What is a meme, technically speaking?

This contribution seeks to demonstrate how studying memes as a collection depends on the website or platform where they are sourced. To do so, we compare how memes, specifically internet memes, are conceived in the well – known meme repository (Know Your Meme) with those from a meme host and generator (Imgur), an imageboard (4chan), a short-form video hosting site (TikTok) as well as a marketing data dashboard (CrowdTangle). Building on insights from software studies and our observational analysis, we demonstrate how each site constructs and arranges meme collections in a distinctive manner, thus affecting the conceptualisation of memes by each of these sites. In all, the piece develops the concept of the meme as a technical collection of content, discussing how each collection’s distinctiveness has implications for meme research.