Interesting interview with Know Your Meme' editor-in-chief. If you don't know the site, it's essentially an encyclopedia of memes — some call it the most important site on the internet.
Topics include what constitutes a meme, pinpointing meme origins, meme eras, web3, etc.
Know Your Meme is a good example of a website that has done really well despite a somewhat dated design and look. Hacker News and Wikipedia are other examples that come to mind.
It’s interesting that Don Caldwell was an anthropology major. Anthropologists document culture and society and think about how it all works. Don Caldwell and Know Your Meme are doing just that for Internet culture.
I recently listened to a Joe Rogan episode where he talked about how beautiful memes are — essentially that they bring joy and connection, but no one ever asks for credit. It's just something people do out of the goodness of their hearts. And because it's fun.
I love that.
Oh, cool! I didn't know this existed but I've often wondered about the origins of different memes. It would be crazy hard to pin them down.