
What's the Best App for Making Memes? - prostoalex
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/08/killer-memes/566498/?single_page=true
======
whalesalad
This is great. There is a huge opportunity to create an app to create modern-
day memes. They all have certain aesthetics. Many of them follow templates
that are correlated with the content. Some earn their cred from simply having
a certain over-compressed JPEG vibe. I'll admit I am addicted to surfin memes.
My wife and I will sit for hours in silence, passing them back and forth and
just laughing constantly.

So, to all the folks here saying GIMP or MSPaint and call it a day ... you are
missing the boat. The modern-day instagram/twitter memes are an entirely new
vector of communication. The bar is getting lower, it will get lower, and
there is a way to capitalize on this.

One day soon an app will exist that will allow you to make memes the same way
instagram allows you to tap one finger and make a photo look like it was taken
on a polaroid camera. If you do it right to where you can produce content like
heckoffsupreme, sonny5ideup, tanksinatra, middleclassfancy, gayvapeshark,
etc... with a few taps and some original verbage you'd make a killing.

Also super glad to see heckoffsupreme get an honorable mention. They are some
of the best, no doubt.

~~~
calhoun137
I do not disagree with you that there is a huge vacuum in the market for a
good meme making app and that this will be extremely profitable for whoever
gets it right and is able to execute and build a large user base.

That being said, as someone who has been making memes for 6+ years I can tell
you hands down no mobile app will ever compare to the power of photoshop, or
GIMP for that matter. Even if it was possible for a mobile app to do
everything photoshop can do, the small screen size and touch screen interface
is a huge issue that can't be solved without plugging a mouse + keyboard into
a tablet, at which point, just use a computer.

There is an interesting phenomenon that the younger generation is so enamored
with mobile apps and devices that many of them don't realize how certain use
cases/work flows simply are always going to be way better on a desktop or a
laptop. I would characterize your comment as saying its possible to profit off
of the ignorance of a certain subset of today's 15-25 year old's when it comes
to this fact.

I know there are so many brilliant people in this generation who are going to
be sick nerds one day. But lots of others only interact with computers via
their phones and don't even realize how silly they are being by refusing to
make memes on a laptop.

~~~
2bitencryption
> That being said, as someone who has been making memes for 6+ years ...

This made me smile

~~~
calhoun137
What's really funny is that all the time I put into learning how to make
meme's and animated gif's caused me to accidentally do a lot of professional
graphic design work for my company. As a programmer who works in early stage
startups, I have found having the skill set to be able to work with tools like
GIMP to be invaluable. Sometimes dealing with artists can kinda be a pain and
its nice to be able to just make this stuff myself and skip all the back and
forth.

------
calhoun137
"some memers have found the current suite of mobile applications so lacking
that they choose to create their memes on desktop computers instead. “On your
phone, you’re never going to be able to do as much as you could as on a
computer,” says Noam, who memes under the account
@listenintospitandgettingparamoredon.

Ronnie, who memes under the handle @mspainttrash, is part of a group of meme
makers that works exclusively in MS Paint."

Finally I thought, a voice of reason! Someone is going to mention GIMP or
photoshop. But then they go straight for MS Paint and then totally ignore the
idea of using a desktop to make memes and go right back to the "problem" that
you need 4 apps to make a shitpost. LOL! Someone tell these kids about GIMP
please

------
theshrike79
At what point did "Meme" start to mean any image with text in it?

~~~
joeblau
Exactly

    
    
        Image Macro != Meme
    

But I think we lost this battle.

~~~
sp332
They're expanding beyond just image macros. Especially the surreal ones, or
[https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/deep-fried-
memes](https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/deep-fried-memes)

~~~
SteveParker60
GIGANTIC SCREEN-OBSCURING POP-UP. INSTANT BACK BUTTON.

------
mrieck
I made a cartoon maker that allows the mashup of memes:
[https://www.superanimo.com/](https://www.superanimo.com/)

I'm making a bet that the future of memes are short videos that tell more of a
story than a simple image macro. Hopefully I can turn SuperAnimo into an app
someday but right now it's just a buggy website no one uses. It's still my
favorite project though - so I'll keep plugging away at features and maybe one
day I'll get some users.

------
bonniemuffin
I find /r/surrealmemes fascinating, but never really thought about the lack of
tools for hacking stuff like that together.

------
mirimir
Someone ought to do app for blocking memes. Something like AdBlock Plus or
uMatrix.

------
6cd6beb
Photoshop. or Gimp.

I mean it's superimposing text, possibly at different fonts, sizes, angles;
then combining various images, again possibly at different rotations, and then
applying filters.

Tools exist for this.

A "meme making app" made sense when it was just top and bottom text over an
image, but these people are basically saying they want a heavyweight image
editor.

~~~
soared
You think elementary schoolers and other non-techies are going to either pay
$15/mo for photoshop or delve into the ux dungeon that is Gimp? Not a chance.

~~~
jessaustin
The elementary school filters probably block all the gimps.

------
crtasm
Memetastic on f-droid works well!

------
tomc1985
And this is why memes sucks now... people take it way too seriously. Four
different apps? Most of this stuff could be done with only Paint.net.

~~~
sotojuan
It seems people want to be doing this on their phone - that's the problem.

~~~
onion2k
The sort of people who make memes often only have a phone.

~~~
mirimir
Damn, that was my thought exactly!

