Zooppa

For those of us watching, and especially making, online video, a new million dollar question arises: What exactly makes a video go viral? It would seem that talkability and interest with a dash of good timing are some major components, but nailing down the perfect recipe for a viral video seems like a tenuous venture at best.


One of my new favorite websites is devoted solely to documenting these internet memes, how they spread and mutated, and what exactly made them so explosively popular. Knowyourmeme.com (KYM) covers all internet cultural phonomena, not just online video. Its suprisingly scientific approach attempts to provide empirical data to track the formation and spread of internet memes. The site began as a recurring episode on Rocketboom, and became so widely watched that an entire site was devoted to knowing your memes.
According to wikipedia, “A meme (pronounced /ˈmiːm/, rhyming with “cream”) is a postulated unit or element of cultural ideas, symbols or practices, and is transmitted from one mind to another through speech, gestures, rituals, or other imitable phenomena. (The etymology of the term relates to the Greek word mimema for “something imitated”.)[...]Theorists point out that memes which replicate the most effectively spread best, and some memes may replicate effectively even when they prove detrimental to the welfare of their hosts.”






David After the Dentist. Blood. Get Down. Single Topic Blogs (This is Why You’re Fat, Fail Blog, etc). Im sure you are familiar with at least one of these memes that are all featured (among many, many others) on KYM. Users can submit ideas for new memes to be added to the site. KYM scientists then conduct thorough research on the phenomenon to determine whether it can be considered a meme proper. Once a meme has been confirmed, the KYM scientists create short videos breaking down each of these memes. I can spend days reliving moments of internet meme history, or learning about new ones, watching videos or reading the forum.





One of the most interesting things about the site is that traffic sky rocketed in the last months. Is KYM becoming a meme in its own right? Can we call this a Meta-meme? It certainly provides some solid evidence to back up general speculation about the way memes function within our web-centric society. If nothing else, the site is a great way to relive some of your favorite meme-ories from the past.


At Poptech 2005, psychologist Susan Blackmore interviewed KYM scientist Kenyatta Cheese about internet memes and the way that KYM functions to identify, document, and analyse them. You can read the interview here; it paints a pretty good picture of the KYM scientific method.


Thanks for reading the Zooppa Blog. Your top destination for all things crowd-sourced creativity. Check out our active video, design, and interactive competitions for top brands.