Now, before you read, I need you to listen to something for me.
Now that you’re listening, let’s get into Fighting Game Memes!
When learning fighting games for the first time, many players go straight to training mode to practice “optimal combos”, and yet they learn nothing about the interactions before they get a hit. Essentially, they haven’t quite learned how to play the game, but then get go online and they get destroyed.
Right on the heels of that last meme is a very similar one; many people who play Street Fighter are familiar with this meme, or some kind of variant of it. While the chart looks complicated, many of the paths will lead right back to the big “SHORYUKEN” bubble, which when used repeatedly in a fight will surely make sure you lose the match. Comically, the flowchart ends with the player learning nothing, which is the effect of using a flowchart to play the game.
Now, there are supposed to be three memes, so where’s the third…? Well, hopefully you listened to the video as you were reading, because that is one of the biggest fighting game memes in existence, known as “Guile’s Theme Goes With Everything”. Essentially, well, you take any video you want and edit Guile’s Theme from Street Fighter II over it for comedic results. I have essentially made you into a meme by listening to that song and reading this blog! Haha! You can read more about Guile’s Theme here: https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/guiles-theme-goes-with-everything
Now, according to Patrick Davison, “the ideal of a meme is the concept or idea conveyed.” The first two memes I showed conveyed what is essentially how not to practice or learn how to play a fighting game. The third meme is supposed to show that, well, “Guile’s Theme can go with everything.” It’s pretty much in the name of the meme.
In terms of how they spread, the first meme is from the SpongeBob episode where SpongeBob is taking his boating exam, yet can’t think of anything to say. SpongeBob as a whole is a rather meme-able TV show, so it was practically inevitable that a fighting game-related meme would be created.
As for “Flowchart Ken”, this meme had begun circulating around fighting game forums when Street Fighter IV released. Many new players had picked the character Ken and effectively played just as the flowchart had shown, which brought rise to the meme. The meme had spread rather quickly through those fighting game forums, bringing it popularity.
“Guile’s Theme goes with everything” had begun when a YouTube channel “guilesthemefitsall” posted a video of the Super Mario Bros. live action movie and replace the music of one of the scenes with Guile’s theme. In May of 2010, another user on the ScoreHero forums posted another version, replacing music in The Lion King, with a comment saying “It really does go with everything.” After that, the meme took off.
Two of these memes are in image format. The first is enhanced due to it being a SpongeBob meme, which many people had watched and were familiar with. The second was basically required to be an image, since it was a flowchart. The final meme could be either an audio meme or an audio+visual meme, as being able to listen to Guile’s Theme is mandatory for the meme to exist.
As these memes are meant to target fans of fighting games, visuals are fairly important to the presentation of the meme, as fighting games are an incredibly visual form of video games. Audio-related memes are also relevant, since audio in fighting games can also be important in playing the game. These memes would fall short if they were, for example, completely text-based, as the appeal of the meme is being able to see what is going on.
References:
Davison, P. (2012) The Language of Internet Memes
https://knowyourmeme.com/photos/743994-gaming
https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/flowchart-ken
https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/guiles-theme-goes-with-everything
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