Memes

From: XKCD.com

Memes are an important piece of internet culture, in some ways, it is one of the pieces that constitutes to this new "language." The denotative meaning to this word is "a unit or element of cultural ideas, symbols or practices; such units or elements transmit from one mind to another through speech, gestures, rituals, or other imitable phenomena." When you log onto some internet communities for the first time, such as 4Chan, it's common to not understand what the hell is going on. A lot of strange catch phrases such as 'over 9000' or 'last Thursday' and some other 'bizarre' surface all throughout the image board. These are generally called "memes" - in this scenario, it is a phrase that is meant to reflect on an inside joke. One of the difficult things of joining a new community, learning the 'memes' is an important thing to consider in order to understand and integrate successfully.

Originally, I had intended on compiling a list of popular memes, but there's just far too many of them to list in a single blogger post. For people who are not as familiar with popular internet culture, here's a basic list . For anyone else who wants to know further, there's always Encyclopedia Dramatica (warning: it's not safe for work!), a snarky wiki site that incorporates a sarcastic, but detailed database of memes, satires and famous internet events.

- Khuyen