An anatomy of a YouTube meme

TLDR

YouTube, launched in 2005, has become a participatory culture hub with millions of derivative videos, reflecting the platform’s role in fostering user engagement and creative remixing. Using the meme concept as an analytic tool, the article aims to uncover attributes common to memetic videos that generate extensive user engagement through creative derivatives. The authors assembled a corpus of 30 prominent memetic videos using YouTube popularity metrics and user‑generated playlists. Analysis identified six common features—focus on ordinary people, flawed masculinity, humor, simplicity, repetitiveness, and whimsical content—that characterize memetic videos and prompt further creative dialogue.

Abstract

Launched in 2005 as a video-sharing website, YouTube has become an emblem of participatory culture. A central feature of this website is the dazzling number of derivative videos, uploaded daily by many thousands. Using the ‘meme’ concept as an analytic tool, this article aims at uncovering the attributes common to ‘memetic videos’ – popular clips that generate extensive user engagement by way of creative derivatives. Drawing on YouTube popularity-measurements and on user-generated playlists, a corpus of 30 prominent memetic videos was assembled. A combined qualitative and quantitative analysis of these videos yielded six common features: focus on ordinary people, flawed masculinity, humor, simplicity, repetitiveness and whimsical content. Each of these attributes marks the video as incomplete or flawed, thereby invoking further creative dialogue. In its concluding section, the article addresses the skyrocketing popularity of mimicking in contemporary digital culture, linking it to economic, social and cultural logics of participation.