Package ‘memery’
September 10, 2023
Version 0.5.7
Title Internet Memes for Data Analysts
Description Generates internet memes that optionally include a superimposed in-
set plot and other atypical features,
combining the visual impact of an attention-grabbing meme with graphic results of data analysis.
The package differs from related packages that focus on imitating and reproducing stan-
dard memes.
Some packages do this by interfacing with online meme generators whereas oth-
ers achieve this natively.
This package takes the latter approach. It does not interface with online meme generators or re-
quire any authentication with external websites.
It reads images directly from local files or via URL and meme generation is done by the package.
While this is similar to the 'meme' package available on CRAN, it differs in that the focus is on
allowing for non-standard meme layouts and hybrids of memes mixed with graphs.
While this package can be used to make basic memes like an online meme generator would pro-
duce,
it caters primarily to hybrid graph-
meme plots where the meme presentation can be seen as a backdrop highlighting
foreground graphs of data analysis results.
The package also provides support for an arbitrary number of meme text labels with arbi-
trary size, position and other attributes
rather than restricting to the standard top and/or bottom text placement.
This is useful for proper aesthetic interleaving of plots of data between meme image back-
grounds and overlain text labels.
The package offers a selection of templates for graph placement and appearance with re-
spect to the underlying meme.
Graph templates also permit additional template-specific customization.
Animated gif support is provided but this is optional and functional only if the 'magick' pack-
age is installed.
'magick' is not required unless gif functionality is desired.
License MIT + file LICENSE
Encoding UTF-8
ByteCompile true
URL https://github.com/leonawicz/memery
1
2 car_shiny
BugReports https://github.com/leonawicz/memery/issues
Suggests testthat, knitr, rmarkdown, magick, gifski
Depends showtext
Imports sysfonts, grid, png, jpeg, Cairo, ggplot2, cowplot, magrittr,
purrr, shiny, shinycssloaders, shinyBS, colourpicker
RoxygenNote 7.2.3
NeedsCompilation no
Author Matthew Leonawicz [aut, cre]
Maintainer Matthew Leonawicz <[email protected]>
Repository CRAN
Date/Publication 2023-09-10 04:30:03 UTC
R topics documented:
car_shiny . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
inset . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
meme . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
memeApp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
memery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
memetheme . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
text_position . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Index 13
car_shiny The ca(R) Shiny promotional meme
Description
Recreate the ca(R) Shiny promotional meme using different plots, frame rate or output size.
Usage
car_shiny(file, p1 = NULL, p2 = NULL, fps = 10, test_frame = FALSE, mult = 1)
Arguments
file character, output filename.
p1 ggplot object for top half of (ca)R Shiny meme.
p2 ggplot object for bottom half of (ca)R Shiny meme.
fps integer, frames per second.
test_frame logical, keep only the first frame. Ideal for saving time during testing.
mult numeric, factor by which to multiply the output meme dimensions. Use conser-
vatively.
inset 3
Details
This function offers limited control over customization; it is intended as a canned example. For
additional customization, use this function’s source code in an R script where you can easily alter
other values.
After writing the first layer of output to file, file is recursively read and written again two more
times in order to add all layers to the animated gif, since the underlying meme function does not
accept vectorized inset plots.
The Shiny logo is by RStudio.
Value
nothing is returned, but a file is saved to disk.
