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wolframhydroxide@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

Given that the very definition of something that makes a meme is that it allows transmission of a specific idea in an encapsulated manner, there are inherent implications of using a meme, whether you explicitly say them or not. This meme is implicitly about a miscommunication between two interpretations of the same term:

I Love Video Games / Me Too is a parody meme format based on an exploitable image macro in which a woman misinterprets a man saying “I love video games” as him expressing love for Lana Del Ray’s song of that name.

This meme, since its earliest usage, has been used as a statement of purity, which you can clearly see if you look into the history of it. That attitudinal connotation is preserved in the use of this meme, whether you yourself are ignorant of its origins, or simply pretending that it isn’t some sort of purity statement. I don’t disagree with your sentiment, but you are definitively wrong about the implications of the original post.

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Cracks_InTheWalls@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
The thing is, the specific meaning transmitted in a meme can shift slightly depend on how and where it is used. I’ve seen this format used in one of two contexts to date:

Purity statement, whereby one side is clearly meant to be the ‘correct’ position. Usually assigned to the male figure, but with some variants where that is switched.

Illustration of differences between two groups, where the idea of ‘correctness’ of one side over the other is either absent or secondary to just illustrating that difference.

Then there’s the slippage between these two, which can be fun to tease out. IMO this meme is an example of the second usage, with some possible slippage. Both sides claim to love science, both sides have things that are sciences and things that are science related but adjacent. Each is assigned topics for which there’s a stereotype about men’s/women’s level of participation. I look at it and think “Here are two people who both truly do love science, but different domains, and each is still learning which is why some elements are imprecise/not specific sciences”). Basically, 1st year undergrad BSc man and woman meet at the record store.

Now, depending on authorship and original context, a declaration of purity may be intended (I’ve seen stuff like this with that intent from insecure engineering students before, usually men), but I feel it loses some of that when deployed in a generic science memes community (as opposed to something like ‘Spicy Memes for Bridge Building Boys’ or whatever).

I’d be curious if this was OC, or if not where it was taken from.

#memesaresrsbusiness
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s@piefed.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
I see no text on the page you linked that references any connotation of superiority or purity. The first usage of the meme does not suggest either a superiority or a purity, as you claim; however, an audience might project their preferences and gatekeeping onto that which is without bias. In the vast majority of the examples in the link, there is simply a contextual miscommunication between two valid interpretations of a term; only a few examples do suggest superiority or purity. Deferring to imgflip, many of the user-made memes do not have that connotation, while some do. Based on these data, I do not see a subtext of connotation or purity to be necessarily implied in use of that template. The comedy can be derived from something as simple as a word having two meanings.

Once again, you have also claimed that I said something which I had not (prior to this comment).

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- wolframhydroxide@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Yeah, and there was no explicit text that said “separate, but equal” was about racial purity and whites being the best race. But here, “separate, but equal sciences” is totally normal, right?
  
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  - s@piefed.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    What a tasteless and illogical thing to say
    
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