>I know this isn’t a big huge conspiracy

It actually is, and you're not wrong.

I never expected them to let us have the internet without at least giving everything they've got in order to manipulate us and perpetuate the failings of the MSM with the death of TV on the horizon.

The goal is to erase complex language entirely, the ideal result being communication through emoticons. Noticed their introduction into mainstream chat applications? There is a good Manly P Hall lecture on language and symbolism.

People still do, it depends on the places you frequent and the people in your circle. Surround yourself with those on the same mission as you ;-)

"if you disagree with this meme I found, unfriend me now"

Op responds with “lmao” and an emoji, in a post he wrote about the decline of language due to memes.

I think I contracted a migraine around when the 'you're just a hater' phrase became popular. All of the sudden you were robbed of a counter yet valid opinion because of fabricated motive you allegedly have.

What bugs me the most is people overdoing references to movies and tv shows in a discussion... I just can't stand these people seriously

I think they are two separate issues. A meme can convey things that words can’t. Language is direct and to try and have a conversation (not saying it’s bad obviously) you have to use words to pull yourself towards a meaning and still maybe never get there. Memes encompass a different type of language that can convey something more eloquently, but there’s that room (just like art) where the user/seer can have that same idea, but have it draw from each persons own unique experiences so it goes a little deeper. Listened to a podcast with an expert in hieroglyphics speaking in this manner and it changed my entire outlook on memes. Of course, subject matters.

double plus good!

Erase complex language? Me not like! Hulk SMASH!

Ya it’s pretty ridiculous. On top of memes, videos are gaining popularity as they allow content creators to support their point with catchy music and visuals and to take advantage of human nature by having charming and attractive individuals push their message.

These days people don’t even want to read, let alone weigh facts and come to an informed decision. It’s all appeal to emotion.

These days people don’t even want to read

So true, and i'm guilty of it. I just bought a lathe, and the old man gave me an encyclopedia of machining. These books have so much detail and knowledge in them I could literally know everything, but instead I search youtube for "how to grind lathe bits" and basically only learn 1% of the info.

I have 0 attention span.

This is so me. I wish I could read more but I can’t focus on a book anymore. I actually feel dumb and guilty when I think about it, but whenever I start a book I put it away halfway through because everything around distracts me. And it doesn’t really matter how interesting the book is, I haven’t actually finished a single book in many years.

They had video news on cables for decades.
People are turning away from those, you expect them to just start to read, or to move to the closest thing there is?

Meme in 2009: bad luck brain - gets imaginary girlfriend, gets dumped

Meme in 2018: showing picture of neo Nazi- when you voted for Trump because he's the lesser of two evils

Nazi Germany street poster: picture of finger pointing at a rich looking Jew - YOU are to blame for the war!

It's flat out propaganda made by rabid people. You're right.

It's interesting that your example of a 2018 meme is anti Trump. Hmm.

You’re apart of the problem. Everything being said and all you saw was anti trump. You are litterally who op is talking about. You’re in a conspiracy sub, you should know that trump, Hillary or most politicians doesn’t give a fuck about you but still you worry about the wrong things. Be better please because we all need to.

Trump tweeted pepe memes. Trump and his supporters, without a doubt, leveraged memes as a propaganda tool far more than the other side. It's just interesting you chose to select anti Trump memes as your example.

I could've put another one but that one was easiest. I'm anti Trump.

I posted this today, which hints at the destruction of language as a dumbing down mechanism. Check it out, if you care to.

No problem, and I think it's very relevant (or supplemental) to your OP, which I do agree with, BTW.

Memes are just as bad as talking points if not worse, people internalize them as their own belief when they hit share and they spread across sm virally

Also seems like they're being created artificially. Every day there's thousands of new memes yet I don't honestly know anybody in real life that's ever created one, aside from a very basic bad luck brian or rick and morty meme. So many of these "thought changing" memes seemingly come out of nowhere. I doubt nerdy people are just spending hours a day thinking up these memes.

There is a sub Reddit where you can sell Memes. Of course they are being pumped out daily.

But they are a good tool for controlling opinions.

I have thought this too. Who actually creates these?!

