some dude can get imaginary internet points.

Yes, I hate the puffin.

I hate impact-based image macros. Seriously, nothing has better fit the word "banal" than those.

[freeformschooler]

I hate impact-based image macros. Seriously, nothing has better fit the word "banal" than those.

Aren't most image macros impact-based? I might be thinking of (de/)motivationals.

[Putnam]

There are image macros that aren't advice-dog style.

[freeformschooler]

There are image macros that aren't advice-dog style.

But even most of those are impact unless you re-define "image macro" in this context.

Spoiler: BRACE FOR IMPACT (click to show/hide)

The only other standard thing I can think of is the font images like this use.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[Putnam]

I literally meant "image macros that happen to be images with impact text overlaid on the top and bottom".

[Bauglir]

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).

Complaining about this reeks to me of the same bizarre pride as complaining about how bad people are getting at remembering things because of the invention of writing. Yes, people are going to be do stupid things with it, but all you're telling me, if that's the extent of the gripe, is that nothing has changed. I'll certainly grant that image macros will never have the same positive impact as the concept of written language, obviously, but until you get some relevant studies in demonstrating a negative impact on intelligence, I'm going to remain confident that they're about as harmful.

[LeoLeonardoIII]

How likely is it that we'll see serious dissertations rendered entirely with a series of image macros? If the content were high quality and revolutionary, would a serious science journal be willing to publish it?