What exactly is (or isn't) Memetic Mutation?

yeah, there was this part near the end of the Running Gag article that made the whole "Memetic Mutation is going through Trope Decay" click for me:

"Can become potential for Memetic Mutation if the gag itself is widely applicable."

it doesn't really help that the Memetic Mutation namespace is literally called "Memes", which doesn't really give off the right first impression imo

i've seen the use of a Running Gag namespace before (e.g. Vinesauce) and some of the things written there are pretty similar (if not identical) to things written in the corresponding Memes namespace, makes me wonder why the Running Gag namespace isn't used more

Edited by Freecom on Jun 6th 2020 at 5:14:48 AM

As a site oldie I agree that fandom memes deserve to be documented as well, but they are fairly removed from the original purpose of MM. Would it be simpler to split off Fandom Meme?

Going back a bit, where does fairness enter into this? Is there some rule I missed where obscure works deserve equal billing to mainstream works (presumably to avoid hurting their fans' feelings)? It may be more likely for a meme to go wild (mutate) for more popular works, but that has nothing to do with our rules — except in as much as people might try to use TV Tropes to create a Forced Meme.

Besides, by the original definition of Memetic Mutation, we wouldn't document in-jokes and fandom memes in Skyrim any more than we would some obscure MLP fanfic, only those memes that escaped and entered popular culture.

Edited by Fighteer on Jun 6th 2020 at 7:16:35 AM

Because it's a fan reaction trope, which means it's about how the audience reacts to the work, which means obscure works should qualify just as they'd qualify for any other audience reaction trope.

Also, the definition has changed. If it's no longer about memes becoming pop culture to an extent, the only thing it really can be about is fandom memes. And my point still stands that most memes we'd be troping are fandom memes, otherwise we really will just be documenting memes themselves and nothing else if we're talking about non-fandom memes too (or exclusively).

Basically, either it's a normal audience reaction trope and thus about how fans react to the work by creating memes about it, in which case the popularity or lack thereof of a work shouldn't determine anything. Or it's got nothing to do with fandom at all and is just about memes "mutating" beyond what they originally were, in which case it's not an "audience reaction" because it's not even about the OG work or that work's fanbase, but about pop culture as a whole, in which case it's just a list of memes that exist and where the originated with little concern for the actual works they came from- because they'd have evolved beyond their relation to the work, ideally.

Well, my vote is clearly for the latter.

And if we go with that route it'd make no sense to call it an Audience Reaction when it's just not, it'd be trivia or something.

On that note, splitting this and Fandom Meme sounds like a valid move to me, since I do think Fandom Memes are at least worth documenting (nothing else, just documenting them like we currently are as I see no reason not to).

i found an Administrivia page that briefly touches on the subject and it basically says what Fighteer said earlier (i don't know why nobody linked this)

• Memes: Memes are at best fan reactions, but usually they add very little to the wiki and end up dragging down the humor value. Memes may use tropes, however they are not tropes. Please leave them to Know Your Meme (and even if they become common enough to have their own pages, such as the Hitler Rants, those count as works, not tropes).

i'm down for rewriting examples of memes to frame them in actual tropes (at least, for the pages i start - i'm probably too much of a filthy casual to contribute to site-wide cleanup) and honestly that makes more sense for some of the so-called "memes" i've seen on the site.

anyway, i don't want people to beat each other up over this topic (because it's starting to read like that to me), just wanted some guidance on this so i can at least do my part not making the Trope Decay worse, however little that actually is. like Serac said there's always the Trope Repair Shop.

Edited by Freecom on Jun 6th 2020 at 10:03:08 AM

As I keep saying, there's a difference between turning the wiki into a meme-filled wild west like other sites, and merely documenting memes; the same way we can document fandom disputes without becoming a battleground for it. These memes objectively exist- pretending they don't is just weird.

I'm with WarJay here. I'm fine with having a list of memes from a work, as that is how audiences have reacted. We're not going in-depth like Know Your Meme is; most examples I've seen with proper context describe what part of the work it comes from and how it is used whereas KYM also goes into the history of the meme. Also, I took that bit from Not a Trope as referring to things like listing Rickroll or Caramelldansen Vid as tropes when they are not. (I do think treating memes as works may be worth looking into, though.)

@Fighteer

But the latter option is basically us being Know Your Meme then? In that we are only documenting Memes as their own thing and not as a part of an existing work. I believe you yourself said we don't want to be TV Memes / TV Inside Jokes, while at the same time saying Memetic Mutation itself is not a trope (and it can't fit into the Audience Reaction trope bucket either since they would be independent from the work they originated from). So are you telling us to just delete Memetic Mutation all together? Absolutely everything we have written over the years?

Clearly there is something that needs to be done here, like WarJay77 (link edited for better explanation) suggested.

Edited by truesord24 on Jun 6th 2020 at 6:35:40 PM

I think the key part is that Memetic Mutation is not about memes that develop from the work, but about memes that take on a life of their own. It's like how Memetic Badass is not just reciting a list of their accomplishments, but manufacturing new accomplishments to exaggeration. Anyone can make a gif or quote something, but the trope is to see it take on a different context altogether than what was intended.

