Shape or Meaning: Meme Classification

What does a meme consist of? By the name of the article it is already clear that of the meaning (idea) and shape (form). Well, this is quite true, and it would seem that this is enough, but in order to accurately understand all the nuances, you need to deal with the semantics of the meme, its types, and characteristics. Although my articles focus primarily on Internet memes and memeology, in order to understand the classification, it is necessary to first analyze the concept of meme itself, starting with memetics.

Simple Memetics
To be honest, I am not fond of the generalizing nature of memetics, as well as the wording “unit of cultural information”. With all the diversity of cultural phenomena, it is almost impossible to single out the criteria of any "unit", even considering its abstract origin. Personally, I interpret this study as a theory about ideas and their spread in society. Memetics should not ignore the ways of disseminating cultural information studied by other sciences, but take them into account. All memetists should not generalize the spread of all information to the concept of viral ideas, but need to think deeper. This concept is just another view on human psychology and the assimilation of information by people; in its essence, this is a rather speculative study. On the other hand, I believe that in meme study it is vital to use approaches from other disciplines, particularly linguistics, semiotics, and philosophy.

So, what is a meme in its original sense? I see meme as any idea embodied in a certain form and spread in a society. Memes are classified by:

• Idea. Since every meme in its essence is an idea, the meaning is the "core". Ideas are incredibly difficult to categorize because of their infinite variety. The nature of memes also varies, from the purely humorous to the destructive. A person as a personification of their ideas or as an image in culture can also be a meme. However, if a meme contains a great deal of ideas instead of one dominant, it would be the polymeme, a meme that combines several equivalent meanings. However, it is still barely possible to define the boundary of ideas, and find out if is the less complex thing (a single word, for example) a polymeme, or not. Likely, every meme at its core is a polymeme, and because of the complication of culture every next meme will include even more ideas than the previous one, displacing "monomemes" as such.

• Form. A meme can be realized in some form that serves as an expression of an idea. This form is primarily intangible: words can be memes, as well as proverbs, laws, songs, and much more. In the previous version of the theory I also included material memes, however, now I consider this as a misinterpretation. Arguably, some material objects are able to contain and provide ideas too, but in that case all man-made objects themselves (and not their reflection in culture, which is more accurate) should be classified as memes. One can also distinguish meme complexes (memeplexes) which combine many meme forms. Vivid examples of memeplexes are religions or ideologies. In a sense, a real person, or rather their reflection in culture and mass consciousness can also be attributed to memes, more precisely to anthropomemes, special kinds of material memeplexes, basically, a set of simulacra. The distinctive trait of anthropomemes is that they usually outlive their prototypes, and continue to do so, until forgotten. Meme forms are divided into two subtypes: external and internal. The external form is a certain pattern, an image on which the meme is made. The internal form is "idea form", the imprint of an idea, which gives a meme a unique look and reflects its personal qualities.

• Origin. Memes are divided into three types by their origin: unconscious, conscious and semi-conscious. However, ideas are not always created purposefully; they may come spontaneously or under the influence of some external processes.

• Spread. As with the origin, memes have the same modes of circulation. However, it is clear that not all ideas can spread in society, for a number of reasons. Since a meme can be considered an idea that spreads in society in the first place, what happens to ideas that don't spread? Units of such information can be called antimemes: broadly speaking, they are anything that is forgotten or disappears from our sight, remaining somewhere on the outskirts of culture, or considered lost forever.

In total, 18 combinations of memes/antimemes are possible according to the principle of systematization. To understand this principle, let’s analyze two random memes:

• C&U Meme (Consiously-Unconsious Meme) — a person CONSCIOUSLY creates an idea that UNCONSIOUSLY spreads in society, and therefore it is a meme.
• S-C&C Antimeme (Semi-Consiously-Counsious Antimeme) — a person SEMI-CONSCIOUSLY creates an idea that CONSCIOUSLY does not spread in society, and therefore it is an antimeme.

