A more systematic analysis of the families’ cohesiveness based on T-Tests for the mean differences between generic attributes within and outside a meme families reaffirmed this tendency. We found significantly more common attributes between meme instances from the same family. In general, each instance shared more attributes with other family members (3.49) than with nonfamily members (2.39), T(18865) = , p < .01. This similarity between instances of the same family is significant in terms of content (T(6534) = , p < .01), participants (T(12755) = , p < .01), and form (T(16379) = 41.2, p < .01).

But really, while looking alone during the content, participation, and function qualities, there are of a lot family members having nonsignificant differences when considering the fresh new indicate inner and you can outside well-known characteristics. This was especially true for the articles characteristic. Just a dozen out of fifty meme family members shared a lot more posts properties when you look at the loved ones. To put it differently, blogs features have been shorter natural in most meme family members. On top of that, inside the family members was stuff is actually seen to be significantly more cohesive, https://datingranking.net/by-ethnicity/ it was also a lot more book and you will distinctive.

Similarly, extremely meme family members had male also teen and you may more youthful mature participants as their well-known possess. Almost every other age groups, including older people, people, children, and kids including female, celebs, and especially animal users were much more special to specific meme group. Ultimately, when it comes to means, most meme group made use of straightforward image with text otherwise clips. Meme household where setting is far more cohesive common remix and you can artwork control including acronyms and you may wordplay.

The association between cohesiveness and uniqueness

The cohesiveness of meme families around more unique generic attributes already provided a partial answer to RQ4, regarding the link between cohesiveness and uniqueness in meme families, and a Pearson correlation between the two revealed a very strong and significant positive correlation (r = .911, p < .001). In other words, the more unique the shared attributes within a meme family, the higher the difference between shared attributes within and outside a meme family. When looking at each group of attributes separately, it was mainly the uniqueness of form (r = .870, p < .001) and content (r = .726, p < .001) attributes that positively correlated with family cohesiveness. The uniqueness of participation attributes had a weaker correlation with family cohesiveness (r = .366, p < .01).

Quiddities, concreteness, individuality, and you may cohesiveness

In response to the last research question, we found a significant positive correlation between quiddity concreteness and both the cohesiveness (r = .363, p < .01) and uniqueness (r = .431, p < .01) of Internet memes. In other words, a meme family with a more concrete quiddity was also more cohesive and unique in its generic attributes.

In particular, a significant positive correlation was found between the percentage of instances in a meme family sharing a similar object and the cohesiveness (r = .286, p < .05) and uniqueness (r = .349, p < .05) of their content. This suggests that instances of meme families in which the quiddity is a specific object tend also to deal with the same unique themes. Thus, for example, instances of the “Flying Spaghetti Monster” family always included this specific character or object, and many of them also contained references to religion, which is a unique theme in the memetic sphere.

Meme families in which the quiddity is a character, such as “Charlie the Unicorn,” are more cohesive, but also unique in terms of participation. This is typically reflected in a higher percentage of instances containing animal participants. Perhaps less obvious is the negative correlation between action and uniqueness of participation (r = ?.329, p < .05). This means that the participants in meme families in which the main quiddity is an action are not unique, but rather part of the mainstream. Thus, for example, most participants of “Caramelldansen,” “The Evolution of Dance,” or “Planking” are teens or young adults.