originally used because 1st Gen web crawlers couldn't parse the text out of a jpg. OG memes were used to communicate covertly without raising the algorithm's alarm.
It was the humans' first attempt at hiding from the machines. Yes?
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No. Humour, bonding, group cohesion, inside jokes and quick-witted one image replies.
Most people here weren't born when the first memes started to be used on the Internet.
Hell, even WWW wasn't born then.
First memes were ASCII images.
No. They were in caves and graffiti in the side of buildings thousands of years before that
While out and about this morning I r3@L!z3d +h3r3 w3r3 3@r|¡£R ª++3|\/|p+$.
No, I don't think speech on the internet was threatened or shamed back then like it is now. Trying to trick an algorithm is a much more recent development. I think memes were created as short form humor (obviously). The earliest memes I can recall were from YTMND.
YES
I practiced this once pictures were available and able to transfer.
Remember watching the text scroll?
Only criminals/spies and OG researchers with 'bad things discovered' used the method, No one else would have the need.
A big part of the Cicada 3301 search was for people who could de-cypher code within pic files.