So, a meme and an antimeme are characteristics of the idea by spread. It is worth noting such a phenomenon as the alleged antimeme, a meme, which is spread in society, but its creator does not know about it. This may include information leaked by third parties without the knowledge of the owner.

Thus, it is possible to create a complete meme characteristic. For example, take the abstract fictional word that has become a part of slang. So, this is a consciously-unconscious meme, the idea of which will be the exact meaning, the external form is the word, and the internal one — the order of letters and pronunciation.

Internet Memes and Postmemes
With the uprise of digital technology and the evolution of ways to store data, as well as the development of information itself, a new stage of memes has emerged: the digital. Basically, these are any memes that exist in digital form. Many of them spread on the Internet because of their main property: an easy ability to be reduplicated or copied, which no other type of meme can possess. After all, copying digital information is incredibly easy, requires close to no resources at all, and is accessible to almost anyone.

Overall, memes on the web follow the same rules as memes in real life. However, they are studied by memeology, a special subsection of memetics, the linking bridge between which is the general principles of characteristics above and part of the terminology. The need for separation from memetics lies in the fact that on the Internet, memes have acquired new forms, becoming the property of a single web nation of netizens, a kind of weblore (Internet folklore). I've called them postmemes.

So, postmemes are all the Internet creativity, a specific kind of Internet memes. By postmemes I mean consciously-made memes created on the basis of another meme or from scratch. Postmeme differs from the usual Internet meme in that it is created according to the principle "from users and for users". They are highlighted by such atributes as intertextuality and emphasis on its manifestation in form. Examples of postmemes are media viruses, jokes, partially slang, and any elements of web culture. When people talk about memes, they imply postmemes, or rather its significant part: the media objects that are a form of original, mostly humorous content, with the elements of mythology. From the point of memetics, a postmeme can be called accordingly or just an Internet meme, but in memeology it is named "postmeme", as well as the generalized term "meme". With that being said, defining the boundaries between an usual Internet meme and a postmeme is one of the most vital tasks of memeology.

A separate representative of a postmeme, such as a single image or video, is called mememe, a full-fledged unit or even a sub-unit of a postmeme. When a mememe reaches a form of exploitable (easily editable template), it becomes the protomeme, giving rise to a new postmeme. This process is called protomemization. Exploitable is a characteristic of the external form of a postmeme (but not its separate form), implying simple editing and exploitation. That is, exploitable can be both macro, comics, photos, and much more (see below). Like regular memes, postmemes are categorized upon several principles:

• Idea. Basically, idea is the message of a meme. This may be some kind of epistle from the author, a certain joke, or any thought embedded in the meme. The meaning is extremely difficult to categorize, since all postmemes are different and are created for different purposes. In general, the direction of ideas can be explained via the Meme Compass, where the vertical axes are the meme's mood, and the horizontal ones are the initial belonging to two opposite vectors of the Meme Theory, closer to the shape.

• Form. All postmemes are digital by definition, but they can acquire more universal forms (not coded in ones and zeros) when they leave their habitat. It also works with the complexes of ideas, or postmemeplexes, though not always: these are the subcultures and ideologies (both real and ironic: Kekistan, for example), and even complex phenomena like baneposting, if, in theory, are taken out of the web bounds. The form of a postmeme is divided into several branches: verbal, audio, graphic (images and video), and interactive. Due to the nature of the language, each verbal meme exists not only separately, but also penetrates into any other postmemes, and in fact, almost every modern postmeme includes at least one verbal meme. The name of a postmeme is not a separate meme, though, but a part of its form. In some cases, the name itself can "break out" of its initial assignment to become a new meme, or at least be assigned to another one. Anthropomemes could also be digitalized and put through a prism of web culture, and nowadays they always are.

• Personal Form. Since memes are intangible by their nature, the emergence of such a virtual space as the World Wide Web has provided a new evolution circle. It is on the Internet that one can find all the diversity of meme forms. Otherwise, the external form is called a template:
Images: art, macro, comic, photo, shopped photo, screenshot.
Video: audio-video meme (in synthesis with audio), fragment of another video, gameplay of the game, screen recording, real video, montage.
Audio: separate sound, audio track, music track, video-audio meme (in synthesis with video).
Verbal: a separate letter or symbol, word, phrase, sentence, the whole text (for example, a copypasta).
Interactive: website, video game, 3d model as such (example). There is an opinion that the interactive postmemes is the future.

