Image macro
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In Internet culture, an image macro is a picture superimposed with text for humorous effect.
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[edit] Internet forums
On Internet forums and imageboards, image macros are used to emphasize a certain phrase (often an Internet meme) by superimposing it over a related picture. For some time on the Something Awful forums, the use of a preset "macro" text would insert a corresponding image into the forum post.[clarification needed] This allowed the frequent use of preset text such as [img-timeline], which resulted in the "Timeline of history" image being banned from use[1][clarification needed] as well as the usage of "img-timeline" to mean that "something is old news".[2][clarification needed]
[edit] Formats
Although they come in many forms, the most common type of image macro is a photograph with large text superimposed in Impact font, using all upper case letters and coloured white with a thin black outline.[3] Exaggerated, intentional spelling errors are also used frequently for humorous effect.
The successive generations of the meme as ‘image macro’ follow one of two formulas, where a root of the viral media is maintained, and its counterpart is varied. Type one is the transmission of the original graphic with a new caption applied. The caption must maintain a similar rhetorical style or subject matter as the original text in order to belong to the family of a particular image macro. The second typology of the meme as image macro maintains the text as the root of the viral content and varies the image associated. This type of graphic meme is less common and is often related to a quotation in current news or popular culture.
One of the more famous image macros is "O RLY?" O RLY is often used on the internet as an abbreviation for the phrase "Oh, really?" Originally started with a snowy owl photograph (which is the classic O RLY image macro),[4] it spread out over the Web quickly and was followed by other macros that convey a wide range of emotions. Another style of image macro that has amassed its own separate subculture is the "lolcat", a photo of a cat with a humorous and ridiculously misspelled caption.
[edit] Etymology
The term "image macro" was first used on the Something Awful forums.[5] The name derived from the fact that the 'macros' were a short bit of text a user could enter that the forum software would automatically parse and expand into the code[clarification needed] for a pre-defined image,[5] relating to the computer science topic of a macro, defined as "a rule or pattern that specifies how a certain input sequence (often a sequence of characters) should be mapped[clarification needed] to an output sequence (also often a sequence of characters) according to a defined procedure."
[edit] See also
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Memes and image macros |
[edit] References
- ^ http://anotherone0.tripod.com/SA_FAQ.htm
- ^ http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=img-timeline&defid=4460870
- ^ Examples of Image macros, Meme Folder, http://memefolder.com/post/list/caption/1, retrieved 2009-09-09
- ^ Stephen Phillips (2006-01-18). "Internet Term of the Week". The Independent Tiger Weekly. http://tigerweekly.com/article/01-18-2006/1524. Retrieved 2007-08-06.
- ^ a b "SAClopedia entry for "image macro"". Something Awful SAClopedia. http://forums.somethingawful.com/dictionary.php?act=3&topicid=83. Retrieved 2008-07-28.