Welcome to the new world. Civil discourse and debates are a thing of the past, the science is in and you either believe how I believe, or you're an idiot. This has been building for sometime and will only get worse.

Most "news" is truncated into meme-sized format now too. People get the headline or tweet and run with it at face value and take it as fact, regardless if the article explaining the headline might actually contradict said headline.

Take the "shithole" comment from a few weeks back. It was alleged that Trump said "people come here from shithole countries" in a closed door meeting. Then that one line was plastered all over the internet and people accused Trump of racism and many launched online campaigns to refute his alleged statement and decry his supposed racism.

Nevermind that his comment was never said on record, the only person who says he said it that way was Dick Durbin (the only Democrat in the meeting), and his comment was apparently about the state of the countries, not a race or ethnicity being bad. But, when you just take the 140 characters (well, more now) as your news, it works really well to divide and conquer the masses.

It's like consuming junk food. It's quick and easy, but it's also killing us.

It is a huge conspiracy and indication of our breakdown of reflection, language, and thought.

I have actually written a post about this somewhere. I think I can go more in depth.

Have you heard of meme magick?

https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/pgkx7g/trumps-occult-online-supporters-believe-pepe-meme-magic-got-him-elected

Excellent thread. Your sentiments are on point and I couldn't agree more. This should be upvoted into the stratosphere.

Same here. While memes can be mildly entertaining, it's frightening how so many people treat them as fact when in actuality they are nothing more that suggestive propaganda. I too have been bothered by this shit for quite some time. If you think about it, perhaps it's the perfect way to keep us divided by compartmentaizing issues that are far beyond black and white. The general lack of attention span in our various cultures is being taken advantage of. In my opinion, it's all part of a much darker picture to undermine critical thinking in order to keep the populace engaged in conflict. Shit is only going to get darker from here.

Exactly. Rampant extremism is the perfect recipe for perpetual conflict. Everyone stays distracted and unable organizing against the "one true enemy." This really is the great "dumbing down". Shit is especially scary because most of us are falling for it hook line and sinker. Disinformation is king. You create a society of cushy conveniences and people will eventually want to remain content. Give them digital forums and social media to get their poisons out while effectively creating echo chambers for them and all their friends. Everyone becomes stuck in microcosms of ignorance, hate and resentment. Stir the pot with memes and engineered news then before you know it, after everyone is dumbed down to grotesque levels of stupid, it all becomes our undoing. FUCK man, I could go on for hours haha

Am I the baddie for tweeting this all day https://imgur.com/a/vtZdM ?

:/ sorry OP

See, and I think memes can be used in such a way as to get real points across very quickly. People out there get the arguments being made but as people are, don't want to hear the argument itself. In some more specialized cases, they can be quite efficient in getting a point across. I can see how that can be a negative thing but at the same time memes are or can be a way of communicating very efficiently.

As what is posted above, I agree that police won't and cannot be there to protect you as personal body guards. No one should expect such a foolish thing. Thus, the argument is ridiculous to say that if you turn in your guns, your responsibility to protecting yourself is rightly in the hands of the local police. Memes such as this instantly get that point across.

I'm not sold on the idea that memes reduce us somehow. If you post a meme and someone challenges you, then you should be ready to step up with more than just a picture.

I'm not arguing that Universities should accept memes from their students as equivalent to year end masters papers but here on the "internets", it's about efficiency and speed in getting information across. Sometimes it works well.

I definitely agree with this. I'm not a huge conspiracy person, though I tend to read through them because a lot of conspiracies are quite interesting.
I do agree that the spreading of memes seems to be out of control and the internet is absolutely saturated with them, but now it's even leaking into real life.
I have seen it myself with my two brothers, one of which lives and breathes memes, everything he says or does has to be related to some kind of meme. And it's gotten to the point where I do agree that people nowadays, even those that don't meme, are affected by the oversimplification of many things. I'm not politic savvy, so I won't even try, but I know that a lot of things that are both horrible to say or do are made acceptable as long as it's under the preface of being a meme. And people laugh about it, make jokes, and spread it.
(Edited to fix my horrible formatting.)

i would like to know more specifically how his meme based argument played out, if you wouldn’t mind sharing!

