Cartoon VS Meme

More and more I’ve been seeing comments on my cartoon posts that refer to them as “memes.” Can’t say I like this, no siree, I ain’t having it. Oh sure there are similarities: both cartoons and memes are widely disseminated pictures that usually attempt to be humorous. But those comparisons are superficial.

I’ll get back to this in a moment, but first a word from our Subscribe button:

All right, back to it. When you get down to brass tacks (always wanted to use that expression, no idea what it means or even if it applies here) the main difference between a cartoon and a meme is perspective. A meme abandons its origin. It’s not meant to have one. It’s meant to be a free image, moving through a digital conveyor belt, picking up new interpretations, evolving, simplifying, diverging and becoming completely different products along the way. The meme is constantly changing perspectives because any perspective it may have had once has been lost in its new form. It belongs to no one, and anyone can manipulate it.

The meme is so malleable that it can both build upon itself, each new version commenting on the previous, or even dissect itself, transforming into metacommentary.

A cartoon, however, is rigid. It starts with an individual perspective and stays there. It is disseminated of course, all over the internet, but the perspective of the cartoonist is unchanged. Two people with opposing opinions can agree with or argue against the perspective, but the core idea remains static.

It may happen that a cartoon becomes a meme. Many, perhaps even most, memes have cartoon origins. In some cases, the cartoon is completely co-opted, overtaken by the force of the internet and irreparably harmed.

Most cases are not that dramatic. Cartoonist Asher Perlman, drew a cartoon that has been meme-ified. It now exists in two forms, the original cartoon and the meme. Asher admits to having no control over its meme-ification; he accepts it and is even sometimes delighted by it.

KC Green’s “This is fine” cartoon is probably the prime example of the cartoon-to-meme pipeline. That’s a rabbit hole that I’m going to let you fall down yourself, if you are so inclined.

Making things even more muddled, Amy Kurzweil has a cartoon that’s popular because it’s based on a meme, which itself is based on a philosophical thought experiment. I asked her about cartoons and memes and she said this:

“How did you get into my house?”

When I apologized for barging in, she added:

I probably should have just written what she said in the beginning and saved you all a lot of time. Anyway, none of my toons has ever been a meme, but I would be ok if one of them fell to the forces of memedom. I would want to see what happens. For science.

This is all to say that my cartoons are not memes, please stop calling them that, or whatever, it’s not actually a big deal, do what you want. It’s just nice to have something to talk about.

Hey, unrelated, I have a cartoon in this week’s New Yorker. Here it is:

Okay! That’s all this week! Please let me know if you think cartoons are, in fact, memes, and why I’m so wrong all the time, what an idiot. But nicer than that please. Also subscribe if you haven’t! Its a fun way to show the world you how much you care (about my newsletter).