Examples
library(ggplot2)
file <- "memery-car-shiny.gif" # outfile
set.seed(1)
p1 <- ggplot(data.frame(x = rbeta(100000, 10, 3)), aes(x)) +
geom_histogram(colour = "white", fill = "#88888880", size = 1, bins = 30)
means <- (8:1)^3
sds <- 10*(8:1)
d <- data.frame(
x = rep(factor(1:8), each = 100),
y = unlist(purrr::map2(means, sds, ~rnorm(100, .x, .y) / 200))
)
p2 <- ggplot(d, aes(x, y)) +
geom_boxplot(colour = "white", fill = "#5495CF80", outlier.colour = NA) +
geom_point(shape = 21, colour = "white", fill = "#5495CF80", size = 1,
position = position_jitter(0.15)) +
scale_x_discrete(expand = c(0, 0.02)) + scale_y_continuous(expand = c(0.02, 0)) +
theme_void() +
theme(plot.margin = unit(rep(5, 4), "mm"),
panel.grid.major = element_line(colour = "#FFFFFF50", linetype = 2),
panel.grid.minor = element_line(colour = "#FFFFFF50", linetype = 2))
## Not run: car_shiny(file, p1, p2, test_frame = TRUE)
inset Meme plot inset templates
Description
Templates for the position and background of a ggplot inset.
4 inset
Usage
inset_position(type = "default", size = 0.2, margin = 0.025)
inset_background(type = "default")
inset_templates(type)
Arguments
type character, name of template.
size numeric, width (length-1) or width and height (length-2) of inset. See details.
margin numeric, x-axis margin (length-1) or x- and y-axis margins (length-2) around
corner insets. See details.
Details
inset_position and inset_background assist with some basic options for position and back-
ground of the optional ggplot inset graphic. inset_templates can be used to view the available
templates. See examples. If a template is not available to suit your needs, provide your own argu-
ment list to meme in the form of, e.g., inset_pos = list(w = 0.95, h = 0.6, x = 0.5, y = 0.325).
Value
a list of arguments passed to either inset_pos or inset_bg in meme.
Size and position
The coordinate system for the meme plot ranges from zero to one in x and y. The width, height and
(x,y) center defined by inset_position arguments therefore take values between zero and one.
The default position is for an inset plot that takes up 95% of the width and 60% of the height of
the meme plot, with 2.5% margins on the sides and bottom. Other templates include four corner
thumbnails. To use these, set type equal to "tl", "tr", "br" or "bl", for top right, top left, bottom
right and bottom left, respectively. There is also a "center" type.
When specifying the corner or center inset types, the inset is a square thumbnail with width and
height of 0.2 units (20%) and 0.025 (2.5%) margins from the edges of the plot. However, these
templates are not absolute. You can further adjust the size and distance from the edges using size
and margin. These arguments can be scalar, in which case the inset remains square and the margins
are equal. If a length-2 vector, size can provide unique width and height for a rectangular inset.
Similarly, margin can provide different margins for the distance to a side vs. the top or bottom edge
of the meme plot.
For type = "center", size is used but margin is ignored, giving you control over the thumbnail
size. Appending the letter q to a corner thumbnail template ID, e.g. type = "blq", yields a quadrant
plot. In contrast to type = "center", these types allow for user control over margins for plots of
fixed coverage area. Specifying the right combination of size and margin with a corner thumbnail
template can be used to create a quadrant plot, but using a quadrant template simplifies this.
size and margin are provided for convenience, adding more control over the position templates.
If you require more specific size and position control, simply pass your own 4-argument list as
meme 5
described above. This is the structure generated by inset_position for any type and expected by
meme.
Background
For inset_background, the few templates all revolve around the type = "default" template.
type = "sq" simply removes the rounded corners. "op" provides a fully opaque white back-
ground instead of the default 50% transparency. "opsq" does both. "blank" hides the background
panel. There is no substantial need to provide many templates because, as with inset_position,
inset_background generates a simple list of a few arguments that can be easily provided to meme
explicitly without the use of inset_background.
Examples
inset_templates("position")
inset_templates("background")
inset_position()
inset_position("br")
inset_position("brq", margin = 0.05)
inset_position("br", size = 0.4, margin = 0)
inset_background()
inset_background("opsq")
inset_background("blank")
meme Generate a meme
Description
Generate a meme with a background image, text label and optional inset graphic.