The trope does have plenty of misuse, mostly because memes are by their nature very fleeting and tend to feel tired within weeks of becoming known, and we have no idea how long they will be relevant or if the meme itself is anything notable.

that's why i tried my best, at least on hololive, to only put in examples that at least pertain to more than one streamer, company, or website (otherwise imo it's nothing more than a Running Gag one streamer does at best), because usually the "Mutation" part comes into play on its own once a meme is out of the hands of its "creator" and their audience

This is why I kinda like the idea to split Memetic Mutation and Fandom Memes, so that both concepts remain covered while Memetic Mutation goes back to the original intent of it. I think both concepts are worthy, and my main concern was insisting these memes only deserve to be documented if they're super well known, which is subjective, restrictive, and lessens what sort of information we're allowed to document.

I just think that since memes are a big part of fandom culture and we do document fandom trends, there's zero reason not to record fandom-specific memes if they don't bleed to elsewhere on the wiki. Even if we need a new trope for the concept, I'd be fine with that, as long as they aren't cut entirely solely for not being noteworthy enough- maybe it's just my bias as a member of so many small fandoms, but those memes definitely exist and shape fandom culture in a major way.

I agree that fandom memes are a form of Audience Reaction. It's a super-concept to things we already have pages on, like Memetic Badass and Memetic Loser.

There's another kind of "meme" I can think of: the viral scene. The scene that escapes the boundaries of its home fandom, but doesn't necessarily undergo mutation. E.g. moments that see widespread use as reaction gifs/images.

I personally wish we don't have to do anything to our existing Memetic Mutation page, or its wicks. Or having this very thread be opened. (Why would we discuss a page that is both very popular and very old?)

But I don't mind having a "Fandom Memes" page.

Just threw that idea out there, but a discussion of splitting off Fandom Meme is really more a TRS job.

TRS is actually currently tackling quite a few oldies (Adorkable, Bi The Way, even Getting Crap Past the Radar) because just because they are old and popular doesn't mean they are being used properly as tropes or otherwise.

Edited by Synchronicity on Jun 7th 2020 at 8:31:46 AM

Oh yeah of course, TRS definitely would be needed. I'm just saying it's a good idea.

Just because you don't want to discuss this stuff doesn't mean the rest of us don't/shouldn't/can't...

Edited by WarJay77 on Jun 7th 2020 at 10:31:33 AM

What? What's wrong with discussing a trope that is both very popular and very old? I don't get it. Just because it is old doesn't mean we should just ignore the glaring problems.

Edited by truesord24 on Jun 7th 2020 at 3:53:27 PM

x4 not knowing what the trope really is doesn't really have anything to do with how popular or old it is. hell, judging from some of the posts on the first page, it ended up that way because it's popular

anyway, do i have to make the TRS thread? you guys keep saying it should be there, i feel like i should leave it to someone who knows the site better than i do

Generally speaking there is an aversion to removing or neutering a trope if it brings high volume traffic to the site. It's not a matter of if the trope is old and established, but if any sweeping change will cause harm to incoming views.

I know I found this site from a google search for MacGuffin (and that's a trope rife with misuse as well).

oh yeah, i can't even imagine how much work that would take to rework. like i said earlier i'm a filthy casual at this site, i can count the number of pages i regularly edit on one hand, the least i could do is be on the right track with them

Does this animation of Korone saying the phrase "Eekum Bokum" count as Memetic Mutation? This entry was already deleted once when I put it in the page, but the fact that there are hundreds of edits of this animation on Youtube made by different people to the point that just searching "eekum bokum" there will flood the search page with them, and the fact that it has a KYM page (admittedly that reason is tenuous at best) makes me believe it should be on there.

I'm going to Nth War Jay's suggestion to soft-split Memetic Mutation between internal fandom memes (whether we repurpose Running Gag, which sometimes gets used to refer to such things, or create a separate Fandom Meme category), and the more widespread kind that Fighteer and Freecom describe. Now, since the majority of examples under Memetic Mutation seem to be closer to the fandom kind these days, perhaps we can leave them under that name, and create a new class for these latter supra-memes to move them to.

Afterwards we can focus cleanup on determining whether they're widespread enough to upgrade to supra-meme status or should be downgraded to Fandom Memes. I think that's much preferable to just nuking the majority of them, which flies in the face of There Is No Such Thing as Notability.

Especially since, while I understand the importance of maintaining Signal To Noise Trainwreck andd limiting Entry Pimp-style shoehorning, I think these kinds of entries do have value in helping pull in external traffic from people interested to learn more about these works and what they entail. We don't need to be Know Your Meme as far as extensive documentation of these memes goes. But having a short synopsis of the biggest memes is well within our scope.

I personally would think so. And it'd certainly count as the kind of meme that extends beyond the fandom, given that I'm aware of it without having watched the Korone video it comes from.

Edited by AlleyOop on Sep 23rd 2020 at 3:54:20 PM

I agree that only allowing memes that entered pop culture is too restrictive, and that in-fandom memes can be worth documenting. I think we should move the fandom memes to something like Fandom Meme and keep the widespread ones on Memetic Mutation. We'd have to change a lot of links on YMMV pages, but at least the Memes/ namespace works for Fandom Meme (and we can make a new namespace for Memetic Mutation if there are enough pop culture memes to warrant it).