The main platform on which politicians, journalists, and public figures in general communicate with the public now has a strict character limit that forces them to oversimplify nuanced concepts into digestible soundbites. Whether this was a deliberate conspiracy or not, who knows, but it's seriously degrading public dialogue. Sigh.

That's why I'm still on reddit, despite the horrible voting system that's uniquely vulnerable to astroturfing. At least you can complete a fucking thought here.

Political cartoons are basically the same.

Memes are intelligent thought. The Better the meme the more it encompasses the moment and message intended with humor and sharp intellect.

Memes are, image macros are something different, and I feel that's what the Op is referring to

Ugh, why are there so many good ones?!

Everything's subjective

But how is that intelligent? Taking a nuanced topic and using humor and hyperbole seems. ore like propaganda.

RelevantToMyInterests.jpg

They are symbols, and like every symbol they convey thought and can incite an emotional response.

You might enjoy reading The Society of the Spectacle. People were calling out how images have supplanted genuine human interaction since the 1960's, and its only gotten worse since then. Whether or not its a conscious conspiracy, you've certainly identified a dangerous phenomena.

that's funny because i find the (ex)establishment sucks big time at producing memes, but they are experts at crafting walls of meaningless texts that sound intelligent but really are just a steaming pile of fallacies... the (somewhat) new establishment rode memes to victory successfully but have since lost much of their spicyness.

I actually think it's the opposite, meme are the pinnacle of intelligent thought, which is why shills have such a hard time with them... they are the maximum amount of information in a very small medium, often with humor and wit, and for this they have become the most appealing and efficient form of information.

On a last note...

"What you can't explain properly in five minutes you won't explain any better in fifteen."

Charles Pasqua.

This is a really good and thought-provoking post. I have this odd feeling that has been bubbling in my head for a few months that Americans have become irreparably broken, but I can’t define it exactly or say exactly how we are broken. I mean this in more than a sense of everything was awesome in “the good old days and now it’s gone to shit”.

I can see bits and pieces of it, like:

-the social media echo chambers on both sides that promote extreme you’re-either-with-me-or-I hate-everything-you-stand-for-ism,

-the weirdly obstinate way large bunches of people cling to certain ideas of how to make things better (build a literal wall around the border, ban AR-15s but ignore literally every other similar kind of gun, etc.) —when those ideas are either obviously unworkable or only really work for one “side”, and if you try to question the idea you’re immediately banned from participation in the conversation

-the way people go into attack mode immediately if you ask them a question about their ideas or ask for details,

-extreme dismissal of contrary opinions based on dogma (I.e., You’re wrong because: science! Or you’re wrong because: liberals!)

-A weird obsession with bringing people to extreme justice for relatively minor infractions (She lost her shit about sitting near a baby on an airplane, she should lose her job!).

I could go on...

I really think meme culture fits into it somehow.

They want people to be responsive with emotions instead of logic

I'll just leave this here

Pdf warning geez

Interestingly enough I stumbled upon this video a few days ago

https://m.youtube.com/watch?t=1792s&v=aaG23Zv_-_8

I've had an ongoing theory about how people are essentially "turning" into the troll. What starts off as an edgy 4chan esque racial slur pro trump supporting joke snowballs into the individual actually believing what they are saying. I'm kinda buzzed right now so maybe it doesn't make sense or I'm being too vague but basically our up and coming generations are being dumbed down Idiocracy style. Scary shit.

Disagree strongly. You want serious discussion, yeah, everybody wants that. But perhaps you have noticed that this serious discussion has been banished completely from the mainstream media. There's only a discussion within a set of "allowed" opinions. How can you get your voice heard if you are never allowed to step up to the podium and speak? What if all you can do is shout something from the back row? Memes are those back row shouts. They condense a complex thought into a single punch.

Memes, like anything else, are simply tools. WE decide whether they are beneficial or detrimental.

Please OP. Take a good long look at this, and tell me again it isn't a better, more meaningful form of communication than well researched but entertaining documentaries or even face to face discussions.

https://i.imgur.com/D2aPZbf.png

heavily influenced by the constant streams of memes

Stremes.

