this post was submitted on 02 May 2024
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Science Memes

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Welcome to c/science_memes @ Mander.xyz!

A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.

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Academic Rizzlers (mander.xyz)
submitted 6 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 32 points 6 months ago (6 children)

i'm inclined to side with the initial tweet because I'm not a big fan of memes. I don't have any data (because I don't hold this opinion strongly) but it feels like so much more communication today is just references to other things. And I don't think I believe that memes in academic papers are an "evolution" of the language - I think they're doing it to get attention.

I'm not saying original statements are inherently better than repeated ones but "meme culture" is just posting the same thing over and over and it feels so....lazy and boring. I really struggle to understand how people enjoy seeing the same joke for the 100th time. As an example, any time a video game or movie introduced a cute animal, you're guaranteed to see someone oh-so-cleverly add it to the "If anything happens to [name].." template. Is there really no better way to express that you think an animal is cute? Did you really even want to express it or did you make it for Internet points?

I dunno. I guess I just don't like the repetition of everything nowadays. It reminds me of a kid I went to school with who could not have a conversation without dropping in several Simpsons quotes...yeah man, I saw the episode and it was funny when Homer said that. It's not very funny when you say it.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 6 months ago (2 children)

The repetition is what allows them to become language, though. Every meme that enters popular culture is essentially a metaphor, and, by being repeated over and over, and only changed slightly, the meaning is taught to the audience, and it evolves into an idiom.

There can be problems with description, precision, and audience knowledge, but that is true of any word or phrase. The difference is just the rapidity at which these new idioms are entering our language. As long as the author is competent, and ensures that there is enough context and relevance in the work, as is already a requirement of proper writing, restricting the use of meme language is unnecessary

[–] [email protected] 12 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

Thank you. Let's not forget that at its root, "meme" just means "imitated thing" and is just an idea that can be communicated from one consciousness to another. It's a scientific concept, defined by a term coined by an evolutionary biologist to describe the way that ideas move through a culture/society. Memes are not new and have likely been around in some form since before spoken or written language existed

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I'm not sure how to phrase this well but I feel like you're giving memes way too much credit by comparing them to idioms. There is nothing being added to the message when paired with a generic meme template so it's not as much a method to express yourself as it is an attempt at giving the reader a dopamine hit when they recognize the image. It's also different than words or phrases evolving because it's the image template, not the words, giving the dopamine hit.

I think my issue with them can be described as this: Most memes aren't made to communicate an idea, they're made to get attention. They're the visual equivalent of a clickbait headline and I don't think they're adding to or changing our language. If what you have to say is too banal to be said without an image template, why make it if not for those sweet sweet upvotes?

I'm not necessarily arguing here, just trying to find the right words to express my feelings on it.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

Memes don't end at the image though. And by now, lots of memes are more than just images. If I say I'm going to "yeet" something, most people (below a certain age) know what that means. They don't all become language, but the better, more popular ones do. It's the same way we get all our words, really. I don't know where the term "blue blooded" comes from, but I can still use it. In the same way, I don't know where "down bad" came from, but I still know I'm down bad for etymology, and the study of evolutionary linguistics; it's all fascinating.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Yeet is an example of a word or idea that fits the original description of meme, though. My "issue" (using that word lightly) is the overuse of image templates in place of words

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Literally no one was talking about image templates until you brought them up, and the type that you're referencing seem totally irrelevant to this conversation about words in academic paper titles.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

It's extremely adjacent. The original post is not about individual words that are new to the language being used...they're talking about quotes and references. How do those get shared nowadays? Through image templates.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 6 months ago (1 children)

...but it feels like so much more communication today is just references to other things.

Shaka, when the walls fell.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago

Sokath! His eyes uncovered!

[–] h3rm17 9 points 6 months ago

Thing is, a lot of English expressions come from Shakespeare's works, the memes of the time. Like, a lot. So communication back then was also references to other things. Now, I agree the scale is different, and now it's a massime phenomenon with internet and such.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 months ago (1 children)

A lot of the language you use is a reference to other things. And language evolves precisely because enough people repeatedly used a word or phrase in a new way. It seems that your main criticism of the use of memes in literature is that they "dont feel right" or that you merely dont like where things are going which isn't a solid rationale for disallowing them any more than people thinking the use of the word literal figuratively somehow makes the figurative use of the word literal "wrong."

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Really if I had to make my opinion more concise, it isn't just that it "doesn't feel right" - it's that it feels like the word choice was used not to better express their idea but to be flashy and trendy. It's not that a writer used a pop culture reference, it's why the writer used it.

I'd have a very similar opinion if the trend was to use wacky typefaces or colors for the title. It serves no purpose other than to catch your eye (hence my clickbait analogy) and I think academia should be held to a higher standard than buzzfeed

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

Getting the attention of your intended audience is part of communicating effectively. Buzzfeed has the reputation that they do because they embellish and distort the truth and outright lie for entertainment purposes. That is the problem not that they make use of memes to get their intended point across.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago

I think it’s just not the venue for the language, it’s new and informal, it doesn’t belong in academic papers.