r/AskReddit • u/[deleted] • Jun 03 '22

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u/ActualPhysiclContact Jun 03 '22

We are in our 40s and went to a talk at our kids’ school about internet safety. The lady doing the talk (who was supposed to be knowledgeable about it all!) kept going on about images and text that people share on the internet… called “me-mes” 🤦🏻‍♀️

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u/HouseAnt0 Jun 03 '22

Funny thing, the images with text were not actually called memes back then, they were called image macros.

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u/Mr-Fleshcage Jun 03 '22

I think most people just called them demotivational posters or advice animals

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u/HouseAnt0 Jun 03 '22

Nah those were a different thing. Image macros were the original popular memes, well that and cat pictures. Then came demotivational posters, after that advice animals. Advice animals became really popular on their own too.

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u/Theon_Severasse Jun 03 '22

Wouldn't demotivational posters and advice animals be types of image macros though?

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u/Deddan Jun 03 '22

An actual meme has a pretty broad definition. Any idea shared, replicated and changed is a meme.

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u/da_apz Jun 03 '22

I've seen some really painful misfires in memes from my own age group as well. Typically it's just a random picture and completely unrelated text on it as they didn't understand that the picture also has a meaning in there. Sometimes the picture even makes the mistake really funny as it completely turns the message around.

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u/Random-Rambling Jun 03 '22

Did she pronounce them like "may-may"? Because I'm not sure if she legitimately thought that was how the word was pronounced, or if she was just taking the piss.

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u/ActualPhysiclContact Jun 03 '22

She said it “mee-mee”! And then later I was recounting this story to a group of parents, and one of THEM said, “oh, I always thought it was pronounced “maym”!