How To Categorize Memes

My first steps towards meme taxonomy

When looking for something to read, you can choose between fiction, non-fiction, plays, poetry, this blog post, your other emails… the list goes on. And then within each of those categories there’s genres: within non-fiction there’s self-help books, biographies, journalism, memoirs… the list, again, goes on.

There are many kinds of memes, just as there many kinds of writing. And like different kinds of writing, different kinds of memes do different jobs. While they may spread the same way and are produced using some of the same processes (sharing to socials, remixing, copy-and-pasting) a Wojak meme is not the same as a Galaxy Brain, which is not the same as a TikTok lip-sync trend, which is not the same as an Advice Animal.

Listing out every kind of meme is a task I would definitely fail at — there’s just too many. Similarly, drawing thick, clear lines between genres or types …