Call it streaming thought. Except you're not really thinking anymore because a meme is an idea. So what people do is learn ideas by being exposed to the continual flow of memes.

A few people will consider a meme from more than one angle. But the average (weak-minded) person will tend to catch the idea and enjoy the entertaining and clever way in which that idea was presented to them.

Their mind then comes into resonance with the idea because they've been distracted by the emotion of enjoyment.

A meme cuts both ways though. It can be a bit of truth/wisdom, or it can be a piece of crap. Which is why you need to think about the idea contained in a meme... and decide for yourself which it is.

I’m telling you guys.

If we just deleted comments as a whole from social media, humans might start thinking more.

The ability to comment on everything on social media does nothing but create chatter amongst the masses with nothing to come of it. It’s brainwashed people into thinking that simply spewing their short formed opinions is considered enough for legit discussion and only search out other comments they agree with.

This results in nothing being done.

(I don’t mean forum talk)

thank you this ia the same thing i was going witb in my post but this is more cleard up

Those memes may influence people to research about what they really mean, for example after seeing a couple Ancap memes I started to look for books and videos about the ideology.

I agree- and Im reposting my response from a similar thread, if you don't mind--

I was also thinking this about memes and the true but ignored potential of the Internet last night:

We have devices in our homes and pockets that can answer any (non-hypothetical) question a person could have. There are classes and videos by dedicated people that can teach you anything you'd like to learn. There's limitless inspiration and making new friends and alliances has never been easier-

Yet we use the Internet for chuckles and entertainment, dank memes, dividing ourselves into subgroups and angry tribes. Language is devolving to meme speak, like -"when you be ________ but you also ________" - and kids don't even have the proper language Or interest to seek out the millennia of information, art and science that is stored at their fingertips.

The Internet, and most people, have successfully been subverted of their potential.

And I'm trying to change my own distracted usage of the Internet- I want to learn. I want to improve myself and my slice of the world. I'm tired of just browsing life.

How do you know what something is, if you don't have a word for it?

You don't know, what you don't know.

That is a key aim is subduing a population.

memes have always existed! Proverbs, songs, folktales are all memes in themselves: perpetuation and spreading of information.

One of the most ancient memes is a Sumerian song on how to brew beer !!

The Snitchernet mentality is ruining society. Anytime there's a problem people feel the need to film it and post it online for everyone to judge and ruin their life

Like this?

In a world with extreme political correctness, memes can give certain groups a voice who otherwise wouldn't have one. I agree that they often don't promote any meaningful discussion, but they're still good for redpilling normies.

You should create a meme about this so I can share it. Fight fire with Fire? I’m not even being sarcastic. Lemme know if you make one

You bring up an excellent point. That's why troll and boy accounts mainly uses them.

I view memes as reactive to our society's ever shrinking attention span.

Everything needs to come across in bite size pieces, because kids have been trained by smart devices and tv to have a shorter attention span.

Something needs to be done about it, I just don't know what that is

Damm dude. I want to thank you. I read the title and this made me lol so much. You made my day and this post is funnier than everything I find in dankmemes

I like that Meme-based statements likely thwart the AI based chat-board software used by nemesis.

The internet is the root of all evil. Memes turn horrible incidents into something to laugh at. Usually when you laugh you say to the person next to you "too soon?" but you really don't care. Memes have desensitized us to serious issues and made things that otherwise wouldn't be funny, hilarious.

You overestimate people.

Most people are misinformed and frankly unintelligent and their best arguments ARE summed up in memes. Sites like 9gag exist solely for memes because people don't want intelligent conversation anymore.

I mean people now communicate and debate through Twitter, a platform that doesn't allow you to type in a single full article.

People just want sentences now. Anything more is too much for them.

https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/pgkx7g/trumps-occult-online-supporters-believe-pepe-meme-magic-got-him-elected

I think I contracted a migraine around when the 'you're just a hater' phrase became popular. All of the sudden you were robbed of a counter yet valid opinion because of fabricated motive you allegedly have.