WEBVTT

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<v ->Many classic memes were recently auctioned off</v>

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for big bucks by their owners, as NFTs.

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<v ->The question of meme ownership</v>

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is a difficult one.

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<v ->Meet Don Caldwell from Know Your Meme,</v>

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a website dedicated

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to researching online viral content.

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<v ->It's sort of like meme detective work.</v>

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<v ->Recently, Don and his team</v>

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have been putting their encyclopedic knowledge

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of memes to good use, forwarding NFT fraud.

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<v ->So here's the original and the fake,</v>

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I'll zoom in real tight here.

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<v ->So what kind of hard-boiled vigilante tactics</v>

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do these meme detectives use?

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<v ->No, we actually just use computers.</v>

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<v ->Saved onto a blockchain,</v>

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NFTs or non fungible tokens

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are minted by artists

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and then bought and sold online

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in curated markets like OpenSea, Foundation

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and even at Sotheby's,

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NFTs are kind of like

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limited edition autographed virtual trading cards

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that allow for the tracking and monetizing

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of digital art, such as gifs, photos, videos,

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music, and yes, even memes.

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<v ->The first time I heard about meme NFTs</v>

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was when Nyan Cat creator, Chris Torres,

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sold Nyan Cat as an NFT for approximately

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600,000 US dollars at the time.

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And when we saw that

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we were just absolutely shocked.

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It was such a milestone in internet history.

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<v ->This jaw-dropping sale triggered</v>

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a meme gold rush.

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<v ->All of these old meme stars and celebrities</v>

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from years ago started coming out of the woodwork

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and started to mint an auction themselves

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or their work as NFTs.

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<v ->But since an NFT is like a digital certificate</v>

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of authenticity, it's provenance is key.

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A meme NFT is only valuable

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if the creator or the person in the meme

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minted it.

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This is where Know Your Meme comes in.

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Not only do they manage an encyclopedia

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of close to 5,000 confirmed memes.

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<v ->Here we go again.</v>

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<v ->They're the ones who can authenticate</v>

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the true owner when it's time for it

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to be minted as an NFT.

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<v ->Pinpointing the exact origins</v>

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of where these phenomenon come from

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can be quite challenging.

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A difference between traditional detective work,

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and what we do

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is that we're dealing with online data

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that has a lot of metadata associated with it,

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and we're able to trace things back

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and see how much engagement they've had,

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who their original creator is,

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who the original poster is a lot of the time,

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depending on the platform.

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<v ->Reddit, with its archive posts</v>

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is easy to search.

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Same with Twitter, the ephemeral 4chan,

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not so much.

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Facebook is notoriously insular

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and doesn't play nice with Google,

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so the team might use CrowdTangle, TinEye

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or their own proprietary dashboard

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to SLU on social.

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<v ->Tracking down something on YouTube</v>

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can be more challenging.

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Reverse image search doesn't work with videos,

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so you have to sift through lots of episodes

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and YouTube uploads, define the exact moment

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that is taken for a meme.

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Sometimes we'll consult fan communities

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that are very familiar with the source material

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and ask for their assistance

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to discover where these memes come from sometimes.

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<v ->Maintaining close relationships</v>

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with meme creators and communities

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pays off in tips and leads.

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That's how the team was alerted

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that something was very wrong

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with the auction of a meme masterpiece.

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<v ->Rage comics are another meme</v>

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that comes from this old era of internet history.

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They were very popular comic format.

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We discovered that there was an NFT of Me Gusta

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being auctioned off

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on the NFT marketplace foundation.

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So there were a number of alarm bells

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that went off when we began looking into this

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that made this clearly

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some sort of shady practice.

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The original Me Gusta image

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was an illustration done by May.

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So here's the original and the fake.

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I'll zoom in real tight here.

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So here you have all these squiggles

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and the lines get really thin

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and there's like shading.

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And then over here,

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everything's pretty much uniform

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in terms of darkness, right?

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So you can tell that it's been vectorized.

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A lot of rage comics are made in MS Paint.

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People will use a mouse cursor

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to make these faces.

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And they're very crude,

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usually just black and white.

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It loses this kind of level of detail in order

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to get this super high res version of it,

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that's, you know, line art made of Bezier curve.

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So it's kind of got all the telltale signs

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of a vector art recreation of a raster image.

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So Adobe illustrator has a tool

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known as live tracing

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that may have been used here.

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It takes a raster image and it traces over it

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and turns it into a vector image.

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Simple lines and curves

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that can then be scaled infinitely

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to any resolution,

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but they also take away details

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and they take away shading,

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but anyone who's used it before

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can tell when something's been vectorized,

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versus something that's just been illustrated.

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<v ->Apart from this forensic evidence,</v>

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another clue was that the poser

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used May's dead name.

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That's when the Know Your Meme team

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reached out to her directly.

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<v ->May responded that she was very surprised</v>

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to find out that an NFT was being auctioned off

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as she had not been the one to auction it off.

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<v ->Platforms, such as Foundation,</v>

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require that artists being invited

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before being allowed to mint their NFTs.

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So how did this faker slip through?

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<v ->They had dug into her background,</v>

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figured out that she had known certain people

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and approach them acting as May

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in order to get their NFT minted

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and auctioned off.

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So after we realized

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that this was likely an imposter,

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we reached out to the marketplace

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that the NFT was being auctioned on

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and asked them about their vetting process

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and how they had determined that this

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was owned by the original creator.

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And later that day, the auction was removed.

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<v ->May Oswald had this piece of advice.</v>

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<v ->Be careful with them meme kids,</v>

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you know, only get your memes

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from trusted sources

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<v ->The work of a meme detective is never done</v>

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and soon the team would receive

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what would become their highest profile case yet.

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<v ->So one day we were reached out to,</v>

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by this decentralized auction house

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known as the Zora.

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They were working with the owner of Doge,

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Atsuko Satō, who lives in Japan.

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We also felt there was this importance

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with certifying the authenticity of NFTs

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after seeing this Me Gusta fiasco.

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So we offered to certify this Doge auction

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as authentic after verifying it with Atsuko.

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We knew her

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and we had even interviewed her ourself prior.

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So there were eight photographs of Doge

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that were auctioned off on Zora.

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One being the most iconic Doge image,

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which sold for approximately 4 million US dollars

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at the time.

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And the case of Doge and Atsuko Satō,

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not only was she able to be rewarded

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for her contribution to culture,

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but she also donated

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a significant portion of the auction to charity.

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<v ->All in a day's work for Know Your Meme.</v>

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So is the Wikipedia viral content

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becoming full-time NFT fraud investigators now?

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<v ->It's hard to tell exactly</v>

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what point in the phase we are,

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if this is just a bubble that's bound to pop.

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I would wager that it will be around

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for some years to come,

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as this has provided artists

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with a way to be rewarded

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for their contributions to culture

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in ways they didn't have before.

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I envision in the future that historians

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and anthropologists will be using

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Know Your Meme to figure out what was happening

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during this time.

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What was their sense of humor?

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What did they care about?

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In a sense memes are this

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kind of lens into the soul of humanity.