Editing DeepFriedMemes (section)

=== The Death of /r/DeepFriedMemes ===
On January 1st, 2021 the subreddit would be closed down with a public statement from the moderators, a "long time coming." As the subreddit and the concept of deep fried memes became more and more mainstream and as time went on, the quality of the subreddit would drop off immensely. The mod team would vote to close down the subreddit for this reason alone, the moderators would state within their public goodbye that they often became trapped in a cycle wherein the times in which moderation was not taking place as consistently, as a result of this the subreddit would become overpopulated with terrible posts, misguided in understanding the subreddit's main appeal and gimmic.

[[File:RIPSONGEBOB.png|thumb|Rip Jah...]]
They would also state that reddit was simply too poorly designed in offering a consistently effective moderation system for them. Reddit had a somewhat unsustainable type of moderation, as a mod would burn out, another one would come around. It also became depressing to watch the subreddit's activity being slowly depleted as time went on, mods would be often frustrated with how people would complain about the subreddit even with all the moderation behind. The subreddit had gone through a depression for most of its life. Deep Fried Memes became a staple of meme culture as far back as 2016, and the posts within the subreddit were slowly becoming more and more corny and outdated. People would also begin to misinterpret and misunderstand the deep fried meme and the concept behind it, with there being people who just deep fry any regular meme and call it finished. "People followed the memes of /r/dankmemes and brought them over to DFM, often not for humor or quality sake, but for the plain and simple fact that on Reddit, riding a trend wave gets you tons of karma." The moderators would call this process "redditification", as other subreddits took the head spot from [[DankMemes]] like [[OkBuddyRetard]] or [[ComedyHeaven]] the posts from there would be deepfried and posted onto DFM.


Anything of value that was originally from the concept of what the subreddit was supposed to be was lost. The moderators would try to salvage the subreddit, with several rules over the years to amend and combat the biggest issues with the community, in general though. People did not like to obey these rules, even with the "Return to our Roots" campaign, every new rule and change that the moderators introduced; failed. An end of an era, as some might say. The subreddit was finally shutdown, and with it... The deepfriedmeme went into obscurity. Though, the discord server would still go on, it would be the last remnant of what was once a glorious subreddit, filled with groundbreaking never before seen memes. <small>(A pitful state.)</small>

==== Mod Goodbyes ====
The moderators of the subreddit thought it would be nice if they could write of their own free volition, giving their goodbyes. This section is exactly that.

===== Hyperion =====
{{Quote|I’ve been a part of this community for a very long time. I’ve browsed /r/DeepFriedMemes since 2016, and back then it was one of my favorite subs. I got involved in the community in 2017 and became a mod that same year. It’s insane to me how much time has passed, I’ve really grown up with DFM and I’ve seen everything crumble before my eyes. The disparity between the subreddit and the server was so massive it was something that couldn’t have been fixed, nor should it have been. I wish that I would have done things much sooner to combat all the issues facing the sub, but I’m not sure honestly that it would have been able to have been done. The primary issue with the subreddit had taken root in its very beginnings, and so it’s no wonder that it ended up this way. 

As I drifted toward the Discord and away from Reddit a lot of the love that I had for the site was gone. Truly it had died long ago, and its corpse had been rotting for some time. I had thought that I would be able to save it but at this point I’ve lost my faith in Reddit as a platform. It often placed a great burden on me as the owner of the subreddit and the discord server to carry both. I often felt as if I was the only one who really cared and I sinked unhealthy, embarrassing amounts of time into trying to make both the subreddit and the Discord the best they could be within my power. Reflecting on all of this, I’m reminded of a quote by Ron Swanson from Parks and Rec. “Never half-ass two things. Whole-ass one thing.”

And with that I give my farewell. I give my thanks to everyone over the years who has helped out and has been a part of this very formative experience for me. While sad, I feel it’s important that we move on from this chapter and begin anew. Thank you for taking me on this journey and I’m excited to see what’s next. That being said, I thought I’d share this playlist of music curated by the Discord.|u/[[Hyperion]]}}

==== [[Govern]] ====
{{Quote|I'll start off by saying that this subreddit means a lot to me, as silly as it sounds. I used to like the subreddit with it's original style of humour that was unique to the genre of deep fried memes. Nowadays the sub is a shell of its former self, and it doesn't matter how much we try to fix it, people simply will not listen to what moderators have in mind for the subreddit, despite only having good intentions. I believe that the disconnect from the origin and perpetual shift towards edgy and "dank" deep fried memes as main idea for what a deep fried meme is made the subreddit suffer from terrible posts that made browsing the subreddit, especially as a moderator, rather unenjoyable. We made rule 6 to combat it, which for those who don't know, was "Don't post content that, when not fried, would fit better on other subreddits'', in other words, we tried to return to the roots of the subreddit. Obviously a lot of people did not even see the new rule, or just did not care because the subreddit was still getting filled with posts that were totally unfitting.

