Editing 2464: Muller's Ratchet

In this comic, Randall reviews a passage explaining the internet with terms associated with evolution, comparing the constant resharing and changing of popular photos to evolutionary processes, namely {{w|Muller's ratchet}} and {{w|Genetic recombination|recombination}}.

* A caption is added to the photo as a whole, possibly using an online "meme maker" tool. Many memes are made in this manner, such as the Office Space [https://imgflip.com/meme/That-Would-Be-Great "that would be great"] memes.

* Individual labels are placed on the participants (which include the cat). These labels may be literal, but often they are metaphorical. A common metaphorical example is the {{w|Distracted-boyfriend meme}}.

* A caption is added at the top and bottom of the picture, again possibly by an online meme maker, and the photo cropped.

* A sword has been added to the picture, held in a comical position by a participant (the cat) who wouldn't usually have one.{{Citation needed}} These are typically just done as a joke. This image is also cropped and has its aspect ratio changed.

** A watermark is added to this image, having been added by "SwordApp" a fictional (as of this comic's publication) app used to add the sword

* Individual labels are placed on the main (human) participants only. This might be used to only apply metaphorical meanings to the people and not to the object being held (the cat).

Recombination is the combination of genetic material from chromosomes, shuffling genes during meiosis. In this case, it is being compared to shuffling and recombining aspects of an edited digital image.

 

Sometimes, genetic mutation can create better genes - like the sword being given to the cat in the image. Other changes remove or degrade from the genetic history, without apparent detriment, just because the circumstances do not currently confer any significant advantage to it. If the 'lost' ability is perhaps useful in dealing with an infrequent environmental stress then the loss of its utility might be felt a generation or two later.

 

With recombination, useful novel changes can be shuffled into the population without necessarily bringing in a less useful mutation, creating descendents with both the obvious advantages (a sword) and the previously more established resilience (the fuller frame).

 

The caption in this comic jokes that while the passage is explaining the spread of Internet content using evolution, Randall feels that image memes (like the one shown in the comic) have become so ubiquitous that it now seems more intuitive to instead explain evolution using the metaphor of images on the Internet.

:[A caption sits above a slightly greyed-out photo of Hairbun holding out a cat to Cueball, who has his hand over his face and is leaning away. Below are arrows leading to much smaller variations of the photo, all altered in some way.]

:[From left to right: Image with the sides cropped and black text bordered by white in the bottom center; image with black text in white box with black border above cat, on Hairbun, and on Cueball; image identical to the original but with softer edges; image cropped around all sides to exclude all negative space around frame, with white text bordered by black near the top and bottom center; image cropped to cut out half of Hairbun and Cueball's legs and featuring the cat holding a sword out at Cueball; image same as the original except with black text bordered by white on top of the cat, Hairbun, and Cueball; and image blurred out and at low resolution with black text in white oval on top of Hairbun and Cueball.]

:Caption above: When a photo goes around on social media, people create lots of new versions of it.

:[A larger depiction of an image altered to cut out some of Hairbun and Cueball's legs and the cat holding a sword to the left of a caption, with a faint, shadowed wordmark saying "Made with ''SwordApp'']

:[The same image appears with a more transparent box around it showing the cropped-out areas and an arrow pointing into it saying "lost". To the left is a caption.]

:Caption: As long as those flaws are minor enough that they don't cancel out the big change, the new version can still win out. Each good change brings with it random background damage. The degradation only goes one way. Once an image is cropped, its descendants will be, too. This steady loss of information is called '''''Muller's Ratchet'''''.

:[The original photo and the edited replacement are side-by-side, with the original on the right and the replacement on the left. The area above the cat where the sword is shown in the replacement is circled with a dotted line in both images. In the original, the area inside is greyed out, and in the replacement, the entire image is greyed out except for that area.]

:[Arrows point from the emphasized parts of both images to a new photo below that combines the original image with the sword from the replacement. The dotted line is still present. A caption sits to the left.]

:[All previous panels are grouped in one large panel, with a caption below the entire frame]