Usage
meme(
img,
label,
file,
size = 1,
family = "Impact",
col = "white",
shadow = "black",
label_pos = text_position(length(label)),
inset = NULL,
ggtheme = memetheme(),
inset_bg = inset_background(),
inset_pos = inset_position(),
width,
height,
6 meme
bg = "transparent",
mult = 1
)
meme_gif(
img,
label,
file,
size = 1,
family = "Impact",
col = "white",
shadow = "black",
label_pos = text_position(length(label)),
inset = NULL,
ggtheme = memetheme(),
inset_bg = inset_background(),
inset_pos = inset_position(),
width,
height,
bg = "transparent",
mult = 1,
fps = 10,
frame = 0,
...
)
Arguments
img path to image file, png or jpg.
label character, meme text. May be a vector, matched to label_pos.
file output file, png or jpg.
size label size. Actual size affected by image size (i.e., cex).
family character, defaults to "Impact", the classic meme font. See details.
col label color.
shadow label shadow/outline color.
label_pos named list of position elements for the meme text w, h, x and y. Each element
may be a vector. See details.
inset a ggplot object. This is an optional inset plot and may be excluded.
ggtheme optional ggplot2 theme. If ignored, the default memery ggplot2 theme is used.
inset_bg a list of background settings for the plotting region containing inset. See de-
tails.
inset_pos named list of position elements for the inset inset plot: w, h, x and y.
width numeric, width of overall meme plot in pixels. If missing, taken from img size.
height numeric, height of overall meme plot in pixels. If missing, taken from img size.
bg character, background color for graphics device.
meme 7
mult numeric, a multiplier. Used to adjust width and height. See details.
fps frames per second, only applicable to meme_gif. See details.
frame integer, frame numbers to include. The default frame = 0 retains all frames.
Only applicable to meme_gif. See details.
... additional arguments passed to meme_gif.
Details
This function generates and saves a meme as a jpg or png file.
Value
nothing is returned; file written to disk.
Fonts
Memes use the Impact font by default. This is a Windows font. If using memery on Linux for
example, you would have to first install the font if not already installed on the system. If Impact or
any other font family passed to meme, e.g. family = "Consolas", is not installed on an operating
system, meme will ignore it and fall back on family = "serif" internally. If unfamiliar, explore the
documentation and examples available for the showtext and sysfonts packages, which merery
leverages.
Text labels
List elements in label_pos must all be the same length and must match the length of label. This
is provided for generality but is most suited to length-2 cases; the use of meme title/subtitle or
top/bottom text pairs. Similarly, size, family, col and shadow may be vectorized. For example,
top and bottom text can have different font size and family and the font text and shadow can be
different colors.
Inset graphic
The meme plot may optionally include an inset plot by passing a ggplot object to inset. This
makes the memes more fun for data analysts. See examples.
The plotting region containing inset is a specific viewport in the grid layout. inset_bg is a list
of arguments that affect the background of this part of the meme plot. They define a rectangle that
by default is semi-transparent with rounded corners and no border color. This can be changed via
the list arguments fill, col and r.
The inset plot inset is placed above this layer and also fills the region. The default ggplot2 theme
used my meme, memetheme, uses transparent ggplot plot and panel background fill and plot border
color that allow the background viewport rectangle and its rounded corners to show through. The
default theme also has no plot margins.
If you supply a different theme via ggtheme, you can provide different plot and panel background
fill and plot border color as part of the theme. For similar no-margin themes, if the plot background
fill or border color are not fully transparent, set the viewport rectangle corner radius to zero so that
rounded corners do not show inside the panel background. For opaque plot background fill this will
not matter.
8 meme
Of course, the plot and panel background fill should still be transparent or semi-transparent if oc-
cupying a large amount of the total meme plot area or it will obscure the meme image itself. An
alternative is to use inset as, for example, a tiny thumbnail in the corner of the meme plot, in which
case full opacity is not necessarily an issue. If you do not want to override the theme of your plot
and do not wish to pass a theme explicitly by ggtheme, you can set ggtheme = NULL
Dimensions and image processing
Specifying width and height is not required. By default, output file dimensions are taken from the
input file, img. However, these arguments can be used to override the default dimension matching.
