Chrome has adequate extensions for the purpose. Android is even easier, as all you need is SwiftKey (the best keyboard software in any case), and you can switch between languages quickly and conveniently (and without having to touch-type as with a PC keyboard).
There's also data:text/html, Χ, which works in most browsers. It's ten seconds or so, but it's better than the alternative.
Go to wikipedia (search chi greek letter on google) highlight and copypaste!
Yes, sure. Those all are excellent, workable ideas. But all of them require marginally more effort than hitting "X" on the keyboard, which means they won't be used unless one is willing to work to ensure the joke is safe, or considers installing extensions or software applications in order to meme-vote a sensible decision.
... So why
aren't these ideas used? We've had a problem with meme-vote shenanigans for a very long time, and most of the people involved have been
MfD regulars. Despite my tone above, I would have expected them to learn their lessons and adopt a safe meme-voting SOP by this point, but for some reason they didn't. Maybe it's just understandable human laziness... but I'm seeing a different explanation: It would ruin the joke.
Humour,
in some cases, works by surprising expectations in ridiculous/shocking-but-inoffensive ways. In case of meme-votes, object-level jokes are about surprising expectations on Hazou's future behaviour, and higher-level jokes are about surprising expectations on
the thread's behaviour — what we would be willing to vote for. That given, suppose we set up a system of meme-votes in which they're preceded by [H] instead of [X]. Now suppose someone makes a meme-vote according to this format, and someone else reads it. Since the vote is
clearly fake, the latter's expectation on the thread's behaviour wouldn't be surprised (nothing surprising about people joking), so the higher-level joke just wouldn't exist.
In that hypothetical [Χ]
chi-votes would still work, because they would seem legitimate, unlike those clearly non-serious [H]-votes. For a while.
But what if we set up a system of meme-voting in which the meme-votes were indistinguishable from the real ones (to human eyes)? Then we all would
know it, and so the very first thing we would do upon encountering a meme-looking vote is copying the "Χ" and googling it in order to determine whether it's an "X". If it's not, the meta-level expectations wouldn't be surprised and the joke would be nonexistent, as per above.
Going from hypotheticals to reality, this is why everyone (even the regulars, who ought to know better), upon coming up with a new meme-vote, go "No, this meme-vote is
special, look, I even used a real 'X', I'm totally willing to let it win!" — because it makes the joke more poignant and !!FUN!!.
To sum it up: We'll
always vote for memes "for real", no matter what countermeasures or outlets we come up with, because
actually voting for memes for real is part of the joke.
Edit: One may say that the problem of meme-votes is an
anti-inductive one.
