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 independently from the content, contribution, and you can mode characteristics, there were of several family which have nonsignificant differences when considering this new indicate internal and you may outside well-known properties. This is particularly so on the blogs attribute. Merely several off 50 meme group common more posts services from inside the family. Put differently, content features was in fact reduced cohesive for the majority meme family members. On top of that, into the family members have been posts was discovered to be a great deal more natural, it actually was and a great deal more unique and you may distinctive.
Also, very meme family members got male as well as teenager and you will younger adult members as their popular keeps. Other age groups, instance elderly people, people, babies, and children as well as girls, stars, and particularly creature users was basically more unique to particular meme household. Eventually, with respect to setting, extremely meme parents made use of quick image having text message or films. Meme household in which setting are significantly more cohesive common remix and you may graphic control as well as acronyms and you may wordplay.
The latest relationship ranging from cohesiveness and you can 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, uniqueness, and you can 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.