IMT School for Advanced Studies

January 30, 2023

Recipe for a good meme

Abstract: Internet memes are user-generated digital artifacts that pervade social media networks. Every day millions of people view, create, like, and share internet memes on various platforms. These online social practices sustain the rapid spread and evolution of internet memes. But, not all memes are created the same. While most memes tend to flop, others make it to the front page of Reddit or garner other social rewards. Our project asks: what are the key cognitive and emotional ingredients that make a good meme? In a large online study (N = 1153), participants provided their ratings of 300 internet memes and their judgements of cognitive and emotional features. In this talk, I will provide an overview of this dataset and its key findings.