Buy memes low, sell memes high: vernacular criticism and collective negotiations of value on Reddit’s MemeEconomy

ABSTRACT

While existing scholarship has focused on distilling the attributes of successful memes and the dynamics of their propagation in online spaces, there is a lack of research on the vernacular criticism of memes beyond quantitative markers of popularity. By examining the MemeEconomy community on Reddit, where ‘meme traders’ appropriate stock market terminology to discuss and appraise memes, this article aims to understand how this particular subculture of self-proclaimed meme insiders assigns value to viral media. Our findings point to the salience of four key features that are seen to determine a meme’s value: its positioning in relation to the mainstream, its versatility and expansion potential, its topicality or cultural relevance, and its perceived quality. We discuss implications for the formation and reinforcement of subcultural identities around memes, and theorize the role of vernacular criticism as fulfilling significant social functions in online communities.

KEYWORDS:

• Memes
• Reddit
• vernacular criticism
• value
• online communities

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Ioana Literat is Assistant Professor in the Communication, Media & Learning Technologies Design program at Teachers College, Columbia University. Her research, which examines participatory cultures and online creativity, has been published in New Media & Society, Communication Theory, International Journal of Communication, and Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly, among others [email: [email protected]].

Sarah van den Berg is a doctoral student in the Department of Curriculum & Teaching at Teachers College, Columbia University. Her interests lie in the visual culture and aesthetics of education [email: [email protected]].

Notes

1 As a core community member explains, ‘dank’ – a term used frequently on the site – ‘is used to describe a meme that has reached or is around its peak popularity’.