As a minor language nerd, I would like to posit a 2.5, if you will: memery as a dialect and individual memes as bespoke words.
Like, consider this sequence of emoji: 🌍 🧑🚀 🔫 🧑🚀
Chances are, you’re familiar enough with memes that you can infer the meaning of an English sentence which has nothing to do with the actual representational meaning of those emoji independently. By placing them in this specific context, I have communicated a meaning beyond their intended representation.
By a similar token, different specific memes under the same genre (e.g. Gigachad) may be equated with synonyms, and different contexts may call for different “words” (i.e. individual memes).
I pray Lord Apollo is kind enough to me for that to make sense because Hypnos is buzzing 'round my head and it’s getting hard to think
It’s bang on how the aliens in the TNG episode Darmok communicate. Their spoken language is based entirely on metaphors and historical/cultural references, and meaning is derived from a shared understanding of those memes within the present context.
I’ve not seen a whole lot of TNG so I’ve only managed to hear about that episode thru this exact kind of talk – I know I need to look it up and I’m glad you mention the episode title b/c I don’t think I’d heard it before.
It’s universally considered one of the best episodes of all of Star Trek, up there with The Drumhead and The Measure of a Man. TNG is at its best when it touches contemporary philosophical subjects within the framework of sci-fi and an enlightened human golden age.
If you’re not committed to watching the entire series and don’t mind missing some minor context, you should probably start with season 2. Season 1 (“before the beard”) is an extremely mixed bag, including one hilariously racist episode.
I dont archive memes but I think its 2-part
As a minor language nerd, I would like to posit a 2.5, if you will: memery as a dialect and individual memes as bespoke words.
Like, consider this sequence of emoji: 🌍 🧑🚀 🔫 🧑🚀
Chances are, you’re familiar enough with memes that you can infer the meaning of an English sentence which has nothing to do with the actual representational meaning of those emoji independently. By placing them in this specific context, I have communicated a meaning beyond their intended representation.
By a similar token, different specific memes under the same genre (e.g. Gigachad) may be equated with synonyms, and different contexts may call for different “words” (i.e. individual memes).
I pray Lord Apollo is kind enough to me for that to make sense because Hypnos is buzzing 'round my head and it’s getting hard to think
Sokath, his eyes uncovered!
It’s bang on how the aliens in the TNG episode Darmok communicate. Their spoken language is based entirely on metaphors and historical/cultural references, and meaning is derived from a shared understanding of those memes within the present context.
I’ve not seen a whole lot of TNG so I’ve only managed to hear about that episode thru this exact kind of talk – I know I need to look it up and I’m glad you mention the episode title b/c I don’t think I’d heard it before.
It’s universally considered one of the best episodes of all of Star Trek, up there with The Drumhead and The Measure of a Man. TNG is at its best when it touches contemporary philosophical subjects within the framework of sci-fi and an enlightened human golden age.
If you’re not committed to watching the entire series and don’t mind missing some minor context, you should probably start with season 2. Season 1 (“before the beard”) is an extremely mixed bag, including one hilariously racist episode.
Fuck the drumhead was so good…