The aspect ratio is fixed so if you change the two disproportionately, you will increasing the canvas,
adding bars on two sides; it will not stretch the image.
mult can be set less than one if relying on img dimension for meme plot width and height and img
is large. It is equivalent to scaling proportionately with width and height maintaining the original
aspect ratio. Whether or not width and/or height are provided, mult is always applied (defaults to
mult = 1).
Beyond this basic resizing to help control output file size, it is not the intent of memery to offer
general image processing capabilities. If adjustments to source images are desired, you should use
a dedicated package for image processing. magick is recommended.
Reading and writing gifs
Reading and writing gifs requires the magick package. Since this is not required for any other
part of memery and it represents a minor use case, the package does not have these dependencies.
magick is listed as a suggested package for memery; it is not imported as a dependency. meme_gif
is an optional extra function. In order to use it, install the magick package.
See the example below if your system meets these requirements. As with jpg or png image inputs,
if additional control is required for making custom adjustments to gif image frames, use the magick
package for image pre-processing. meme only provides basic control over output size and meme_gif
only adds control over gif frame selection and rate.
Examples
# Prepare data and make a graph
library(ggplot2)
x <- seq(0, 2*pi, length.out = 50)
panels <- rep(c("Plot A", "Plot B"), each = 50)
d <- data.frame(x = x, y = sin(x), grp = panels)
txt <- c("Philosoraptor's plots", "I like to make plots",
"Figure 1. (A) shows a plot and (B) shows another plot.")
out <- tempfile("meme", fileext = c("1.png", "2.png", "3.png", "4.gif"))
p <- ggplot(d, aes(x, y)) + geom_line(colour = "cornflowerblue", size = 2) +
geom_point(colour = "orange", size = 4) + facet_wrap(~grp) +
labs(title = txt[1], subtitle = txt[2], caption = txt[3])
# meme image background and text labels
img <- system.file("philosoraptor.jpg", package = "memery")
lab <- c("Title meme text", "Subtitle text")
memeApp 9
## Not run:
# Not run due to file size
# basic meme
meme(img, lab[1:2], out[1])
# data analyst's meme
meme(img, lab[1:2], out[2], size = 2, inset = p, mult = 2)
## End(Not run)
# data meme with additional content control
vp_bg <- list(fill = "#FF00FF50", col = "#FFFFFF80") # graph background
# arbitrary number of labels, placement, and other vectorized attributes
lab <- c(lab, "Middle plot text")
pos <- list(w = rep(0.9, 3), h = rep(0.3, 3), x = c(0.35, 0.65, 0.5),
y = c(0.95, 0.85, 0.3))
fam <- c("Impact", "serif", "Impact")
clrs1 <- c("black", "orange", "white")
clrs2 <- clrs1[c(2, 1, 1)]
## Not run:
meme(img, lab, out[3], size = c(2, 1.5, 1), family = fam, col = clrs1,
shadow = clrs2, label_pos = pos, inset = p, inset_bg = vp_bg, mult = 2)
## End(Not run)
## Not run:
# Not run due to file size, software requirements, web source
# GIF meme. Requires magick package.
p <- ggplot(d, aes(x, y)) + geom_line(colour = "white", size = 2) +
geom_point(colour = "orange", size = 1) + facet_wrap(~grp) +
labs(title = "The wiggles", subtitle = "Plots for cats",
caption = "Figure 1. Gimme sine waves.")
lab <- c("R plots for cats", "Sine wave sine wave sine wave sine wave...")
pos <- list(w = rep(0.9, 2), h = rep(0.3, 2), x = rep(0.5, 2), y = c(0.9, 0.75))
img <- "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/leonawicz/memery/master/data-raw/cat.gif"
meme_gif(img, lab, out[4], size = c(1.5, 0.75), label_pos = pos,
inset = p, inset_bg = list(fill = "#00BFFF80"), mult = 1.5, fps = 20)
## End(Not run)
memeApp Run memery example app
Description
Launch the memery example app in your browser.
