Great writeup. I really related to what you said about fandom/collectivism in other mediums ("I am uncomfortable with how, in other forms, we tend to be fans of artists rather than songs...").
I actually keep a spreadsheet of all my favorite songs, and although some artists have far more songs in it than others, I'm still a "fan" of all of the songs on it. Utilizing this outlook and recognizing how differently people treat memes as a medium, with nobody having "ownership" of a meme, is a huge paradigm shift.
This is why I get frustrated when people try to take "credit" for making a variant of a meme, when all they really did was edit a popular format and slap a watermark on it. I don't have any problem with the original artist/creator of something that became a meme capitalizing on that success with sequels/remakes or whatever, but I take issue with people imposing a sense of individualistic ownership on something that's fundamentally collectivistic.
thank you Jonah! Your spreadsheet sounds like a lovely idea, and you've articulated exactly how taking "credit" for memes feels wrong to me too. I'm all for, idk, Hawk Tuah girl getting her bag, but I think claiming a kind of individualistic ownership feels against the spirit of the meme... and maybe even against the spirit of any kind of art? I'm gonna write and think more about it, but I definitely feel that "fundamentally collectivistic" vibe is part of what makes memes popular. They offer something different, because so much else in the world is individualistic!
Great writeup. I really related to what you said about fandom/collectivism in other mediums ("I am uncomfortable with how, in other forms, we tend to be fans of artists rather than songs...").
I actually keep a spreadsheet of all my favorite songs, and although some artists have far more songs in it than others, I'm still a "fan" of all of the songs on it. Utilizing this outlook and recognizing how differently people treat memes as a medium, with nobody having "ownership" of a meme, is a huge paradigm shift.
This is why I get frustrated when people try to take "credit" for making a variant of a meme, when all they really did was edit a popular format and slap a watermark on it. I don't have any problem with the original artist/creator of something that became a meme capitalizing on that success with sequels/remakes or whatever, but I take issue with people imposing a sense of individualistic ownership on something that's fundamentally collectivistic.
thank you Jonah! Your spreadsheet sounds like a lovely idea, and you've articulated exactly how taking "credit" for memes feels wrong to me too. I'm all for, idk, Hawk Tuah girl getting her bag, but I think claiming a kind of individualistic ownership feels against the spirit of the meme... and maybe even against the spirit of any kind of art? I'm gonna write and think more about it, but I definitely feel that "fundamentally collectivistic" vibe is part of what makes memes popular. They offer something different, because so much else in the world is individualistic!