Meta meme meaning1/23/2024 ![]() It would pop up again and again, in different kinds of discussions with posters from around the world, and Godwin marveled at the meme’s “peculiar resilience.” Godwin dubbed this the Nazi-comparison meme. He had noticed that, in disparate newsgroups and virtual communities, certain posters were labeled as “similar to the Nazis” or “Hitler-like” when they made unpopular comments. One of the first uses of the internet meme idea arose in 1994, when Mike Godwin, an American attorney and internet law expert, used the word “meme” to characterize the rapid spread of ideas online. Today, the internet meme (what most people now just call a meme) is a piece of media that is copied and quickly spread online. ![]() The strongest memes – those that replicate in the most minds – are the ones responsible for creating human culture.Ī strong meme is going to go places. Memetics is about more than just what makes a thing popular. In the earliest days of human existence, such a meme could replicate quickly in a universe where alternatives were few and far between. Others will see this first wagon, replicate the same meme, and continue to build more wagons until there are hundreds, thousands, or millions of wagons with spoked wheels. The first person whose brain transported the spoked wheel meme builds one spoke-wheeled wagon. Dennett:Ī wagon with spoked wheels carries not only grain or freight from place to place it carries the brilliant idea of a wagon with spoked wheels from mind to mind. One common illustration is the spoked wheel meme. Memetics suggests that memes have existed for as long as human beings have been on the planet. Dawkins hesitated to strictly define the term, but he noted that tunes, ideas, catch-phrases, clothes fashions, and ways of making pots or building arches could all be memes. It can be difficult to further explain what might fall under the heading of “meme.” Commonly, however, scientists note a meme may be a phrase, catchy jingle, or behavior. A meme is not controllable by any one individual – many people can simultaneously serve as hosts for it. ![]() The ones that succeed through widespread imitation have best evolved for repetition and communication. So memes fiercely vie for space and advantages in our brains and behaviors. It suggests that memes compete, reproduce and evolve just as genes do. Memetics borrows from the theory of Darwinian evolution. Like male elk battling for supremacy, memes also fight to be on top. According to Dawkins, when one person imitates another, a meme is passed to the imitator, similar to the way blue eyes are passed from parents to children through genes. In the way a gene is a discrete packet of hereditary information, the idea is that a meme is a similar packet of cultural information. The term “memetics” was first proposed by evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins in his popular 1976 book “The Selfish Gene.” He offered a theory regarding how cultural information evolves and is transmitted from person to person. Companies and individuals would be well-served to understand whether there is actually a science to going viral and how to use that science in campaigns. It’s hard to ignore the connection between memetics and the question of what makes certain media get shared and repeated millions of times. Why, and how, are we compelled to repeat and share certain cultural elements like songs, videos, words and pictures? Is it just the luck of the draw and the pity of internet strangers? The reason may have less to do with random chance and more to do with a controversial field called memetics, which focuses on how little bits of culture spread among us.Īs the director of Drake University Law School’s Intellectual Property Law Center, I’ve studied memetics and its relationship to viral media. Funny cat photos and #XYZChallenges go ignored, unshared and without retweets. In other instances, however, digital media languishes. After going viral, the challenge raised more than US$100 million for the ALS Association. In 2014, more than 3 million people mentioned and shared #IceBucketChallenge videos in less than three weeks. Out of the blue, some social media challenges take off to such an extent that people seem powerless to ignore them. The owner of Grumpy Cat (whose real name is Tardar Sauce) has said she did not know the cat’s photo, originally posted to Reddit, would be anything special. Gary Cameron/Reutersįor example, Grumpy Cat’s photo was shared so many times online that it went on to receive the “ single greatest internet achievement of the year” in 2013. ![]() Meme world domination: When the leader of the free world impersonates Grumpy Cat. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply.AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |