How to Make an Animation Meme

So- a disclaimer to start off the video: This is not a rulebook for making memes, nor am I trying to push any standards or rules on anyone making their own memes. Make anything you want! This is just me pointing out some trends that I've noticed in the community that might push you towards making something popular. Also, second disclaimer, I'm fully aware I sound like a girl. I'm not. Please be aware of that if you comment because I've been getting that a lot recently. So you wanna make a meme?

Well, I, weedcat, with so many successful memes, just a plethora of them, I am here to show you how! Step One: Choosing a genre Most memes fall into these following categories: Edgy, Pastel, Silly or Spoof. Edgy memes, first of all- These memes tend to be darkly colored with backgrounds that are either flat colored or stock video. The format of an ‘edgy’ meme is usually a short intro or outro with a few unique frames, while the main structure of the meme is a bust shot of the character and a few

poses Pastel Memes These memes are brightly colored, but also desaturated. Most colors border on white, with backgrounds that are either patterns or stock images. The format of a ‘pastel’ meme is usually more unique than an edgy meme, but tends to have a fullbody of a character dancing at some point in the video, and many cuts that aren’t explicitly looped character headbops or motions, but things like items or close-up shots of characters looped or shown instead. Silly Memes These memes aren’t

spoof memes, but rather lighthearted fun memes that utilize a lighthearted or fun song and animation that is put effort put into it, usually. These memes don’t really have a solid format, only that the characters are usually not showing much personality, but rather actions. And finally, Spoof Memes These are the shitposts. The audio that’s from a youtube skit, movie, etc. That is usually drawn over with still frames or sketches in more of a PMV style rather than an animated video. Audio tends n

ot to be songs, though it can be, but rather comedy bits from various sources of media STEP TWO: Choosing a character My number 1 rule for this is- when it doubt, use a furry. A good portion of the community is also a part of the furry community. People will click on what they see and relate to, so use a furry character if you're not sure what to do. The easiest of these characters to use are usually fursonas. Of course, this doesn’t mean you can’t use any other characters- there’s less and less

of a divide between anthro characters, feral characters, and human characters as the meme community takes over the map community. Use what you want! Your character that you choose should also be based on what kind of meme you want to make- if you want to make an edgy meme or a spoof meme, most characters should have a developed personality that is shown in the video. But in pastel and silly memes, characters don't tend to show much personality. This is because memes strive off of people creatin

g them, and to do them, you must be able to insert a character into them. Edgy memes and spoof memes are frequently changed from person to person, so putting personality in the original shouldn’t be much of an issue. But with pastel and silly memes, they’re usually looped animations that are closely copied- try to make them as simple and basic as possible personality-wise to ensure that people can insert their characters into them. STEP THREE: Drawing the Meme Make sure to choose a good pose for

mat for your characters- most people tend to stick to one of two formats and keep it consistent throughout the video: Either a straight on bust shot with movements in the head and face area Or a fullbody or a knee-up pose with movement more focused on the torso, shoulders and arms Make sure that your style is consistent both throughout the video and with the genre of the video you're trying to make, especially with the colors Edgy memes have more realistic or a rendered styles with more anatomic

ally correct characters, and darker colors. They stick to either a saturated palette or a monochrome one, without much variation in the middle. Pastel memes use a softer style, usually with more curved lines and experimentation in style, relying a lot on the “chibi” style. Colors fall along the pastel scale, with colors being completely saturated but more near to white. Silly memes use very bright colors, usually extremely saturated, and utilize these throughout the whole video, with both charac

ters and backgrounds. Characters tend to be a mix between cute and realistic, but falling more along the line of an American cartoon style. This tends to be the most closest (nice grammar), besides a spoof meme, to the artist's actual style that they use in most of their artwork Spoof memes, lastly, tend to be flatcolor on a white background, or sketches, colored or not. Styles are usually a wide range, but are usually just the artist’s preferred style Theres not much of a style format that goes

with these videos STEP FOUR: Editing the Meme When drawing your meme, keep in mind that you will be editing- if you want to do a headbop, for example, draw the headbop on a different layer than the body. Make sure your editing is consistent throughout the video, especially with quality. Put the same level of effort editing the first frame as you do the last because most memes have replay quality and people will tend to notice if there's a drop in quality at the end Do not rely too much on editi

ng that will give a shaky, constantly moving, or flashing effect. While some popular memes use this, and you surely can yourself, these kind of memes can push away potential creators because of the uneasy nature of them. It also poses a risk for epileptic viewers, so put a warning if you do choose to use this technique Lastly, keep editing easy to recreate, especially if you’re using a program like Vegas or After Effects. A good portion of the community is using programs like Windows Live Movie

Maker and won’t be able to recreate a lot of effects, and even those with better programs might not be sure on how to recreate editing STEP FIVE: Posting Posting your meme is a VERY IMPORTANT part of drawing in viewers to see your video Creating a thumbnail seperate from the video is a good way to guarantee that your meme will be enticing to click on. If you choose one from the automatically generated thumbnails, be sure that it’s not blurry. Most thumbnails have a close up or a bust shot of the

character- using a fullbody might get blurry or make people unsure of what it is USE THE TAGS! I cannot say this enough- USE THE TAGS WHEN YOU POST. Using tags will rank your video, which means that when people search for memes, it will show up in the results more often than if you didn't tag it. If you use tags, it will continue to get views after you post it, meaning that people other than your subscribers who initially see it in (their) subbox will view it too. Finally, make sure that the ti

tle is clear! I tend to title mine with the name of the meme and the fact that it’s an original meme. I also post the character’s name with it, occasionally, to let viewers learn at least a little bit about my OCs STEP SIX: Forgetting everything I said in this video The best memes are the ones that are truly original. While the point of this video was to state a lot of trends which will be a safeguard for creating a reasonably popular meme, be sure to break at least a few of these “rules” when m

aking your own- this will make it unique and it’ll be sure to break out from the crowd, making it popular! Of course, making something completely original is a risky move, but if you do it enough, it will certainly pay off! Well, if this video inspires you to make an animation meme, comment below and I’ll be sure to check it out! Also, if anything I stated in the video is wrong or harmful, tell me below and I’ll be sure to understand and try and fix my mistakes and clarify what I meant! Thanks f

or watching, and don’t forget to subscribe for more meme-related content!