Dank Memes Subreddit Bans Reaction Memes Of Text Screenshots

If you’ve been browsing posts on some of Reddit’s biggest meme-related subs lately, you probably noticed there’s been a lot of low-effort memes -- specifically screenshots of either Twitter posts, YouTube videos, messages/chats and other text-based images that many would hardly even call a meme at all.

Though this trend has been prevalent on the platform for quite a long time, one subreddit has finally decided to put its foot down. As of March 4th, 2020, r/dankmemes will no longer allow reactions to screenshots of text, following an announcement on the sub from the moderators.

In the post, Redditor and moderator siouxsie_siouxv2 (known to the sub as “Susan”) stated, “We heard your anguished cries etc. Reactions to screenshots of text are no longer allowed,” after deciding that the recent flood of such posts had reached a breaking point. Susan continued to elaborate on the new rule change with the following description:

Lately, the sub has been sort of flooded with posts that are one picture with another picture at the bottom reacting to it. I can barely bring myself to even call them memes. Some are good though, I guess that's true. It's kind of why we have been trying to figure out how to do this with the least amount of collateral damage. Here's what we came up with: No reactions to screenshots of text | profile pics do not count, so fuck you Twitter, don't let the door hit you on the way out.

Several examples of such posts are then provided (one of which can be seen below), further explaining that memes consisting of pure text will now be removed and can be reported by users as “not a dank meme.”

While text-only posts will no longer be allowed on the sub, things like headlines, tweets and photographs of text with a picture included (shown below in a reaction image) will continue to be allowed as they are “fractionally more tolerable and high effort” according to the announcement. Regular memes using the traditional format with text on top and an image below are perfectly acceptable.

Following the crackdown on such low-effort text memes, members of the subreddit expressed enthusiasm in comments below as they praised the moderators for hearing their pleas. One example of this comes from Redditor MrSunbro who said, “I thought my modmail plea was in vain, thank you so much for this.” Another from Redditor Noerito read, “Great change. Mods not as gay anymore.”

Several users also requested the ban of frequently seen formats deemed low-effort, such as Boys vs. Girls, but in one comment chain, siouxsie_siouxv2 stated, “Not really that common. Even the most annoying format can chill here if it's not dominating the front page. We waited until it was 10 out of 50 to start moving to change. We really try to be careful about banning things because it could be cool again someday in the future when someone finds a better use. like dogelore.”

Another post (shown above) regarding the announcement from Redditor and moderator ELFAHBEHT_SOOP, received nearly 50,000 upvotes and 405 comments from members as they continued to praise the mods for cleaning up the sub. Redditor Seyo05 replied with, “Finally this subreddit is starting to clean up the shitposts,” and received over 1,600 upvotes.

Though the rule change explicitly states that text-only memes will no longer be allowed, it seems somewhat loose in an effort to keep things subjective, given the nature of memes in general. Whether or not members will follow this rule remains to be seen (as most of Reddit famously never reads sub rules), but it’s a step in the right direction to keep r/dankmemes dank.