This, my fellow jammers, is an example of an Image Macro but it is not, I learned recently, an Internet Meme. Well, not yet anyway. While my bit of goofy photo fun meets the Image Macro criteria (it is a captioned image that consists of a picture and a witty message or a catchphrase) it has yet to sweep through the Internet like a relentless plague on humanity like this:
Or this:
Those of you down with the memes will realize that the second link is actually an example of an Internet Meme using animated Internet Memes. I know! Head…Blown…
Now if the photo I used for my Image Macro ends up on one of the many meme generating sites like this one or that one and thousands of people start slapping captions all over it and posting it on various and sundry social networks THEN and only THEN does it become an Internet Meme. It has followed the first rule of Meme Club.
By the way, want to see what many consider to be the very first Image Macro? Turns out it predated LOLCats by about 100 years. In 1905 photographer Harry Whitter Frees dressed a cat in a robe, sat it on a chair, snapped a picture and added a caption that read: “What’s Delaying My Dinner?” Yes, I think it is more than a little bit creepy.
