Update (1/7/26)
Thanks for all the feedback. It seems like the majority opinion is that sometimes microblog-meme type posts and pictures of text are annoying, but being too restrictive would be worse, so we won’t create a new rule right now.
That being said, if it ever feels like these types of posts are overwhelming the community and drowning out other content, we won’t rule out creating a rule down the road (similar to the rationale for the politics ban). In the meantime, if something feels spammy, we will still address those case by case, so please let us know.
There has been discussion about whether we need a new rule to more narrowly define what a “meme” is, in response to screenshots of other platforms, pictures of text, etc. being posted. Some good arguments for yes and no were being made in this thread over the weekend, and this isn’t the first time people have brought it up, so I want to open the question up to the community.
My personal approach to moderating content is pretty “light touch”, because I don’t want to stifle people having fun (this is a meme page after all), and heavy-handed moderation reminds me of the worst parts of reddit. I think the role of a moderator is to clean up spam, keep the community on the intended topic, and intervene if people are being harassed, but for mostly everything else, that’s what the up/downvote system is here for. So, the question becomes “Are screenshots of other platforms like Reddit, X, Bluesky ‘off topic’? Or, do they count as memes?”
Here are some things to consider:
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Is a meme anything that gets repeated or shared? (this is the broad definition, but not necessarily the norm in how it’s used)
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Does a meme require an attempt at humor?
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What about news? (What if a headline is funny?)
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Is an image required? Should a picture of text (not from another platform) be removed?
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Are we overthinking all of this?
Please let us know what you think. I’ll keep this post pinned for the week, and if there’s a general consensus, we can add a rule. Otherwise, we’ll just rely on the community upvoting or downvoting what it wants to see and making case-by-case judgment calls as we get reports.
I dont think rules are needed but in the about could be added a section for meme types and their communities so that posters may find better places for their funny like !microblogmemes@lemmy.world
Shamelessly stolen from wikipedia: “Two fundamental characteristics of internet memes are creative reproduction and intertextuality.”
I’m other words, memes have to derive substantial meaning from its overall positioning in Internet culture.
As an example, this post derives most of its context and meaning from horror movies, outside of Internet culture.
This meme, however derives its visual elements from a tv show, but these have been recursively co-opted by Internet culture, and is further embellished with internet-centric experiences (steam friend activity).
In a more hypothetical approach, imagine a news headline with the subtitle “I FUCKING KNEW IT!” A headline like “rising home prices linked to decreased fertility” would not really be a meme, but one like “tube breach causes historically large Internet outage” would. Both posts are materially similar, and either could be a meme in differing circumstances of Internet culture, but context is everything.
substantial meaning from its overall positioning in Internet culture.
This suggests memes should in some way be mainstream?
New memes don’t start popular and often don’t have positioning in culture. Assuming a meme has potential, that is built by reposting and is ubiquitously cross-platform.
Not necessarily. Something like a new advice animal or a deep fried meme can be entirely novel, but still derive meaning from the context of existing memes.
While every meme has to start from nothing, expanding the community scope to “any thought that can be shared” makes it so broad as to be meaningless.
That’s not an expansion though. That’s just what it always has been(well before lemmy or even the idea of a memes board). The only filters are who is making the posts(few actually go through the effort), post activity (engagement, reposts, votes), and how you set your feed algorithm.
Setting your algorithm to “new” was always going to yield a lot of random thoughts regardless of platform while “active” or “hot” would filter out the low engagement stuff.
Limiting to “tied to established themes” or trying to set some form of overton window on what a meme is will only inhibit creativity, overwhelm moderation(what’s even established? Does it need to derive from something on kym? Reference it? Where to even start), and push people away.
the community will do what it do. if nobody likes it they can leave and start their own.
could be said right now for the memestasi. they don’t like text screenshots being posted, go make your own community where that’s a rule. I would assume !picturememes@lemmy.world is available.
“the community will do what it do” isn’t really a solution. It seems the majority of engagement comes from inattentive front page readers. You can see this in a lot of Lemmy communities. People cruise in and post generic content, generic content gets upvoted to the top. Every community just ends up moving towards generic content over time without moderation.
Which leads to the question of why even have themed communities?
the tighter the grip, the more the grains slip through your fingers.
a community is supposed to be organic. anything that goes against the organic growth of the community actively harms it.
by setting arbitrary rules on content it only serves to alienate and remove content or users from the community that are already actively participating in dialogue.
