[FeepingCreature]

As Scott says in Weak Men Are Superweapons [1], a meme aimed against a specific, easily disliked subgroup is unavoidably an attack on the entire group by association.

It is impossible to say "Karen, who is a woman, bad" without implying "women Karens, women bad." Or if there is a way to disentangle them, it certainly won't fit in a meme.

[1] https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/05/12/weak-men-are-superweap...

[Joker_vD]

> a meme aimed against a specific, easily disliked subgroup is unavoidably an attack on the entire group by association.

So that comment, by attacking a specific, easily disliked subgroup of memes is undeniably an attack on all of the memes by association. Or am I applying this wrong?

[SkyBelow]

I think so. If the argument is that people will make associations that the original person did not intend, then it seems quite possible that pointing out bad usages of memes will result in people likely memes less overall. This is but one factor and could be cancelled out by many other factors causing them to like memes more. I'm guessing this applies to humans in general and is caused not just by memes but by any transfer of information that biases schemas we use to judge situations. But this also applies to any terms of negative connotations where there is some subgroup associated with a larger group (even if the association is wrong, it just needs to be perceived). So even terms like 'racist' or 'incel' end up with collateral damage.

[FeepingCreature]

It's not a meme in the same sense though. If this was a short punchy quote that implied that certain memes were bad, then yes.

[Joker_vD]

All right, let me explicitly substitute for pronouns: your comment was aimed against specific, easily disliked subgroup, namely, "Karen" memes, and so it is unavoidably an attack on the entire group, namely, memes, by association.

It is impossible to say "a "Karen" meme, which is a meme, bad" without implying "memes "Karen" memes, memes bad." Or if there is a way to disentangle them, it certainly won't fit in a comment.

It's amazing how many arguments ad argumentum are not only self-applicable but also self-defying.

[FeepingCreature]

Sure, if you arbitrarily decide every comment is a meme.

It's amazing how everything is applicable to everything if you freely redefine the terms used.

edit: Sorry, that was a bit snarky. I think there's reasons why this applies to quick, punchy memes but not to longform comments: memes are antithetical to nuance.

[blowski]

Perhaps that hints at the problem of intentionally developing a meme stereotype, and then using it as a stick to beat people with. The bar for having that stereotype becomes ever lower, and thus the set ever bigger. People then self-censor perfectly acceptable behaviour to avoid being part of the set.