Whats the differnce between a meme and a trope ?

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well

― anthony, Sunday, 7 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

a trope is a thing that you use to mean something other than what it literally means & a meme is, oh i don't actually know, why don't you look it up on the internet.

― unknown or illegal user, Sunday, 7 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

i'm probably wrong about the trope thing too but thats what i use it to mean

― unknown or illegal user, Sunday, 7 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

honk if you thought that was funny.

― unknown or illegal user, Sunday, 7 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

honk, honk.

― jess, Sunday, 7 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

*rim shot*

― unknown or illegal user, Sunday, 7 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

dude, what am I, google?

― H. Ha, Sunday, 7 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

"evah" is a meme but not a trope; "12-ft lizards" is a trope AND a meme; "5 = evil" is a trope but not (yet) a meme

― mark s, Sunday, 7 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

"grebe"= both meme(in-progress) and trope?

― Mitch Lastnamewithheld, Sunday, 7 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

we can only hope.

― jess, Sunday, 7 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

jess sighed blissfully as anthony's troping hands....

― mark s, Sunday, 7 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

and on that note, off to bed!

― jess, Sunday, 7 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

A trope is any kind of use of figuration - metaphor, most obviously, but it also includes irony and weirdos like synecdoche and metonymy. Parody too, arguably. Memes are a newish notion from, I think, post- structuralist philosophy, and are something like the smallest indivisible unit ('atomic' would be a suitable trope there!) of cultural meaning, and are therefore not restricted by any means to lanuage - they could be accepted ideas of dinner-table etiquette, for instance. I know that can be expressed in language, but it's not a linguistic or artistic construct, as a trope inevitably is (a trope can obviously be visual as well as verbal). So I don't think tropes and memes have any real link, though clearly something can be both - but the fact that something can be red and circular doesn't mean that there's a connection between redness and circles.

I hope that's of some help.

― Martin Skidmore, Sunday, 7 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

memes invented — i mean the word — by RICHARD DAWKINS the utter darwinist!! like genes of the mind...

― mark s, Sunday, 7 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

"rhymes with dream"

― mark s, Sunday, 7 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

trope = the idea you're talking about is replicating in society, it's this thing

meme = the actual WORD or sign you use—regardless of what it refers to, usually—is replicating in society

― Tracer Hand, Sunday, 7 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

meme = Andre the Giant Has a Posse
meme/trope = wildstyle graffitti
trope = outdoor advertising

― Tracer Hand, Sunday, 7 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I'm still working this out for myself, y'see.

― Tracer Hand, Sunday, 7 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

tactics v strategy?

― Alan Trewartha, Monday, 8 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Wait I forgot - Andre the Giant has totally settled into a familiar trope too - posh art school student mines underground for currency; achieves T-shirt empire; receives free skateboards.

― Tracer Hand, Monday, 8 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

seven years pass...

Stop the trope.

― Alba, Tuesday, 17 November 2009 09:13 (sixteen years ago)

You keep using that word -- I do not think it means what you think it means

― George Mucus (ledge), Tuesday, 17 November 2009 10:32 (sixteen years ago)

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