10.29.10 - 3:00PM
- by
Chris Menning

The Accidental Google Image Meme - How Organic Memes Just Happen

topic:
Tech
MemeTracker
Photos

Nowadays, when a new meme pops up, so many people jump at the chance to create new iterations of it that we often forget how memes occur organically all the time. In fact, those who rush to propagate the meme too quickly are often met with the backlash of others claiming "this meme is forced!"

This is because not all memes happen intentionally.

Quite often, whatever image is the top Google Images search result will undergo variations due to natural selection. By entering a query, then clicking the image, the user tells Google that the image is relevant to the query and reinforces its place at the top.

When a blogger uses the image and fails to give proper attribution, the image's origin falls into relative obscurity even if the image itself is extremely popular. When no owner is easily identified, many feel that it is within their rights to not only use the image for their own purposes, but customize it to better suit their own needs.

For instance, here's an image from the top row of results for "productivity." The site in which the image in that particular search result comes from is a page on Gearfire.net, but this is likely not the image's origin. It seems to have been copied so often that it has weird compression artifacts in it.

Nowhere in the post is the photographer given credit. In this case, this is probably okay. Given its appearance, it was probably a piece of stock photography that might have even been royalty free.

Now let's imagine that I wanted to write my own blog about productivity. Being under a tight deadline, I do a Google Image search and find this photo in the top row. I snatch it up like it's your people and I'm climbing in your window.

Imagine that after writing the article, I've decided that I was really writing about success instead of productivity, and I wanted the image to reflect that. Instead of searching for a different image, I might just edit the photo to say "Success" instead. That's exactly what appears to have happened in this blog post about the relaunch of Mountain Dew in the UK. They even gave it a green tint.

The same key has been re-labeled "Top Secret" over on Data Protection Online, "Leadership" on Under 30 CEO, and "Accomplishments" with a red tint on The Political Carnival.

Interestingly enough, a Google Image search for the term "accomplishments" returns the same red-tinted button that was used on The Political Carnival, but this time used on the Wordpress site for Carteret Community College.

It's not that there's anything uniquely funny or clever about the image. All right, none of those words typically appear on a real computer keyboard, so it's clever in about the same way that a Billy Bass or "I'm with Stupid" t-shirt are.

The meme didn't occur because anybody needed to jump on the ironically-labeled computer key bandwagon. The stock photo was readily available, a popular post drove it to become a highly-ranked search result, and people tailored it to suit their own needs. This sort of thing happens all the time with highly-ranked images and especially stock photos.

This next photo is one of the first results for the word "business" and leads to the site for Canadore College's business programs page.

These people don't actually attend Canadore College. The photo came from iStockphoto. But there's no shame in using a stock photo now and then. And besides, who wouldn't want this happy, professional, diverse group of young people representing them?

China.

Or rather, a French blog about China, Amour-Chine. It seems our dark skinned friend and his white buddy didn't make the cut, while the other three look ambiguously Asian enough that they fit the bill. But that's only the skewed perspective of one French blogger.

But also, China. Or rather, the site designers behind the Chinese dianzhong.hk. Once again, there's only room for Asians in this business. To be fair, China's ethnic make-up is mainly comprised of native Chinese people. The two men removed from the photo might look out of place to the average person from China, which is almost exactly the same explanation Microsoft gave when they were caught replacing a black guy with a white one in their advertisements in Poland back in August of 2009.

Wherever there's a popular photo, there will be people who use it, re-use it, and edit it to better serve their needs. When a certain variation is more useful than the original, it might be picked to be re-used over the original. Although this is just an example of natural selection, some cases seem more like "ethnic cleansing." Be glad you're a human and not a photo.