[ZephyrBlu]

How would you solve sourcing and distribution using just iOS though? Sure, it's built into iPhones, but if you want to create a comprehensive globally accessible meme search I don't think you can do that by saving memes to your iPhone.

[jychang]

A kid doesn’t care about that. They just save the memes they like, including the custom ones that their friend made which doesn’t make any sense to anyone else. You don’t need a comprehensive global search engine, if you have a tool that will tell you exact personalized answers to images you’ve saved before. And kids these days save everything; it’s like how people use Gmail, no point in deleting if you just archive.

If you’re talking about kids without iPhones, then I don’t know, I’m assuming there’s probably some competitor apps on android now.

But I think you’re thinking too narrow. Don’t worry about a meme database. What about a searchable visual database of everything you’ve ever seen?

[TeMPOraL]

The use case for the meme database is slightly different: it's to find that meme you saw somewhere else. Local search isn't enough then.

Though I share your feelings somewhat - I was completely surprised by what you wrote in the comment higher up about iPhone gallery search. I didn't realize this is possible in a reliable fashion, much less off-line and deployed in a mass market device.

[rakoo]

> The use case for the meme database is slightly different: it's to find that meme you saw somewhere else.

The whole idea is that whenever you find a meme you like you save it, so all search is still local

[refactor_master]

Just like we meticulously remember to catalog every song, movie, joke, or otherwise informative sensory input we’ve ever been exposed to?

I know the obvious response to the above will be “yes, really, teens do that. Pictures of everything”

But really? Everything?

[rakoo]

Complete supposition: maybe teens' exposition to memes is through non-private messengers and apps, meaning all media is saved automatically on the phone and available through a search. I don't think the web is very much used still.

[TeMPOraL]

Yes, and the database is useful for all the situations when you saw a meme on someone else's device, or embedded in some piece of content, so you had no way to save it.

[password1]

Your cousin and your friends don't care about that, not sure if it applies to all kids worldwide honestly. I'm sure "meme collecting" is a common practice among many teens, but I don't think it means that every teen saves all meme/images they encounter.

You know that some teens don't even save some images? They store them on specific instagram accounts they make for a specific category. My cousin had an instagram account for close friends (5 people) where she only shared bad things that happened to her during the day. Another one for nice things, etc. All those memories were recorded in app and never saved in the device, only stored as stories on the account. Guess what? She was sad a while ago because somehow she lost access to one of this accounts and so to all those pictures/videos.

Also the fact that some teens save a lot of pics on their devices doesn't mean much in the grand scheme of things. In 2008 I had folders upon folders of images downloaded from the internet. Now i'm not even sure where they are, probably in some hard drive in some closet. You can be sure that if i remember any of those contents I won't dig up my hard drive, but google them (use a comprehensive global search engine). We have no idea where all this collected data from teens will be in 15 years, it's not unlikely that it will be lost or archived in hard to reach places and forgotten. I've stumbled some times into "meme dumps" where they upload all their memes to a service to free space on their device/icloud.

For sure teens use technology in ways that might be unexpected and counter-intuitive to us, but I don't think that invalidates in the slightly the need of a global search engine for memes. It's a good idea if i want to find a meme that I saw, a need that I don't think will disappear anytime and that's also not a millennial+ only problem.