Into second, i determined the common number of google search results for every single meme family unit members within the Google!

Strengthening the fresh test

Our very own sample will be based upon 50 groups of popular memes, many of which integrated an introducing meme for example and you can 20 different types (as an instance, the initial “Charlie Part My Thumb” movies and you can 20 imitations/remixes with the clip). Essentially, the full test manage were 1050 meme circumstances (fifty family X 21 period), not, as the certain meme household didn’t have an opening meme eg (age.grams. “Facepalm,” “Lolcats”), the finally sample contained 1013 products getting investigation. Identifying the most used meme family members could very well be an impossible activity because of the active character off memes in addition to different methods having contrasting its dominance (consider counts, likes/votes, number of derivations, amount of says browsing overall performance, and so on); however, i suggest right here an organized processes to recognize very popular meme household based on a combination of educational and you will websites-built supplies.

Very first, with the aid of the KnowYourMeme database (look for also Phillips, 2012 ; Shifman, 2013 an effective, 2013 b), i developed a summary of 1168 recognized meme family. To filter out the latest fifty most popular of them, i triangulated directories of preferred memes appearing in academic papers (Bauckhage, 2011 ; Knobel & Lankshear, 2007 ; Shifman, 2012 , 2013 b) employing se’s popularity. and you Christian dating apps can Yahoo (towards authenticity and reliability regarding the means come across including ).

Whenever good meme had several it is possible to titles, such “Charlie Piece Me” and you may “Charlie Portion My Finger – Once more!,” we searched for the term you to definitely yielded the highest level of google search results and possess appeared in the greatest quantity of academic source. I ranked the fresh new meme group considering its search engine dominance plus the amount of educational source one to recognized him or her. From the fifty meme group, forty was in fact chosen in this way. Finally, given that instructional present detailed simply memes up until 2010, so you’re able to include more recent memes, we extra 10 even more common memes following the same techniques, but as opposed to triangulating the knowledge which have educational supply.

We used a variety of a couple common meme-oriented social media websites (Reddit and Tumblr), to help you to acquire 20 different cases of all the 50 meme family members. We made use of the headings of the 50 chose memes (elizabeth.grams., “Charlie Piece Myself”) because the browse inquiries during these social media sites. In the place of medium-certain search engines including YouTube, this procedure allowed us to select a combination of prominent clips, pictures, and you can text designs of your own meme parents. Those web sites along with allowed sorting according to their internal positions possibilities: For reddit, i utilized the choose rating, calculating the essential difference between confident (upvotes) and you may negative (downvotes) opinions; getting Tumblr, we obtained what number of “likes” and “reblogs” (shares) a circulation received. After the interior positions options, the fresh new 20 preferred instances of for each and every meme was indeed tested, generally playing with fifteen from reddit and you may 5 away from Tumblr, given that previous is seen to be a legitimate and you can prolific source. This method are chosen so you’re able to finest mirror the fresh cumulative viewpoint and you can liking of profiles given that conveyed from the active voting otherwise revealing, planning to select the most preferred and thus really associate era of any meme family relations. Just like the detailed less than, this test is exposed to both content and you may community analyses.

Stuff analysis

The new reached try is actually analyzed having fun with decimal content study. The initial phase from programming concerned about identifying this quiddities inside per meme household members. For every meme like, the fresh new coders indexed area of the enjoys you to definitely stayed on new meme otherwise had been generally shared by almost every other cases of an equivalent family relations (such, a main character, a particular phrase, or an item). A grounded, qualitative data that followed this initial phase produced five types of quiddities, hence accounted for every circumstances i examined: target, step, certain reputation, generic profile (age.g. “child” or “cat”), and you will phrase. The whole corpus ended up being lso are-assessed quantitatively, according to the five kinds: Each meme particularly are coded by a couple programmers for having one to or maybe more of your five quiddity brands. At this stage, a keen intercoder reliability test are used (get a hold of less than).