What is an Animation Meme?

Hello everyone! Today I want to explain animation memes, and give a few examples including one that I created and animated.

A meme is an amusing or interesting item like an image, photo, video, or piece of text that is spread widely and rapidly online, mostly through social media.

An animation meme is a fairly new trend, but is really just a meme that involves a character, which can be human, animal, or cartoon exhibiting facial expressions, poses, or other movements, and normally set to music.

For example, there are a lot of dancing animated memes online. Some animation memes have single looped, repetitive movements like opening and closing of eyes, or wagging of a tail. Others combine multiple looped repetitive movements to create a creature that moves multiple parts at the same time. Animation memes are usually done by artists showing off their OCs (original characters), hoping to draw attention to their art or animations, or just creating for fun. A meme or an animation meme can have words with the pictures or animations, and are ways to express yourself and your emotions. I consider memes and animation memes an art form.

Steps to making a meme

Step one – Select a genre

There are basically four main genres that animators create. However, these are not all of the genres that exist, and you can always create something different and unique.

Edgy

Dark colors, saturated or monochrome pallet without much variation

Flat colored background
Usually a short intro or outro with a few frames
Main structure is a bust shot of the character with a few poses (a shoulder or neck up variant of a character, or just a head in some cases)

Characters show a developed personality
Use a more realistic style with anatomically correct character
Usually have some sort of story to them, relating to the specific character or characters in the animation

Pastel

Bright colors that are desaturated closely to white
Patterned backgrounds or stock images
Softer style with more curved lines

Full body of a character dancing
Close up shots of character loops
Characters don’t tend to show personality

Sometimes portray a story, and sometimes not

Silly

Bright colors
Characters and backgrounds are saturated

Lighthearted and fun
Use a fun song and an animation with effort in actions
Characters don’t tend to show personality

More like American cartoon style – mix between cute and realistic
Closest to the artists actual character artwork style
Sometimes show story relating to the character(s) in the animation

Spoof

Flat color on a white background or
Sketches, colored or not
Audio from a movie or skit – usually comedy bits instead of songs

Draw over still frames or sketches
Characters show a developed personality
Usually the artist’s preferred style

Rarely show story (If a spoof animation shows story, it would be in a joke sort of way)
Often take the form of videos called trashposts

Step two – Choose a character

You can use any type of character such as anthro, feral, or human. Fursonas are easiest to use, but you can use anything. If you do not have a fursona, you can use another type of sona such as a persona, or just an OC if you have no sona at all. A main OC can be similar to a sona, just the character is more separate from you. However, it is your main OC like a mascot of sorts. Orbal is my main OC. Check out my article on Tips for Creating a Fursona.

Step three – Draw your meme

Chose a good pose for your character like a straight bust shot with movements in the head and face, or a full body pose with movement in torso, shoulders, and arms.

Step four – Editing

How this step is done can vary, especially depending on the editing program you use, and if you edit at all. Some animators do not edit at all, or do not edit all of their animations. Some are done purely with the animation program.

Step five – Posting

Create a thumbnail, use tags, and add a title which should include the name of the meme, and the fact that it’s an original meme. You can also post the character’s name to let viewers know a bit about your OC’s. If the animation meme has story involved you could explain the story further in the description of the video, or in a pinned comment, if you have comments on with the video.

Examples

Here are a few examples that I found online:

This meme is called Close Up, which was animated by EggPriest:

This mascot character Egg is a pretty cool robot cat type of creature that defies logic.

Here is another animation meme, animated by PixelLeaf. The main character in it, named Zig-Zag, is honestly pretty cute!

Here is another animation meme, called I Can Talk. This one seems to be a remake of a remake, of an old version.

Here is one that I created: Skunk in the City.

Keep Your Work Original

Downloading, copying, tracing, and uploading someone else’s animation meme on your channel is considered stealing, and is therefore plagiarism. Do not steal others’ work! That is unfair to the original creator who spent the time and effort to make the animation. You can also get into huge trouble with Google or YouTube because the copyright belongs to the original creator, and they can prove it originally appeared on their website. However, you CAN be inspired by other people’s animation memes when creating your own. Just don’t steal!

How to Give Credit to Other Artists

When you link to an animation meme from your website for reference, example, or to share, be sure to credit the original artist who created the specific animation meme.

Remaking Old Memes is Okay

Sometimes artists like to remake or upgrade their own animation memes. Animation memes can even be remade multiple times as you improve as an animator and an artist. This is perfectly fine, and shows how you improve over time.

Animation memes are fun to create, so give it a try. Be sure to check out my articles on animating. Animate in 4 Steps Using Flipaclip, and Animating with Ibis Paint X and FlipaClip.

Enjoy animating and I’ll “see” you in our virtual art world again very soon.