I certainly understand where you’re coming from, because on occasion I feel betrayed when finding out a meme is a repost. But I usually reason myself out of it. There are a number of things to think about, in no particular order, and from my perspective… Firstly, if I haven’t seen it before, then the reaction and resulting emotions are going to be very much the same as if I had seen the original. Assuming it’s within a reasonable time period between the original and the repost when you consider social atmosphere and culture.

Secondly, there’s karma. As much as we (or i) try to deny the value of karma, there is a certain enjoyment of having your views affirmed by strangers. People who have very little idea of who you really are. Or in the case of trolls, attracting negative attention in the semi-tangible form of karma points. The gain you get from the points and attention seems tainted if it’s not genuine. You feel like those emotions were fake because the origin was fake. That’s understandable.

Thirdly, I think about the concept behind memes themselves. What is the general purpose of a meme and why do we browse them for however many hours each of us browses for? I couldn’t count the number I’ve seen in the short (relative to my age) time they’ve been around. But what makes them so popular? And of course, there are many reasons. So I consider the more obvious reasons. Attention, affection, affirmation and alliteration… We get to share our lives or other people’s lives or knowledge or bulls hit with an open and listening community. Admittedly though, it’s a pretty dysfunctional community given the innate anonymous nature of the Internet and all divisions of science and engineering.

That’s when I start to think about the different kinds of people that use the Internet or have access to memes. And that’s like EVERYONE! OMG, so many personalities and personal situations. There’s got to be some over lap. Maybe an original I’d never seen was posted before and I had the same thought/situation/encounter/whatever. Do I not post in fear of repost ridicule? Then again, maybe I’m not the creative type, or I just can’t put it in to words but someone else already has, or I had never really thought about it until I saw the meme and I related so much to it I felt like sharing it in my circles accidentally forgetting to source the link…

I think about all these things, and I conclude that, shrugs I don’t really mind reposts. I can skip over them if I want, and they perform the same purpose as an original… I’d say keeping the reposts in moderation is a must but that’s due to the fact that I believe everything should be kept in moderation (including moderation).

Suddenly I realize I’m rambling on Reddit about reposts and how they shouldn’t be thoroughly despised and I think to myself, what a wonderful world…

How great that I can share this with you… Then again, it’s Prolly just the beer

Edit: spacing

http://www.reddit.com/r/AdviceAnimals/comments/1zuliq/lets_be_real/cfxaltr?context=3