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Comment by sorenjan | Hacker News Reader

That's not a meme, that's a joke.

That's not the joke, Sony's approach to their hardware is.

How does Sony's approach differ from Microsoft or Apple?

Microsoft has yet to totally lockdown their hardware. They usually provide a way to disable secureboot or to enroll your own keys (with a few specific exceptions).

Apple's macs are also fairly open. You can install your own bootloader, and boot whatever you want on them. There's a secureboot, but it can be disabled.

Of course, apple's iPhone are very similar.

Apples and oranges. Microsoft's gaming consoles are very locked down, though I haven't been paying too much attention since the Xbox 360.

While not a completely open experience, Microsoft does let you do a lot more on the newer consoles, e.g. https://www.howtogeek.com/703443/how-to-put-your-xbox-series...

> With developer mode enabled on a Microsoft console, it’s possible to install and run UWP apps. When developer mode is enabled, retail games and other services won’t work.

I think I can see why it hasn't been used much, especially given that UWP app framework has been deprecated not that long ago.

I don’t remember with complete certainty, but I’m pretty sure developer mode on the Xbox can be turned back off relatively easily. You can use it like a dual boot and keep your games and data.

Still a pain in the ass, and I never did it because there’s a big button that _does_ erase all your data in the process of switching that you can click by accident.

A meme is something that becomes popular and gets passed around. A joke can be a meme

A meme is necessarily a joke but a joke is not necessarily a meme. A meme often, but not always, has a visual component to it. A meme is a cultural phenomenon. It is shared virally and evolves in the process.

EDIT: After reading the Wikipedia page like the two people that replied to me, it is now clear to me that a meme is not necessarily a joke.

I strongly disagree. Meme is a term coined by Richard Dawkins in his book The Selfish Gene, defining the idea of unit of cultural knowledge.

Basically, it's the smallest unit of cultural information. In the same sense as Gene it's the smallest unit of genetic information.

That's why it's pronounced Meme as in Gene.

None of this necessarily implies a joke.

You've got the technical definition correct, but the vast majority of usage of the term meme today is the colloquial usage, which is centered on humor, and has only a passing similarity to Dawkins' idea. Really, it's used today as a replacement term for what used to be called an "image macro", but also extends to cover video content.

For better or worse, that ship has sailed. Convincing people otherwise is going to go about as well as convincing them to not use "literally" in a figurative sense.

And unfortunately, that is literally impossible :P

From my online gaming experience, Gen Z seems to be adopting new usage of ‘meme’ that is decoupled it from virality. It’s used to discredit something as being a joke, falsehood or myth.

Wiktionary documents this usage since 2018:

> (Internet, slang) A myth circulating as truth, such as ineffective practices presented as effective.

> it’s a meme degree

> jogging is a meme

https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/meme

An idea circulating through the population is more than sufficient to qualify it as a meme. "Virality", meaning prolific spreading, was never a necessary condition. Some memes are popular but some aren't, that has always been recognized.

Also jogging is quite literally a meme, from the 60s and 70s. That's when the pairing of the term and activity became popularized and spread through the population.

Meme seemed to be evolving to simply mean an image with some text on it. I’m glad for this new direction. At least it is related to the original meaning.

That definition is already antiquated, since that shift had already mostly happened by around 5 years on most internet platforms (internet culture evolves quick these days). As other commenters have mentioned, it's now "evolving" to be more or less synonymous with "joke"

> it's now "evolving" to be more or less synonymous with "joke"

Or disinformation:

    A: $GROUP_I_DONT_LIKE is doing $BAD_THING

    B: dude, that's literally just a meme

Which, thinking about it, is back around to almost the original definition.

Opposite.

A meme is NOT necessarily a joke. An "internet meme", a subset of memes, is generally a joke, but "meme" itself is a singular unit of culture, and includes many non-funny things

I would argue also that all jokes are memes: that all jokes ultimately have a core meme to them.

> but "meme" itself is a singular unit of culture

Yup. It's not a coincidence that it sounds like "gene". The idea was precisely to treat it like that - memes get passed from generation to generation, get mutated, mix with other memes.

Ironically enough, Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance videogame from 2013 had a villain character who went on a monologue about memes, and a lot of people were confused by the way he used that term. But he described that original Dawkins definition really well.

> We are all pawns, controlled by something greater: Memes. The DNA of the soul. They shape our will. They are the culture — they are everything we pass on. Expose someone to anger long enough, they will learn to hate. They become a carrier. Envy, greed, despair… All memes. All passed along.

> but "meme" itself is a singular unit of culture

Yes, as per Richard Dawkins.

A joke that doesn't get repeated virally isn't a meme.

Not exactly. Memes are just cultural bits that get passed around, and virality is more like a measurement of how much they get passed around. Jokes have intrinsic memetic qualities (like this innate desire to get told again, for comedic value), which makes them great memes.

Check out the book "There Is No Antimemetics Division". A brilliant tour of all things meme (and anti-meme).

The meme is the format, the joke is how that format is appropriated for humor.

Certain others can elaborate further but back during the tenure of the PS3 Sony did attempt to prosecute individuals for publishing research into exploiting it. So not entirely a joke/meme.

How is a joke not a meme, in the original sense of the word ?

It's not a joke in the sense that it's actually true. Not just SSH, you can install practically any Linux piece of software on it.

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