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Thinking about how some things are sticky in the zeitgeist and others are not. Seinfeld, sticky. Friends, not sticky. 🤔
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Harry Potter first movie is now 20 years old. There are now college kids born after it as released. Even the last movie is 10y old. Surprisingly not that sticky, relative to its absolute dominance in its time. It’s turned into more of a minor cult now rather than in-the-water.
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It would be nice to measure stickiness by say (frequency of Twitter references+reaction gifs)/((budget in a base year)*age) Some measure of perma-memetic power. Not special interest subcultural power. That’s not zeitgeist stickiness really. You want general public impact.
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Matrix contributed a whopper — the red/blue pill HP’s big one is probably the 4 houses as a personality meme Pre-2000 things tended to contribute vignettes more than memes, like soup nazi Decays over time. I Love Lucy is now basically the chocolate factory scene.
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The Simpsons is weird. Mostly only context-free useful reaction gifs have survived, like Homer backing into a bush, grandpa shaking fist at cloud, Nelson saying haaha etc. None that recall a plot point Futurama refs are like 99% Fry suspicious or shut up and take my money
Replying to
People defending Friends… I basically never see refs or reaction gifs. Maybe it’s popular in other circles. Especially global. It’s certainly more accessible. But revivalist popularity + active fandom is not quite zeitgeist stickiness in the memepower sense I’m thinking of.
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Okay I’ll take people’s word for it that Friends is sticky. It’s a blank in my mind though I watched it. I can’t remember a single specific thing besides vague personalities.
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Replying to @YouuTeee and @vgr
Many consider it the best show to ever be made, make it a big part of their personality, even mentioning things like, "We won't get along if you don't like Friends". So that has been my experience personally. Similar experience for Harry Potter. I still see it pop up all the time
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Seinfeld definitely has staying power with people 40+ but i doubt it will ever have a revival. Half the jokes won’t even make sense to people raised on smartphones.
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I’ve had a small taste of that. I’m mostly reducible to the phrase “premium mediocre” in the zeitgeist right now 🤣 It’s my “mostly harmless”
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The Office has an unfair advantage due to the use of reality tv style outtakes and reaction shots. Made for memeification. I don’t think it will last. That office culture is dying fast.
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Replying to @vgr
Based on this criteria The Office stickiness is off the charts. Is any show as memed?
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Meme power as a measure is of course contaminated now since new shows consciously aim for memeable shots/moments. Memebait like clickbait. Doesn’t seem reduced to a science yet though.
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Wonder if you can plan to plant a moment like “you can’t handle the truth” without also screwing up the overall story with the setpiece memebait
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Flip side too. Stuff sinks without a trace. Super unsticky stuff. American Beauty won oscars, and the dancing plastic bag was kinda a meme for a while, but it’s a flash in the pan. I suspect nobody rewatches it except film school students.
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I’d like to produce narrative memes without actually writing stories Like those muffin tops without the stumps on Seinfeld Sadly impossible. Gotta write the whole stories. Bake the whole muffins.
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Now I’m wondering how to write a story to maximize meme yield It would likely be a terrible story in other ways
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