• Origin and Spread. The principle of the characteristics is the same as in memetics, but it is worth adding that by origin postmemes can be based or original. Antimemes also do exist in the digital space. For example, Internet antimemes are forgotten or private information on the web. Despite the fact that nowadays the very concept of private information can be challenged, I believe that an antimeme becomes a meme only when it is perceived by other people. The mere fact of storing and hypothetical access to information doesn't matter and in no way contradicts the definition of a meme, since society is first and foremost people, though it's not reduced to the sum of all individuals.

Protoform and Subform
Personal meme forms are also divided into protoform and subform, the form of a mememe. Subform can be quite unique: the original drawing based on the protomeme, the mix of several postmemes, and much more, in a word, everything that the author’s imagination is capable of. By the protoform graphic memes are divided into two categories:

1) Exploitables — memes based on template editing. Subdivided into two categories:

1. Situational — the most common version of the protoform. Almost ready memes, which only need to substitute a text or image. This content is considered "easy", because it requires the lowest effort. Because of their simplicity and accessibility, they often operate with metajokes (thereby becoming metamemes), and also serve as a literal "message" for the community. Sometimes people intentionally "break" template by customizing situational exploitable. Examples: shots from web comics, Advice Animals, and Demotivators. Such popular subreddits as r/dankmemes and r/MemeEconomy work on the popularity of situational postmemes, or "formats", as they call them. Speaking of videos, these are Peter Hurts His Knee and X but Y memes (We Are Number One and Nutshack Intro are the examples of the synthesis of audio and video postmemes).
2. Constructive — more advanced version of exploitables, "customizable" templates. Postmemes, which are based on templates, but which involve more creative intervention than the insertion of images or text labeling, and hence a variety of subforms. They often have higher artistic value that situational postmemes. Basically, most of such postmemes are born on 4chan: this is Ideal GF and the Virgin vs. Chad meme. In the context of the videos, such postmemes rely on templates, but allow some creative freedom too. These are Steamed Hams and original Void Memes.

2) Style — postmemes related by thematics and unique style. Usually they do not have protomemes as such (with the exception of the first memes in this style) and unite in various influences. These include a wave of "new" postmemes: Deep Fried Memes and Surreal Memes. Every such mememe is generally similar to each one, has certain canons and rules, but is not an exact structural copy. The appearance of style postmemes is an evidence of the meme development and cultural evolution of the web. From the video postmemes I can highlight the genre of YTP and Montage Parodies.

3) Template-style — a cross-section, combining both the elements of the templates, and a specific form, but not identical style. The only example I remembered was Rage Comics. They had the same block structure and pre-made characters, but the characters' poses, scenes, amount of frames, and stories were different. Another example could be Biomemes, the subwave of Surreal Memes. Video postmemes are Nintendo GameCube Intro, Trumpet Boy, and the new wave of Void Memes ("High Pitch Frequency Void Memes").

4) Symbol — "reverse exploitables", postmemes based on a certain image or symbol. Often these are meme characters: Pepe, Wojack, Gondola, Nyan Cat, Meme Man, and many others. Thinking Emoji could be attributed to these, but it is an Internet meme in the first place, while its reflection in weblore, including the creativity on its basis, is a symbol postmeme. Such memes are one of the basics of style postmemes, but they can exist separately. Loss as a minimalist symbol also belongs to symbol postmemes.

All in all, this is my view on the classification of memes. Basically, an idea becomes a meme only by going through two processes: acquiring a certain form and spreading in society, real or virtual. Probably, such a detailed and excessively precise systematization does more harm than good and brings confusion, but the point is that any attempt to classify any cultural phenomena will inevitably encounter the barrier of conditionality. Overall, I think that is an essential part of memeology and its fundamental task, to categorize what we actually examine.