It's a meme.: And The Fandom Rejoiced.Video Games

Okay, so according to the IP guideline, meme images like lolcats, demotivators, and so forth are grounds for instant pulling, but for some reason, said guideline has a single explicit exception for the image on this page.

I fail to see why this should be an exception, so can we find a replacement image?

Just to be perfectly clear on this, yes, this is a meme image.

Sorry misunderstood which page.

edited 19th Jan '12 1:10:46 PM by RhymeBeat

Someone said that the reaction guys were OK. It's just LOL Cats and demotivators that are supposed to get zapped.

The real issue here is that there are two images on both sides of the page, which seems very cramped and unnecessary.

Who is this someone, and where did he say that?

Because the image guidelines (a sticky in this forum) says that all meme images are invalid, not just the Lolcats.

I...don't remember

From the stickied criteria:

The following are reasons to instantly pull an image and start a thread to replace it:
[...]
* A Demotivator, LOL Cat, or other meme-based picture. The "reaction guys◊" are the one exception; see Video Games.

edited 19th Jan '12 2:30:36 PM by helterskelter

Yes, that's my point. A couple months ago, that thread also showed "a sole exception", a different one which eventually had its image replaced.

I think we should do the same here. It's not a particularly good image, it relies mostly on photoshopped-in text, and it's unnecessarily wide. I really don't see why this should be our sole exception to the "no memes" policy.

Motion to keep.

It gets the point across. Most people who play video games know Mario and Luigi, and glancing through the examples, I don't see any other prominent examples.

What? What thread? It used to be the lead image for And The Fandom Rejoiced, but a main page image was removed and others were placed on the subpages. As I recall, that's what Eddie prefers, isn't it?

In any case, you have the proof that the reaction guys are the exception the meme rule. This image is fine, it gets the point across. We probably won't be able to find a better one.

But why does it link to Super Mario Galaxy 2? Someone didn't collect all the stars in the first game.

That's the game where the gameplay image came from.

edited 19th Jan '12 3:37:02 PM by Komodin

I agree that it's cramped, but it does show the trope, so I'd say only pull it if you find a better one. I didn't know it was a meme before reading this thread.

This is me speculating, but I believe the reason why meme pics should be axed is because they usually need an understanding of the meme to understand why the pic is a good one for the trope page it's on, and without said understanding, they're just not all that good.

@ feather: that is the primary reason, the secondary being that Eddie finds memes to be lame and boring.

Then I agree with the secondary reasoning as well.

edited 20th Jan '12 12:39:14 AM by Feather7603

OP didn't suggest a better picture (or any picture), and people seem to be okay with the one we have—should we call for a lock?

I hate this image, I hate that it's a meme, I hate the blurry text all over the image, but it works. I don't think it's worthy of a pull, unfortunately.

Agreeing. From a design standpoint I detest the two-image format though.

Several people in this thread don't "seem to be okay" with this. Besides, we're not in a hurry. Let's give the thread some time to see what images it can come up with.

Googling "happy fans" turns up hundreds of images of cheering fans, such as this one◊.

There is no exception to the "no memes" rule. Especially not for this tired old piece of unfunny.

Thank you very much.

There's the answer.

But it doesn't just serve as a meme. It's autonomous to itself. It's not an "in joke" no one is going to get—the meme exists because it shows "bored; excited" really well. That's why most of us are okay with it. If this weren't already a meme, I don't think anyone would have a problem with it. If I selected similar, non-meme pictures, there'd be no getting fussy about the meme thing.

edited 21st Jan '12 8:53:53 AM by helterskelter

I'm quite curious about it myself. Are we banning memes because they get in the way (objective) or simply because we don't like them (arbitrary)? "A bit of both," naturally, counts more towards the latter.

I'm okay even if it's just arbitrary, but a confirmation would be good, so that cases like this (including meme-based images because we think it doesn't serve as a meme) doesn't happen again.

I'll edit that piece from the IP thread criteria to show that this thread's in progress.

EDIT: Nevermind, Eddie already did it.

edited 21st Jan '12 12:24:32 PM by Willbyr

^^ Because they always, always, always get dated and stale sooner than anyone thinks they will.