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 by themselves within stuff, participation, and you can means services, there have been of several household having nonsignificant differences when considering this new suggest interior and you may outside well-known characteristics. This was especially true into the content attribute. Merely 12 out-of 50 meme family members common so much more stuff properties within the nearest and dearest. Put another way, posts properties was basically smaller natural for the majority meme household. While doing so, in the parents had been stuff is discovered to be more natural, it absolutely was also even more book and you will distinctive.

Likewise, most meme family had men also teen and you can more youthful mature people as his or her well-known has. Almost every other age range, including the elderly, adults, babies, and children in addition to females, a-listers, and particularly animal professionals was far more unique to specific meme family members. Finally, with regards to form, most meme household made agricultores solo citas use of easy image that have text message or video. Meme families in which means is actually way more natural common remix and you may graphic manipulation in addition to acronyms and wordplay.

The fresh new association between cohesiveness and individuality

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, individuality, and 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.