In my case, i reallt want to rank up and enjoy some privileges of it. Especially having an avatar!
Think of having a profile with a meme as an avatar! Meme is life you know. I really want to have a meme as my avatar hence I need to rank up, and ranking up needs merit.
Privilege it is. Make sure you use your privilege properly and not abuse it over time.
Of course you can disguise the "meme" as a mode of saying something new to forum. Then again most people in the forum don an avatar because of the signature campaign. Lets hope you are not among the "most" people of the forum.
I, and others, want merit for rank up. Bitcointalk is like a small social, or online game, the higher rank you are, the happier you have, it is the self-satisfaction when you're proud of yourself. High rank is like high level game character, you will be admired and respected.
"Small social game" - where did you get that from? Or is it another of the common made up words that you bounty spammers use in your day-to day lingo? Consider bitcointalk to a game, not a bad comparison. But in games its not the people around you who rank you up but you rank up yourself. So it
was a game at one time but no longer.