Guinness World Record Top 50 Video Game Franchises

[The Qu]

To be fair, it's more along the lines of people taking the concept of a meme in a different direction now. It was coined by Richard Dawkins in... 1971? to refer to a packet of information that perpetuated and changed as it changes hands over and over. It was a more or less serious sociological idea.

But still, dude needs to get his head out of his butt.

[Johans Nidorino]

Hey, Parrot, I take it part 1 of Chris Menning was before he read the thread because you explicitly said part 2 was afterwards. I'd stop quoting what other people comment if they haven't read well, especially if they're offending someone.

Jun 23, 2010 1:20:04 GMT -5 parrothead said:

So popularity is more about "the number of people knowing it" than "the number of people that enjoy it", right? And it's more about fan artists than fan creations; however, fan creations are like advertisements, especially when two or more different characters or franchises cross over each other in one fan creation (e.g. GAME1 and GAME2 in one artwork may cause GAME1 fans to become curious about GAME2 if they didn't know GAME2 existed).

Popularity definitely has to do with enjoying... I'm kind of lost in the rest of this paragraph though.

[Shrikeswind]

What he's saying is that if someone who only played SMB1, for example, were to see a picture featuring Mario riding Yoshi or bipedal Koopas or Bowser in his Clown Car would think "Huh. That's new. Where's that from?" And they'd start looking around and, hey, they find SMW. But it's kinda missing the point, and my surprisingly sparse knowledge of video games should prove this: I know very little about Fire Emblem (for example.) Drop me in a conversation about Fire Emblem, and I'm gonna be lost on the first sentence. But I know it exists and I know some basics about the series, and God knows it's popular. So does my knowledge of this series' existance mean it's more popular for my knowledge? Notably, does my knowledge of this series' existance mean it's more popular for my knowledge in spite of the fact that I don't own a Fire Emblem game? I can't say yes, and so I won't say yes. Another example: F-Zero. Everyone knows Cpn. Falcon from Smash Bros., right? FALCON PUNCH! and all that. But if you were to ask many folks about F-Zero, they'd pretty much draw a blank. We talk about this all the time. No one'll be able to talk about Jody Summer or Black Shadow or Mr. EAD, but as soon as you bring up Cpn. Falcon they'll say or think or just kinda feel "Isn't he that guy from Smash Bros.?" People know Cpn. Falcon, but I'll be damned if they know much deeper into F-Zero than that.

[Johans Nidorino]

Jun 23, 2010 19:11:06 GMT -5 Shrikeswind said:

What he's saying is that if someone who only played SMB1, for example, were to see a picture featuring Mario riding Yoshi or bipedal Koopas or Bowser in his Clown Car would think "Huh. That's new. Where's that from?" And they'd start looking around and, hey, they find SMW. But it's kinda missing the point, and my surprisingly sparse knowledge of video games should prove this: I know very little about Fire Emblem (for example.) Drop me in a conversation about Fire Emblem, and I'm gonna be lost on the first sentence. But I know it exists and I know some basics about the series, and God knows it's popular. So does my knowledge of this series' existance mean it's more popular for my knowledge? Notably, does my knowledge of this series' existance mean it's more popular for my knowledge in spite of the fact that I don't own a Fire Emblem game? I can't say yes, and so I won't say yes. Another example: F-Zero. Everyone knows Cpn. Falcon from Smash Bros., right? FALCON PUNCH! and all that. But if you were to ask many folks about F-Zero, they'd pretty much draw a blank. We talk about this all the time. No one'll be able to talk about Jody Summer or Black Shadow or Mr. EAD, but as soon as you bring up Cpn. Falcon they'll say or think or just kinda feel "Isn't he that guy from Smash Bros.?" People know Cpn. Falcon, but I'll be damned if they know much deeper into F-Zero than that.

That's not a fan creation or art...

[Shrikeswind]

What do you mean? That was a pretty long post I made there.

