antimeme

English

Alternative forms

• anti-meme

Etymology

From anti- +‎ meme. In the sense of "an image macro which intentionally subverts one's expectations", first recorded in 2009 and now chiefly associated with the r/antimeme subreddit, created February 8, 2012.

Pronunciation

• Audio (US):

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Noun

antimeme (plural antimemes)

1. (memetics, science fiction) A meme deployed to nullify or protect against another meme.
   • 1998, Christine Beckert, David Bischoff, Carroll Brown, et al., The Best of Pirate Writings: Tales of Fantasy, Mystery & Science Fiction, Padwolf Pub Incorporated, →ISBN:

     I know it's every citizen's civic duty to keep his antimeme vaccinations up to date. But some perverse streak inside me (possibly, now that I think about it, an anti-antimeme meme) made me keep postponing my appointment until it was just too late.

   • 2003, David Hurst, On Westernism: An Ideology's Bid for World Dominion:

     As an antimeme to both Christianity and these secular dominant ideologies, humanism in the West was, by the middle of the century able to gain dominance in what had become, effectively, a vacant niche.

   • 2004, William F. Harms, Information and Meaning in Evolutionary Processes, Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 65:

     Notable as well are periodic claims that memetics will make the world a better place, by creating an antimeme meme which will teach us to defend ourselves against the ravages of the selfish memes, ...

   • 2010, Michael Flynn, In the Country of the Blind, Macmillan, →ISBN:

     We have to start spreading antimemes.” “Fight fire with fire?” she said.

2. (memetics, science fiction) A unit of information that prevents itself from being spread, often by erasing itself from any mind that it enters.
   • 2008, Sam "qntm" Hughes, “SCP-055 - [unknown]”, in There Is No Antimemetics Division:

     SCP-055 is a "self-keeping secret" or "anti-meme". Information about SCP-055's physical appearance as well as its nature, behavior, and origins is self-classifying.

   • 2018, Sam "qntm" Hughes, There Is No Antimemetics Division:

     An antimeme is an idea with self-censoring properties; an idea which, by its intrinsic nature, discourages or prevents people from spreading it.

3. (Internet slang) An image macro which intentionally subverts one's expectations by not including a joke; a meme antijoke.
   • 2018 March 18, @rocknraymond, Twitter‎^[1], archived from the original on 3 November 2023:

     my favorite parts of these viral memes are the antimemes that appear after we all get sick of them lol

Derived terms

• antimemetic

 

Anagrams

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