[LET’S CHAT] The Controversy of Blog Memes

Everybody has feelings about book blogging memes.

Funnily enough, I feel like I’ve only seen a couple discussions about them, and most bloggers seem to fall under the consensus that memes are unoriginal and can get tired and boring, but are blog memes truly living up to that stereotype or are they falling victim to appearing “lesser than” other blog features? Let’s talk about it!

Obviously, I think there are lots of feelings around memes out there, especially contrasting ones! I feel like there’s a little bit of controversy or unfairness directed at memes, and I wanted to tackle it and sort out all of those feelings and opinions!

There are some bloggers out there that participate in memes and feel as if they’re treated unfairly and some who consider memes to be boring and unoriginal and avoid Tuesdays and Wednesdays at all costs. Sometimes, it feels like there’s no in-between when it comes to these things, so why not chat about it?

When it comes to discussing originality in blogging, memes are usually discarded as unoriginal. I mean, it’s pretty hard to describe a feature that a large amount of people are putting their input in as “original,” especially if we continue to all talk and feature the same books over and over again. It definitely depends on what you make of the meme you’re doing that it’s original.

I definitely think there are some memes out there that have more creativity than others. Things such as Top Ten Tuesday or Top 5 Wednesday or Down The TBR Hole are memes that, depending on the blogger, can really be original and easier to comment on! I’ve seen several bloggers turn it into something fun that lots of people enjoy, and that’s fantastic! And then there are more personal memes, such as Stacking the Shelves or the Sunday Post where people can talk about things happening in their lives or the books they received, which are also creative, since no two book hauls or weeks are going to look the same way.

Obviously, there are some memes that can be different, but not as entertaining – ones where you share a line or two from a book you’re reading come to mind – and even memes that can be seen as creative can get old. I know there was a topic for Top Ten Tuesday where you talked about your most anticipated releases for the second half of 2017, and my feed was saturated with pretty much every blogger mentioning the same ten books over and over again. I basically ignored everyone’s Top Ten Tuesday posts that day, because I wasn’t in the mood to repeat the same thing in everyone’s comment sections.

So can memes be original? I think yes and no, depending on what you make of it (much like any other blog feature).

I think this all definitely depends on personal experience. When I participated in WWW Wednesday in my first month of blogging, it really didn’t help whatsoever. I didn’t really have anyone on the outside commenting on my posts (except the host), and they really didn’t get as much attention as other posts I preferred writing at the time (not like they were the best posts ever or anything). But, I also wasn’t too good at networking at the time and didn’t comment on anyone else’s WWW Wednesday, so who knows, maybe I wasn’t doing it right?

I’ve seen lots of other people who say that memes totally helped them or that they found most of their blogging friends from them or that their meme days are the most popular days on their blog, so I think I’m an outlier! I’ve seen so many people say that memes truly help their blogs, and I think that’s awesome! Not to mention that most of them have link-ups, so there’s some really good exposure right there that might get your blog to grow, and it’s good way of networking and maybe discovering some new blogs!

So can memes be helpful? Totally. Maybe I was just doing it wrong!

I definitely don’t think memes are a bad thing! I think memes can get a lot of crap at times, even as someone who probably has talked badly about memes on my blog before (I say this mainly because it seems like people are dedicated to hating memes, which I’ve never understood, to be honest). I think it just really depends on the blogger and what they do with the meme – if it serves as a creative alley for them and they’re actually interacting with fellow bloggers, than I definitely don’t see it as a bad thing! I think all blogging features can be unoriginal and boring at times, and depending on how the blogger handles it, it can truly excel.

What is your opinion on book blogging memes? Do you enjoy reading or writing them? Do you participate in any memes? If so, which ones?

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