Say I’m on Mastodon, and someone posts a reply to a meme that I think is funny. I take a screenshot of their post to send to other people or post on Lemmy. Is it more polite/respectful/appropriate to censor out their name and handle (to respect their privacy) or leave it in (to give them appropriate credit for their idea)?
People can always embed their username/handle into the meme - if they do it’d be rude to crop it out… if they don’t then I think it’s usually safer to censor the OP’s handle as a default action.
Maybe things are changing in the influencer world but a lot of memes start out as niche in jokes and users may not want to be associated with how they’re used by other people.
We’ve certainly seen the opposite where a bunch of memes gain ground with people and end up falling into disfavor when people discover the original intent (aka fucking Steven Crowder). So detaching it from the originator just feels safer.