Why is this so common on Lemmy? It is not a meme to post a screenshot comment section. It might be funny but it isn't a meme

meme

noun

/miːm/

an idea that is passed from one member of society to another, not in the genes but often by people copying it

(Oxford learner's dictionaries)

I'd argue memes are in fact memes.
As told by our Lord an Saviour, Richard Dawkins
The Oxford dictionary is made by a bunch of old English nerds. They couldn't find a meme if it was glued to a telephone pole
- That's basically straight from Richard Dawkins, who literally invented the term like 50 years ago.
  
  A meme is to ~~information~~ ideas what a gene is to genetic information.
  
  Edit: my word choice was bugging me.
- Yeah I'm not going to let the English language be shaped or solidified by people who have dedicated their lives to studying and deeply understanding language!
- To your credit, language is indeed an ever-evolving thing and what words mean what is not a constant, particularly in this age of internet.
  
  Point against you, is that means that a 'meme' is largely whatever the majority of people think it is.
- You're totally wrong!
  
  They could find a meme if it were glued to a telephone pole. They'd just need a team of undergraduates, semanticians, and a box of jelly babies to fully assess the nature of the item before declaring it a meme or not.

Cool meme!

That is actually a meme though, it's an idea that spreads.

It's just a meme you don't like

It is very much not a meme. If they added something to it like Obi wan or Shriek it would but just some random screenshot does not count
- The term you're confusing with meme is image macro.
- What im talking about is literally the definition of a meme, you're talking about your idea of meme and you seem somewhat attached to it. That's fine, but that is definitely not what a meme is, im sorry

:P

Awesome meme!

A meme is just something funny that you share, so anything someone finds funny and posts online or shares with one friend is sharing memes.

A meme is just something ~~funny~~ that you share

By the technical definition, it doesn't even have to be funny, it only needs to be quickly sharable
- Usually you wouldn’t share something that wasn’t funny/amusing though, there is that whole angle of sharing horrific stuff for shits and giggle though… so yeah it really doesn’t matter.
Seems wrong to consider regular jokes as internet memes
- What are chain email jokes than the OG meme? If you take a picture of the joke and share it, you just memed it. Share it vocally, and yeah it’s not then.

Most of the memes come from communities where the typical user is way too comfortable with things like photoshop, so they can crank out a gag before it suddenly seems like a waste of time. Even the "slapped together" looking stuff takes longer than you think. This skill set - funny but also has casual graphic design skills - is narrow enough that even their throwaway jokes tend to get passed around and around and around for years.

This community is more, uh, engineering focused, so they're doing pretty good to find reasonably funny people to screenshot. For what it's worth, I agree with you, but the internet always has some tiresome gotcha post to shut you down with, lest you set any boundaries for yourself, so everyone's stuck with whatever people feel like calling a meme.

Screenshots of text comments are all over the internet though. I used to think about it before coming here, but now I just take it as a normal.

It annoys me to no end
- Cross post to mildly infuriating.
- Ahhh, but a pet peeve is only useful when it is kept to one's self!
  
  When you try to turn your pet peeve into a meme, that's proselytizing ;)

X is not a meme is not a meme.

Now this is a good meme.

I wouldn't go that far

Needs to be a picture of a monitor screen with the meme on it but taken with a potato so it's all blurry and shit.

Gatekeeping meme, cool

I see Possibly Linux alot on ye ol Lemmy, sad to see they don't like memes 😕😔😒😞

I've taken to posting stuff that doesn't feel like a traditional "meme" format to one of the c/Funny communities or c/Humor.

That's good as that's where it is suppost to go. It isn't that the screenshot isn't funny or useful. It just isn't a meme

You can't gatekeep what a meme is/isn't.

Yes I can
- I thought a screenshot worked out fine

but some has achieved meme status. you know the "Am i pregnat?" ones for example, and you can customize it as you need to fit your story or presenetation or whatever