[parrothead]

New replies:

mona_jpn

I can allow their statements. But I’m the man who support the meme’s definition “cultural gene” by Dawkins. So when I think about a meme, different from them, I always care about its origin, historical details, cultural backgrounds and social impacts in and out of the internet.

I’m sure that KYM’s admins want to enrich their articles with these information.

But people who are in that thread and many other KYM users don’t consider these, just watch its superficial interest, and decide if it’s a meme or not by the amount of videos on Youtube or image macros on 4chan, and, the most important thing, if it makes them “lol” or not. Yeah, this is the statement of them.

So, don’t mind a small mistake. Your research is always careful.

Of course, I’ll assist your research. Please feel free to ask me any question

P.S. I think we’d better discuss about how to measure the popularity of Touhou and other memes’ origins and what the “popularity” is on some forum on KYM.



Tomberry

Well, there maybe is something missing here. You should have explained more on that thread that we analyze memes because they have an impact on the web and Internet culture in general, or even linked to our FAQ for them to get an idea of our work (and agree with it or not).

We mainly analyzed Touhou from the point of view of the memeplex it represents, not really because of it as a video game series.
So I hardly see why we were brought up in your forum argument, especially if we (Chris in particular) get overly slandered because of our views.

For that matter, when you stumble upon people writing knifed or making fun of a character called Sakuya with the iPAD, when you watch strange music videos called “U.N Owen Was her?” or “Night of Knights”, when you find out that “Bad apple!!”‘s fanmade videoclip with stylized shadow got about 8 million views on Nico Nico Douga and 2 million views on Youtube, then we can’t logically say that Touhou hasn’t got a strong fanbase, or, at least, that it hasn’t got attention from people who don’t even know what Touhou is.

That’s where Shrikeswind has a point. Not that much people made the connection between Cpt. Falcon and F-zero because they never played it.
That also happened with Touhou. That happens with pretty much every piece of information, Internet related or not, simply because of word of mouth.
(Remember the “You spin me round” entry ? A recent cover from the song was made by hip-hop artist Flo Rida and featured in the “Very Bad Trip” movie. I don’t think many people would have guessed that the original song came from “Dead or Alive”’s 1985 album)

That’s what mona_jpn said as well. Touhou became popular, but more because of its characters and its universe themselves than its video game series.

P.S : I invite your NinDB forums friends to visit Know Your Meme sometimes. Of course memes aren’t to be taken so seriously (and don’t come from 4chan only), of course there are still people who don’t change their mind on what a meme is and can find us silly in having a “serious” database for it, but they still remain an important part of our Internet Culture, and must be considered as worthy of being classified as such.


Here is the link to the Know Your Meme thread about whether Touhou Project is popular or not:

knowyourmeme.com/forums/general/topics/5333-touhou-project-popular-or-not

[Wildcat]

Parrothead, bringing in outsiders into this discussion is not really helping. It's a little rude for one, since nobody here expected to have their opinions rebroadcast on another board for others there to judge. It's also clear to me that you have a different opinion about Touhou Project's status compared to the others here who have posted, and you're not likely to alter their views with this tactic. I've held my tongue (fingers) a few times already, but this is a circular argument that's never going to cease. I'd think about dropping it for the time being, just to not aggravate anyone.

[Shrikeswind]

I also point out that KYM seems to be on some level agreeing with us, or at least me. Tomberry takes interest in my point about Cpn. Falcon and flat-out parallels it with Touhou's success as a meme-apalooza. Also, I may join there. From what I've seen, they seem pretty damn intelligent about this whole meme thing.

Now if only we had some level of distinction between a standard meme, which works like a sniper rifle, hitting a single, influential target who can push the idea around, and a 4Chan meme, which works like a wall of stampeding buffalo, where the target will be hit, BUT SO WILL EVERYTHING ELSE. I say a buffalo-stampede 4Chan meme should be called a 4Meme. At least for the sake of serious discussion.

[Nester the Lark]

To be quite frank, I don't see the point in continuing this thread. It's a silly debate on a silly subject, and it doesn't amount to anything.

Locked.