In this first Papers About Memes roundup, we present six papers that demonstrate how different fields approach memes, what methodologies they employ, and what results they achieve.
Papers were chosen primarily for breadth of fields covered and interesting abstracts—resulting in a collection of widely varying quality. These works span from what we believe a foundational text in the field to promising yet flawed studies, and even include some readings that might only cause frustration.
Each paper has its own page containing our summaries of context, methodology, and results. For a deeper dive, you can explore the excerpts section or read the original paper.
N.B.: This is not a formal literature review. We don't aim to "objectively" evaluate papers—instead, we summarize and excerpt only the parts we find interesting.
N.B.2: All material on the paper pages represents our excerpts, summaries, or opinions. The credit for the research belongs to the papers' authors, not us.
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Paper About Memes 1 - Three Key insights
“It Gets Better”: Internet memes and the construction of collective identity
A quantitative study of video memes that was groundbreaking for its time and influenced much follow-up research, featuring innovative methodology. However, it reads like a solution in search of a problem, as the authors' can’t decide what are the goals of their research
A Study on Meme Marketing Strategies of Domestic Brands and Optimization Suggestions
The study of memes from a brand marketing perspective. A very promising methodology, spoiled by lackluster execution. As a result finding are intriguing but not specific enough for any particular recommendations and can say something only about meme marketing in general.