Classifying memes on a Cynefin template. With overlaid horseshoe effect between obvious and chaotic. Other candidate classifications welcome.
Conversation
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I’d say virgin-chad is on border between complex and chaotic, as is screaming woman vs cat (they’re the same idea)
“One does not simply walk into Mordor” is complicated
Yes chad/Nordic gamer is obvious
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Didn’t notice until just now, but most memes with trad sensibilities tend to be in the obvious quadrant. They point to best practices in a sense-categorize-respond mode, and maintain a chaos-oblivious posture.
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“This is fine” is chaos-quadrant catatonia that can be mistaken for obvious.
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Obvious = deny disorder
Complicated = try to overcome disorder
Complex = subvert attempts at order
Chaos = embrace disorder
Center = embody disorder
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How it started/how it’s going is complex quadrant
Interestingly, memes don’t convey irony well because they have a context-free/global context character. To the extent a meme can be deployed ironically, you have to suggest irony via accompanying context and subtext.
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Extending to other media, all explainers are complicated quadrant. Most of Substack is complicated quadrant.
Besides memes, most media tend to have a single quadrant locus.
Blog posts sometimes span all 4 though, which is why they can go viral in ways newsletters tend not to.
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Many memes try to traverse all 4 and end in chaos. Expanding brain is best example of this. Small brain = obvious, Galaxy brain = chaos.
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Memes have turned into our primary sense-making medium for a good reason. Most media have QA criteria that force them into one quadrant. Essays and books tend to have a one-quadrant voice that determines their genre classification.
Blog posts can escape but it takes real effort.
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Traversal memes aim to land in their highest quadrant, and construct-subvert escalating notions in lower quadrants.
American chopper nominally starts obvious and ends complicated, but the growing discomposure of the actors creates an affect subtext that actually lands in chaos
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I think the cynefin people have a notion of “narrative fragments” that’s roughly analogous to social media memes. Haven’t dug in.
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