Usage
memeApp()
10 memery
Details
This example app launches with animated gif support and relevant initial example gif if the magick
package is installed. Otherwise, a simplified version of the app that does not provide gif support
launches and starting images must be jpg or png.
Due to how meme_gif works, gifs will not display in a hosted app, i.e., on shinyapps.io. Memes
based on gifs with many frames also take longer to render. By default, the app is set to render any
animated gif input into a static meme using only the first frame in the animated gif. If it takes one
second to render a single frame, expect it to take about 43 seconds to render the 43-frame example
animated gif that comes preloaded in the app. If the user wishes to wait, the input control menu for
output frames can be switched from first frame to all frames.
While jpg and png memes will display in a hosted app like on shinyapps.io, the impact font will
also not likely be available on a given server. For all these reasons this packaged app is not hosted
elsewhere. The best and intended experience is to use the app locally via the memery package.
All ggplot objects that exist in the global environment when the app is launched propagate a selec-
tion menu in app for use as inset plots to overlay meme image backgrounds. If there are no ggplot
objects in the global environment, one named memery_testplot will be created within the app
environment and will appear in the selection menu instead.
A meme can be saved from an app by right-clicking on the image in your web browser and selecting
the save option just like with any other web images.
Value
nothing is returned; packaged Shiny app is launched interactively in browser.
Examples
## Not run: memeApp()
memery memery: Internet memes for data analysts.
Description
The memery package generates internet memes that optionally include a superimposed inset plot
and other atypical features, combining the visual impact of an attention-grabbing meme with graphic
results of data analysis.
Details
The package differs from related packages that focus on imitating and reproducing standard memes.
Some packages do this by interfacing with online meme generators whereas others achieve this
natively. This package takes the latter approach. It does not interface with online meme generators
or require any authentication with external websites. It reads images directly from local files or via
URL and meme generation is done by the package.
While this is similar to the ’meme’ package available on CRAN, it differs in that the focus is on
allowing for non-standard meme layouts and hybrids of memes mixed with graphs. While this
memetheme 11
package can be used to make basic memes like an online meme generator would produce, it caters
primarily to hybrid graph-meme plots where the meme presentation can be seen as a backdrop
highlighting foreground graphs of data analysis results.
The package also provides support for an arbitrary number of meme text labels with arbitrary size,
position and other attributes rather than restricting to the standard top and/or bottom text placement.
This is useful for proper aesthetic interleaving of plots of data between meme image backgrounds
and overlain text labels. The package offers a selection of templates for graph placement and
appearance with respect to the underlying meme. Graph templates also permit additional template-
specific customization.
Animated gif support is provided but this is optional and functional only if the magick package is
installed.
memetheme Default meme theme
Description
The default ggplot2 theme for meme plots.
Usage
memetheme(base_size = 14, base_family = "", base_col = "white")
Arguments
base_size numeric, the base size.
base_family character, the base font family.
base_col character, the base color for all title text and axis lines and ticks.
Value
a ggplot2 theme.
text_position Default meme text position
Description
Convenience function for meme text position in a meme plot.
Usage
text_position(n)
12 text_position
Arguments
n integer, number of meme text labels.
Details
This function takes an integer 1 or 2 and returns, respectively, top or symmetrical top and bottom
meme text position arguments. This function is used as the default for the label_pos argument in
meme. It is provided if you do not want to bother with specifying coordinates and exact placement
does not matter. It is not intended for placement of more than two meme text labels and any value
other than 1 or 2 returns an error.
Value
a list of meme text label position arguments: w (width), h (height), and x and y coordinates.
Examples
text_position(1)
text_position(2)