	I don't feel like this community is going in the right direction and I don't think it is something that I, or other mods for that matter, can fix. People grow up and lose interest, which is one of the other things that lead to the decision to close this subreddit for good. I used to like the community a lot, and it wasn't limited to just the subreddit. I found a lot of good people through the deep fried memes discord, which meant a lot for me during that time. I am glad I joined this community while it was still growing, but I don't know what to think of it anymore. People from the discord noticed the trend of the subreddit going downhill a lot earlier than most other users, it seems like, because they were there for longer and saw it at its peak. I don't feel like it will ever be at it's glory again, and the new user base won't understand that. If you think "You guys totally could have done better!!! Hire more people, get more people who understand stuff then!!!", you should consider that we had moderator applications open for the past 2 years without closing them once. Last few months we had close to 0 applications coming in, and those that came in were quite disappointing as they adapted the style of memes that simply do not fit with the original vision of the subreddit.|u/[[Govern]]_}}

==== [[Ibradude67|Ibradude]] ====
{{Quote|There’s 8 million ways I could write on why I got burnt out from moderating but let’s make this clear and simple. It doesn’t feel like managing a community anymore, more like doing a laborious task, where 95% of the time you remove rule breaking posts that aren’t really the user’s fault. It’s Reddit’s fault, where the crushing majority of users are on new.reddit/mobile and have a more relaxed and simplified way of perceiving things, they care less about the rules, there’s less “personality” and customisation nowadays and it’s something we or you can’t control at all. Before that, you had one straight forward, quick to load and easy to tweak design (extensions like toolbox and RES, CSS etc…) and that factor of customisation made things more personal and distinct, made it look like if you were moderating, you were actually maintaining a website/forum. Nowadays, everything is centralised and dumbed down sadly, that’s the way the internet is currently going. And no, before you ask, I’m not wearing nostalgia glasses, things really turned to shit. There’s no soul, passion or personality behind it left...|u/Ibradude67}}

==== soviet_garfield001 ====
{{Quote|While I have not been a mod, or even a reddit user, for a very long time, I was still around long enough to see the sub when it still had some pretty good stuff, and I had grown fond of it. While it’s disappointing that we were not able to save the reddit side of the community, the discord side is doing well. There are still amazing people that frequent the server, and I have made several good friends because of it. I hope that somewhere people might still be making deep fried memes in the old style, since few people wanted to do so in the dedicated community for it. With all that said, I hope some of you will join the server and maybe even make some new friends.|/u/soviet_garfield001}}

==== ufuw ====
{{Quote|/r/DeepFriedMemes was where I had my first and only major experience with moderation anywhere on the internet, and nearly 22 months after boarding the moderation ship, I can say that I really enjoyed my time here, if not only for the moments when I’d clear a mountain of shit to ensure that high quality OCs would make it to the front page. Knowing the other mods here, they’ve probably already listed their complaints, so I won’t bore you with the details of what went wrong with the subreddit. Instead, I’d just like to remind everyone to be creative; derivative content and trend-following kill communities, and in all honesty, the way Reddit works almost invariably discourages creativity. I am nothing but happy to leave this site’s meme community behind for much better sources of entertainment. Also, give K-ON! a chance; it’s not for everyone, but it’s definitely worth checking out on the off-chance you find yourself a fan. Personally, I fell in love with it, so much that having the series live rent-free in my head for the past 8 months was one of the biggest things to get me through “these unprecedented times.”|u/ufuw}}

==== [[Sloggerface]] ====
{{Quote|What can I even write here? I guess I could say that while moderating this subreddit went very strong in the first year, it all went down to hell fast later on. It was a joy to have some quality control in a subreddit where shitty content gets posted a lot. Having some guidelines was also a very good thing to have, like making sure the mod queue was clear. I also learned the many filters that can be used to fry memes, which ones should be used, and at which magnitude they should be used at. But alas we all got lazy and now the fate of /r/DeepFriedMemes is irreversible. Where will I be now on reddit? You can find me on the moderator lists of some other subreddits that I don’t care about, but mostly you’ll find me posting some fanart to certain subreddits like /r/WandersongFans, though it may be really rare to see me post. And before I end off my farewell message, please listen to the HelaSex - Couple Goals EP. My absolute favorite music release of 2020.|u/[[Sloggerface]]}}

==== MasterCyconide ====
{{Quote|While it's sad that we have to end things, truthfully I think it's better this way. All good things come to an end while others wear out their welcome. Take the Hellraiser series for example. They really made 10 of those movies huh when maybe they should've only stuck with three or four. Much like Hellraiser, this subreddit is just a mangled mess of what it used to be and trying to salvage it now will probably make it worse. I had a great time on this mod team, meeting a lot of the users here, and seeing the wacky shit you all excreted onto the subreddit. But those days are gone and I'll remember them fondly. Thanks for making me laugh, cringe, and smash that mf like button. Also I'm not using Reddit much, if at all, because this site is garbage. Here's some neat music for your ears: https://ropesect.bandcamp.com/album/personae-ingratae Goodbye.|u/MasterCyconide}}