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Show HN: MemeKit, meme your Facebook friends

memekit.com

22 pointsslewis20 comments

Can we get one thing clear - a photo with (dubiously humorous) words on it is not a meme, even (generally speaking) in the unlikely event it has "gone viral".

The act of putting words on a photo in an attempt to be funny on the other hand is an example of a meme.

Semantics.

Not exactly - the definition of meme as originally coined by Richard Dawkins [1], and as has been adopted to describe internet memes [2] is pretty well understood (outsite of 4chan ;-)

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_meme

Actually, you'd be surprised. 4chan pretty well understands the difference here, as a lot of their memes are the non-image-macro types. They were the ones that invented the concept of the "forced meme" and other meta-meme terminology.

Fair point: :%s/4chan/reddit/g

You are correct. The proper name for these are "image macros".

Here's my newest creation. A fun little app that's really my first attempt to make something viral.

I'd love to hear feedback from anyone who knows how to drive FB app traffic. For example one thing I learned is that I probably should have made it a Facebook canvas app. True?

Any other feedback is much appreciated as well.

This, according to 4chan kids, is "cancer". However, that generally means that it'll be spectacularly successful. Nice work and good luck.

I thought about posting the "cancer" part, but I was, and rightfully so, afraid of the downvotes.

The whole concept of the website seems to be especially cancerous because of the use of the word "meme". A meme isn't a picture with text slapped on, but rather a quite complex concept of the development and evolution of an idea.

A meme has to start somewhere.

I actually love how divisive this is. Folks on reddit told me I'm a terrible person: http://www.reddit.com/r/facebook/comments/syov0/i_made_memek....

Honestly, why does it matter if people use a term differently than you if they're just having some fun?

Probably for the same reason that marketing done in a foreign language with poor translations or literal translations of idioms is received poorly: it identifies you as an outsider and may evoke shades of exploitation.

I totally agree. The overall concept and definition of "meme" is something that diffuses through a culture, but that's pretty broad within itself.

Sure, internet memes at first began as popular images that were spread across the entire internet, but what's wrong with taking a picture of your friends and slapping some text on it to joke around with them on Facebook?

I don't think there's a problem with calling these internet memes; I just think that the term "internet meme" has evolved to consist of the macro memes that you see used all over the internet and the micro memes you will soon see created of you and your friends.

Memekit.com and BuddyMeme.com sure sound better than Slapfunnyinsidejokesonpicturesofyourfriends.com

Brilliant idea.

I do think that the memetrain has been overused. I saw it used for Student Government Association promotions at my university. HOWEVER, it is a true statement that plenty of memeworthy moments are documented in my photos.

Hey, good work! I did this like a year ago. https://github.com/ecto/memify.me

What was your experience?

This could be really huge, nice job.

Thanks! I think so too.

But... From what I've seen so far initial users will create a few images of their friends and then post them back to Facebook. But the incoming traffic from those Facebook links doesn't seem to get people signing up. So in marketing speak the viral coefficient is too low.

Here's an example of the landing page: http://www.memekit.com/im/d1bbe86c-3333-4d0e-bcf0-d0641c57b2...

I need to get more people clicking through to it from Facebook, and more people clicking "Start Meming" on that page. So I'd really love to here from HNers who have ideas.

I created a very similar app called BuddyMeme (http://buddymeme.com) and we ran into the exact same problem - images posted to Facebook would often get 50+ likes, but it was tough to convert those impressions into signups onto BuddyMeme.

Awesome. I'll shoot you an email.

cool

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