What The Hell Is A Meme?

[mso489]

Okay, I'm a gent of a certain age who didn't grow up with computers or other more recent technology, so is among those who isn't up on the culture of devices. So I had to study up a little to identify what a meme is. A recent set-back was a radio interview with a big time reporter sounding extremely snotty and know-it-all on the subject, as if anyone who wasn't really "into" memes was clearly an early form of humanoid verging on extinction. However, the gist seems to be that any images, audio, and/or video that gets re-used and digested into the the vast vocabulary of online material is or becomes a meme. The with-it kids all know what these are when they see them and use them, in denotation, ironically, or otherwise, as part of their cultural language. And if that sounds pedantic, so did the reporter expert on the subject. Okay, so meme away, as you will. Bookish old geezers are ... amused.

 

[mikefu]

• a humorous image, video, piece of text, etc., that is copied (often with slight variations) and spread rapidly by Internet users.

 

[canucklehead]

 

[saintpeter]

Often a meme is a method of making a social statement that takes the "sting" out of the statement and replacing it with "humor." IMHO

 

[BROBS]

 

[seldom]

anyone who wasn't really "into" memes was clearly an early form of humanoid verging on extinction.

Bookish old geezers are ... amused.

The word "meme" was invented by Richard Dawkins in his book The Selfish Gene (1976) to describe the way ideas evolve, replicate, and mutate. In the Internet era the idea was that memes would become bits of cultural information that would continue far into the future. The reality has turned out to be rather less grand and maybe even the opposite. Great ideas are reduced by obvious and boring memes that are totally lacking in originality.

Your use of the phrases "early form of humanoid", and "bookish old geezers" is a little funny given that Richard Dawkins is a evolutionary biologist who started publishing books 45 years ago.

 

[Bowie]

 

[mso489]

I should find the Richard Dawkins origins of this idea encouraging, but for some reason I don't. Linking human genetics to images, thought, and public expression, at this point in genetics, still seems way ahead of the game and maybe inadvertently manipulative. The scholarly Darwinians at one point made much of human eugenics, and that was neither a true adaptation of Darwin's thought nor an ethical nor moral direction when "applied" to public health. Sometimes a scam is just a scam, even when it originates in serious scholarship. Hey, I'm not laying down the law on the subject, just expressing some healthy skepticism. Memo-ho. I'd probably enjoy some memes. The ones posted are right fun.

 

[BROBS]

Just the easiest way to get a joke across on the internet IMO.

 

[mso489]

BROBS, I think you've got it.

 

[BROBS]

 

[mso489]

Hey, I think I've passed Memes 101. Thanks gents. I have felt George's sorrow, and chuckled.

 

[JMcQ]

Just when I start feeling old in real life, I can come on here and feel really young in comparison. Thanks guys

 

[yaddy306]

 

[mikefu]

 

[canucklehead]

I should find the Richard Dawkins origins of this idea encouraging, but for some reason I don't. Linking human genetics to images, thought, and public expression, at this point in genetics, still seems way ahead of the game and maybe inadvertently manipulative. The scholarly Darwinians at one point made much of human eugenics, and that was neither a true adaptation of Darwin's thought nor an ethical nor moral direction when "applied" to public health. Sometimes a scam is just a scam, even when it originates in serious scholarship. Hey, I'm not laying down the law on the subject, just expressing some healthy skepticism. Memo-ho. I'd probably enjoy some memes. The ones posted are right fun.

Not to be contrary, but Darwin was a direct cause of the eugenics movement. From eugenicsarchive.ca : "Charles Darwin was a direct influence on his cousin Sir Francis Galton (Gillham, 2009). Galton coined the term eugenics, and is considered by some to be the father of eugenics (Galton, 1883). He was inspired by Darwin's Origin of Species and tried to establish that intelligence and talent were hereditary."

I do agree that the application of eugenics in health care always has extremely negative ramifications, and leads to active persecution of any peoples considered inferior or undesirable. The movie "Gattaca" is a good example of applied eugenics, and frighteningly, seems to be the direction some governments are heading, Iceland specifically.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

Not to be contrary, but Darwin was a direct cause of the eugenics movement.

Jesus Christ inspired the crusades. The Bible inspired Charles Manson. Jesus also inspired Jim Jones. I think that blaming Darwin for a stupid idea that comes along afterwards is not very logical.

 

[canucklehead]

Jesus Christ inspired the crusades. The Bible inspired Charles Manson. Jesus also inspired Jim Jones. I think that blaming Darwin for a stupid idea that comes along afterwards is not very logical.

It wasn't a stupid idea that came after Darwin, it was an ideology that he actively promoted.


"With savages, the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated; and those that survive commonly exhibit a vigorous state of health. We civilised men, on the other hand, do our utmost to check the process of elimination; we build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed, and the sick; we institute poor-laws; and our medical men exert their utmost skill to save the life of every one to the last moment. There is reason to believe that vaccination has preserved thousands, who from a weak constitution would formerly have succumbed to small-pox. Thus the weak members of civilised societies propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man. It is surprising how soon a want of care, or care wrongly directed, leads to the degeneration of a domestic race; but excepting in the case of man himself, hardly any one is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed."

[Darwin, The Descent of Man (1871 edition), vol. I, p. 168)


The crusades were a direct reaction to Islamic wars of conquest that violently subjugated more than third of the Christian territories at the time, but that's an entirely different topic.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

I am not an expert on Darwin. So, you could be 100% correct, but that doesn't negate his work. Freud was correct about so many things, and started the ball rolling on so much research and development, but he had some other stupid ideas along the way as well... as well as a coke problem.

So many rocket scientists that got us into space were racist Nazis. Of course, they were made to live in Alabama, ha ha, so that they didn't stand out too much. (quiet quiet, I live here to so... it's just a joke) But, we got to the moon.

So...

 

[frozenchurchwarden]

Okay, I'm a gent of a certain age who didn't grow up with computers or other more recent technology, so is among those who isn't up on the culture of devices. So I had to study up a little to identify what a meme is. A recent set-back was a radio interview with a big time reporter sounding extremely snotty and know-it-all on the subject, as if anyone who wasn't really "into" memes was clearly an early form of humanoid verging on extinction. However, the gist seems to be that any images, audio, and/or video that gets re-used and digested into the the vast vocabulary of online material is or becomes a meme. The with-it kids all know what these are when they see them and use them, in denotation, ironically, or otherwise, as part of their cultural language. And if that sounds pedantic, so did the reporter expert on the subject. Okay, so meme away, as you will. Bookish old geezers are ... amused.

A meme is just an "In Joke" for the Internet.
No different from the quirky things you and your friends thought were funny when you were a kid, just now instead of a handful of people laughing at the obscure joke and a few dozen people not laughing, it's millions of people laughing and tens of millions of people not laughing, and the search for more quirks is churning 24 hours a day in a neverending global contest to see who can make the next joke rise to the highest ranks of obscurity.
The way things seem to work now, if a meme becomes too popular then people almost always retire it because it has lost In-Joke status. There are a few exceptions but longstanding memes are a rare breed.