The Cure of Depression

This is the first definition of meme on Urban Dictionary, the crowd-sourced internet reference for slang, common usage, and popular culture. In seeking to define memes, scholars tend to emphasize several things: anonymous and/or collective authorship, circulation online, and constant mutation throug...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inRepresentations (Berkeley, Calif.) Vol. 168; no. 1; pp. 146 - 152
Main Author Hodge, James J
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Berkeley University of California Press Books Division 01.11.2024
Subjects
Adults
Authorship
Crowdsourcing
Dictionaries
Internet
Popular culture
Slang
Online AccessGet more information

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Summary:This is the first definition of meme on Urban Dictionary, the crowd-sourced internet reference for slang, common usage, and popular culture. In seeking to define memes, scholars tend to emphasize several things: anonymous and/or collective authorship, circulation online, and constant mutation through endless variations of the same.1 Depression isn’t usually mentioned. Read down to the second definition on Urban Dictionary, however, and depression appears again: “Memes are a lifestyle and art used by teens and adults who are willing to actually live a life that doesn’t include depression.” Scroll to the seventh definition, and depression still lurks in the background. This entry defines memes succinctly as “my life,” and provides the following example: “Memes are the reason why I am still currently living.” Scroll down and down into the internet abyss, and you will continue to find depression mentioned in many more of Urban Dictionary’s thousands of user-generated entries...
ISSN:0734-6018
1533-855X
DOI:10.1525/rep.2024.168.9.146