What is a meme? What does tag and tagging for memes mean?
I’m going to start participating in memes that I get invited to. I wanted to explain in simple and basic terms what an online meme and tagging is, in case someone didn’t know. The terms meme and tagging have been developed by other people. I’ve coined up a few other terms in this article to help make things simpler for everyone, and myself. In this article, whenever we say meme, we’re referring to online memes.
What is a meme?
A meme is a set of actions or questions, in the form of a theme, that one addresses or focuses upon. It can be an idea like flickr, where people post pictures as part of their content. Memes get created by someone, anyone to be precise, and then get moved onto the next participant through an invitation. This invitation can either be a direct invitation in the form of an email to the person being invited, or it can be an indirect invitation in the form of mentioning the name of the person, in our own blogs, who we want to invite, or in memeic terms, tag.It can be a theme, questions, something you do online or in real life, write about, or anything else. It’s like following a guideline regarding a certain topic or atmosphere.
What is tagging for a meme?
Tagging someone for a meme means exactly what it says; you’re tagging someone else to do the same meme on their website. It’s like the tagging game you play in real life. After you’ve finished doing the meme, you tag a specific number of other people to perform the same meme; usually, that number of people you tag is exactly the same as listed in the previous meme from which you yourself were tagged.
Why participate in a meme?
The main point of an online blog meme is the content and replication; someone adds value to the meme through their participation, and in turn their own site gets more valuable and interesting content. They get more people to chip in also. Sometimes the memes results get stored in one location, like the place where the meme originated from. An example of this is Photofriday, where every week people have to participate by analyzing and coming up with interpretations about a picture by doing it on their own websites, and then posting the results on the main PhotoFriday site.
Other kinds of memes
The most common form of a meme is what I call the “Uncontrolled meme” or the “lose meme.” An uncontrolled meme, or a lose meme, don’t store the results of the participation in one place. Instead, the results can be found on the websites that participated in that specific meme. There may not be a central website to list all the websites that participated in that specific meme, so the only way to find out who participated in a meme is to actually visit the websites that participated in the meme and see who was invited to that meme, or to work our way up through the previous invitations to see who was tagged for that meme before the website we’re currently visiting participated in it.
Well, that’s it. I hope that explained things instead of complicating the concept further. Thank you for reading. 
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( January 15th, 2006 at 9:54 pm )
Ooh. I’m glad you wrote about this… it makes me wanna get a little more involved, I used to love doing meme’s!
Maybe it’ll force me to write more often… miracles do happen!
( January 16th, 2006 at 12:33 pm )
Good! I hope you do, heh. As long as you’re interested in it, it should be fun.
( January 30th, 2006 at 7:51 pm )
Now were I a scientist….
I would find it interesting to track the "meme is an online application" meme. Memerics, of course, are in reality a theory akin to genetics, involving the reproduction of ideas. Ideas never require an invitation to reproduce; they just do. And they follow the rules of natural selection as well, which makes them fascinating.
Just adding to your fact section!
( August 31st, 2006 at 3:10 pm )
Thank you very much for your explanation - it was very helpful. I recently starting “friending” people on LJ and this term comes up frequently. I had a kind-of ides what it was but you made ir very clear and understandable.
You wouldn’t also no wt “squee” and “srsly” mean would you?
Thanks muchly,
Linda
( September 26th, 2006 at 4:31 pm )
Wow, a very late reply, but better than never.
Yes, thank you, that helps. =P
( September 26th, 2006 at 4:32 pm )
squee = excuse me
srsly = seriously
No? Thanks for the kind words. I’m glad you found it useful. What’s your LJ profile by the way, if you don’t mind sharing?
( December 28th, 2006 at 1:06 am )
[...] Daniel from Daily Blog Tips tagged me for this meme. You can read my introductory post on memes to find out what memes are. The meme that I got tagged for requests participants to list 5 things about themselves that people online may not know about. Here are the 5 things that I may not have mentioned before on this site, or in person, and things that you may not have known or guessed before. It was hard for me to pinpoint only 5 things out of the countless things that never get mentioned on this site, so I’ll stick with the following five simply because they are related to this site and show something about me. [...]
( March 3rd, 2007 at 8:53 pm )
[...] force behind their blogs. If you wish, you can also read my introductory article that explains what memes are. The main reason I blog is because I want to make a difference with my blog. Following are 5 of [...]
( March 5th, 2007 at 9:49 am )
[...] from Daily Blog Tips tagged me for this meme. You can read my introductory post on memes to find out what memes are. The meme that I got tagged for requests participants to list 5 things [...]
( March 15th, 2007 at 9:09 pm )
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( April 7th, 2007 at 11:09 am )
[...] allows a person to list their goals in life. If you wish, you can read my article that describes what memes are. I think this is one of the hardest memes ever. I also think this is one of the best memes ever. A [...]
( April 9th, 2007 at 12:11 am )
squee = an interjection that expresses excitement and/or surprise (happy excited surprise, not the bad kind)
( April 9th, 2007 at 12:21 am )
Thanks for telling us the meaning Stacee.
I did not know that.
( April 9th, 2007 at 10:56 pm )
you’re welcome. how did you get “excuse me”?
( April 9th, 2007 at 10:57 pm )
lol. Someone I knew long time ago always said “squee me” when they were drunk, and it sounded cool. So I was assuming it meant excuse me for a lot of people. Apparently I was wrong. 0_0
( April 9th, 2007 at 11:29 pm )
It’s really obvious if you saw it in context. It’s usually “SQUEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!” followed by an accompanying explaination of whatever the author is excited about, such as just obtaining tickets to a sold out show of their favorite band.
( April 11th, 2007 at 10:03 am )
Interesting; thanks for the explanation Stacee!
I am thinking of a post or a site with all this lingo explained. Maybe you can be the chief editor? lol.
I think I have to squee a lot from now on [rofl].
( May 3rd, 2007 at 8:51 pm )
[...] can see this a lot in online memes. Many prominent bloggers tag only other prominent bloggers for different memes. Such prominent [...]
( May 23rd, 2007 at 8:44 pm )
[...] Vivien from Inspiration Bit tagged me for an “Outstanding Posts” meme. I have decided to list 3 reasons that make a post more outstanding because of appreciating both the readers and yourself. If you wish, you can find out through the introductory article about what memes are. [...]
( June 17th, 2007 at 5:33 pm )
[...] to write for myself and my friends, the way I wrote an introductory article describing what Memes are. Having an article on the introduction allows me to show such an introduction to others easily, if [...]
( July 24th, 2007 at 11:54 pm )
[...] This is a meme for which I was tagged by Sidney almost two months ago. I am a really bad tagged-friend to respond to it so late. This meme revolves around 6 weird things about you. Following are 6 of the smallest or most general or visible weird things that others consider weird about me. If you wish, you can also read my introductory post which describes what memes are. [...]