I get setting rules in place to signify what to post, IE memes. but it’s damaging to set categorical requirements on what sub content should be posted, IE picture memes only.
I think it’s far more beneficial to set tagging in place to filter content on, not to outright ban it. the goal of any community isn’t just to survive, but to thrive, and I just don’t believe adding rules (in this case) allows this community to thrive. if anything, it will divide and weaken the community.
Think more along the lines of a garden. If you want to create an environment that’s suitable for something like vegetables to grow, you’re also going to be creating an environment for lots of other plants to thrive. Why clear out and till a plot for tomatoes if you’re just going to let the kudzu grow over it again?
unfortunately we’re not talking about gardens, we’re talking about a community that is driven by people and psychology.
if the community begins to ban content, I promise traffic and content to the community will stall at the least. considering lemmy itself is user starved, it would take months if not years to recover.
banning content is not the answer. tagging appropriate content is.
I come here to see memes, not screenshot. If I wanted to see screenshot i go to the screenshot community
IMO, its #5 (overthinking it). I just want to see funny shit, puff some air from my nose, hit the upvote button, and keep scrolling.
I think it’s 5. for the most part. What could be done is forcing a mandatory tag like [TextOnly] or maybe the platform the screenshot is from [Reddit], [Twitter] etc. That way the people that don’t like those types of posts can just filter them out
I really like that idea, it can make both sides happy
i agree with this! everyone wins
There is a reasonable discussion to have about politics. (Not because they aren’t memes, but because it really annoys some people.)
For everything else, yes, people are overthinking it. How many people consistently come around here? Do we need to subdivide?
I think if anything the complaining about what is and isn’t a meme needs to be cut back. If someone wants only high quality OC memes and not just posts of whatever then subscribing to a generic meme community and being annoyed when you get a mix of meme types is silly.
I would just say with the news related posts, some kind of humorous edit should be happening. With unedited screenshots of twitter, the twitter OP is doing something funny, but unedited screenshots of the news are just the news.
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IMO, memes are internet folklore and should not be tightly regulated. Memes have a story to tell or a message to convey.
I don’t necessarily agree with screenshots of twitter posts being memes but many others do.
Allow memes in all their forms, whether there is 100% consensus or not. I believe tight regulation is what drove people away from other sites, such as Digg and later Reddit.
Well that’s my 2 cents. Thank you for reading.
Dan :)
The explosion of this type of garbage is a big part of what killed Reddit imo. Or at least when the decline became noticeable.
We stopped seeing memes and the front page was just twitter screenshot after twitter screenshot and then the video garbage came along and it just spiralled.
I personally think it’s worth limiting this kind of thing to avoid the same fate. Though at the moment I don’t see it as a problem because lemmy users don’t seem to be going overboard with this stuff. There’s some restraint and judgment in place at the moment but who knows how long that’ll last.
Yep - a screenshot of a twitter post is not a meme. Sorry internet.
I’d say #5, with a caveat that maybe we add a rule giving temp bans to users who complain and whinge and gatekeep memes.
We have !microblogmemes@lemmy.world specifically for that kind of thing.
I’m not bothered too much by it, but since we have a dedicated space for that sort of thing, it makes sense to post them there rather than here.
I think this is actually a good argument for allowing them in that it confirms they are memes and do belong. memes is the broader category and should be more inclusive.
If I made !twittermemes@lemmy.world it doesn’t mean !microblogmemes@lemmy.world should cease allowing Twitter memes.
I feel like the community has spoken through the votes. Everytime a post or comment about the content not being what they think a meme is supposed to be is posted, it gets ratio’d to hell.
If those types of posts were actually seen as bad for the majority of users, they wouldn’t be getting upvoted more than downvoted.
Everytime a post or comment about the content not being what they think a meme is supposed to be is posted, it gets ratio’d to hell.
Er, no, quite the contrary actually. Whenever I comment “Where meme?” under a post that (IMO) doesn’t belong here, I get the normal amount of votes. My recent meme about text screenshots not being memes is at 884 upvotes by 73 downvotes as I type this comment.
I think it’s a bit of #5, but like others have stated, we have other communities on the Threadiverse that meet the requirements of the other numbers, like !nottheonion@lemmy.world for silly news headlines and !microblogmemes@lemmy.world for social media text post memes/funny posts. So I think we could gently encourage users to post to those communities instead.
The onky thing I’m not chill with is people just straight up posting the news/screenshots of serious political takes, but that’s an issue at !microblogmemes.world, not here imo. Outside of that were not too bad here.
