Say I’m on Mastodon, and someone posts a reply to a meme that I think is funny. I take a screenshot of their post to send to other people or post on Lemmy. Is it more polite/respectful/appropriate to censor out their name and handle (to respect their privacy) or leave it in (to give them appropriate credit for their idea)?
Crop out anything additional that doesn’t add to the humor or credit the creator.
So crop out the people reposting it unless their comments are key.
People can always embed their username/handle into the meme - if they do it’d be rude to crop it out… if they don’t then I think it’s usually safer to censor the OP’s handle as a default action.
Maybe things are changing in the influencer world but a lot of memes start out as niche in jokes and users may not want to be associated with how they’re used by other people.
We’ve certainly seen the opposite where a bunch of memes gain ground with people and end up falling into disfavor when people discover the original intent (aka fucking Steven Crowder). So detaching it from the originator just feels safer.
If it’s their original thought, or I’m including their comment on the thing they shared, then I include the username.
If they’ve just reposted an image with no extra commentary, I only share the image and not where I found it. Since “where I found it” is not the original source, no attribution is necessary imho.
I would say it’s not necessary if the post is public. I would consider it if it was clear the conversation wasn’t meant to go viral, or if I suspected the person wouldn’t want the extra attention on the platform (for example it’s funny but it’s embarrassing, or maybe I know they don’t fully understand the privacy settings of a post like it happens with some elderly people). It’s a grey area for sure
Sometimes it’s important To know if someone is a known satire account I say. Keep the OP imo. Maybe blur the pfp if you want?
But then how will they become famous?
