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Before long, thousands of Internet users added their own versions of the clip, creating a mass appeal to young people while simultaneously negotiating the norms of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) collective identity. Conceptualizing this body of videos as an Internet meme, we examine the extent to which participants imitate or alter textual components presented in previous videos. A combined quantitative and qualitative analysis of 200 clips shows that in an arena ostensibly free of formal gatekeepers, participants tend to police themselves, toeing the line with conformist norms. We also identify domains of potential subversion, related not only to the content of the videos but mainly to the forms facilitated by digital media.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1177\/1461444814568784","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2015,1,27]],"date-time":"2015-01-27T22:56:03Z","timestamp":1422399363000},"page":"1698-1714","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1177\/sage-journals-update-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":231,"title":["\u201cIt Gets Better\u201d: Internet memes and the construction of collective identity"],"prefix":"10.1177","volume":"18","author":[{"given":"Noam","family":"Gal","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Limor","family":"Shifman","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Zohar","family":"Kampf","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"179","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2016,7,9]]},"reference":[{"key":"bibr1-1461444814568784","volume-title":"How to Do Things with Words","author":"Austin JL","year":"1962"},{"key":"bibr2-1461444814568784","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Aycock A (1995) \u201cTechnologies of the self\u201d: Foucault and Internet discourse. 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