The Rules of The Meme Throw Down
When in the course of Facebook events, it becomes necessary for one friend to dissolve the friendship of another friend through the powers of the internet, one must reevaluate the separate and equal station to which the natural laws of meme-dom* apply and that they require a decent respect to the opinions of internet friends.
We hold the rules of the Meme Throw Down to be self evident but in the name of friendship these rules are worth revisiting.
The system of which by one declares a winner in an arena where memes are pitted against each other is one which is primarily ruled by the emoji-score. **
Emoji-Score Calculation:
Thumb – The thumb , in most polite cultures , means that someone unequivocally agrees with you. Award one point for each thumb to your meme. If however you live in an impolite culture you are probably way too stressed to even get on FB and when you calm down you should spend more time on improving your society or getting out of prison.
Heart – The heart is straight forward and leaves no room for ambiguity. Someone loved your meme. Award two points for each heart to your meme.
Laugh – Laughter is highly valued in real life. It is the same in FB Land.
Your meme brought laughter into someone’s life. Award yourself 3
points
Wow – The wow emoticon is ambiguous. It could mean “Wow, That was Amazing.” But was it amazingly beautiful, disgusting or did it really mean “I’m amazed your haven’t been picked up by the authorities . Award no points to your meme for each Wow.
Sad Tear – In general the sad tear is also fairly obvious (see mitigating factors for exceptions). It means your meme caused unhappiness. It is the opposite of the laugh and is rarely a positive thing unless the intent of your meme is to bring attention to saving a living thing.
If you had no intent of saving a living thing deduct three points.
If your intent was to save a living thing than award your meme three points.
Angry Face. – The bottom line here is that you ticked someone off. If you think that you could tick someone off, don’t do it. This is the internet , this does not have to be in real time. You can engage your brain before you commit something. Yes, surprisingly enough I engaged my brain while I wrote this and edits were involved. These people are your friends. You don’t purposely try to anger your friends do you? If the answer is yes please deduct four points for every angry face, stop reading this post and seek the nearest counselor. As with all emotions there are grey areas. Refer to the mitigating factor section for more details.
Mitigating Factors.
– How people will react to your meme can be unpredictable and does not follow a normal distribution. Yes, sometimes, I am captain obvious. That said their frame of mind is something that could predetermine their reaction.
If their reaction seems to be an outlier you can choose to ignore the points but please do not ignore them. If their reaction gives your pause you may want to reach out to them and find out how they are. No joke here, I’m serious.
The Last and Most Important Rule.
Insults never change an opinion or successfully champion a cause.
If a meme uses the words, idiot, moron or derp you may want to reconsider your need to post the meme.
In many ways an internet meme is a lot like a bumper sticker. You have to ask your self if displaying the sticker is going to incite road range at the very most or change an opinion in the very least. The last time I checked Tibet is still not free and NFL fans still follow the Raiders , Patriots etc …, no matter how insulting the bumper stickers get.
*Hey meme is a word
Meme – a humorous image, video, piece of text, etc., that is copied (often with slight variations) and spread rapidly by Internet users.
DERIVATIVES
memetic |mēˈmetik, mə-| adjective
ORIGIN
1970s: from Greek mimēma ‘that which is imitated,’ on the pattern of gene.
Meme-dom however is not but if you have read my stuff before you know the power of the hyphen to transform pure B.S. into fine literary prose.
** See smart aleck comment #1 and substitute ‘emoji’ and ‘con’ adding hyphens where you are felt they are needed. Yea in the old days we called them emoticons but someone , a marketer no doubt, decided the name had to be shorter and cuter.