I never heard of "meme" until I heard some pseudo-intellectual on the history channel rant about how awesome he is for knowing what it is. I get the impression some head in the clouds coffee house type like Dawkins or Nader and his troupe of fruity hipsters came up with the idea and they are circle jerking over their "success" as we speak. I for one hope the term dies out within 10 years and I get to see them desperately re-iterating the term like someone still cares before my life is over.
I hate memes. They're all so stupid and inane. I don't think the term will die, but the idea behind it is moronic.
Isn't a meme just a viral message, why are we all acting like it's something new and different, just because someone gave it new label?
infinito: I hope the term does at least fall out of use. does2: no u gardener: "meme" is just another word for "idea". We are acting like it's different because of how our brain processes language, we judge words by what we associate with the word rather than the actual abstract definition itself.
As far as i know, memes are a cultural equivalent of genes and behave in the same way. Its kind of bullshit i guess but the idea that a phrase or term can spread through a population and change that population and eventually itself change out of social pressure seems reasonable to me. And yes, it was coined by Dawkin but i dont know all the details. Read 'The Selfish Gene' if u really want to know more, but i think its not so important. Just say that new 'words' can be treated the same way as some genes. Not sure if the whole meme terminology is nescessary, nor is the scientific field of memology or wateverthefuck. but hey, thats just an opinion. maybe memes are true cultural transforming genes! which would be cool!
I don't think there's a need to create a new word for them. Ideas are lost just like genes, genes are not necessarily passed down from generation to generation and neither are ideas. He should have created a word for the definition "the concept of ideas undergoing evolutionary processes". Obviously Dawkins is not an intellectual and shouldn't be taken seriously.
a meme is not just an idea or a viral message. You do not intentionally create a meme. Meme's just are, they've been in circulation for thousands of years, since the invention of language. The concept of a meme is nothing more than a way to note that ideas and metaphorical understandings evolve in much the same way as a gene. Basically everything is a meme. Personally I love the word meme, I think it's a necessary philosophical development. Because it's the first thing to really set down in stone in the mainstream mind that our language is itself evolving. It's the one thing that I think Dawkins did good on. The ironic thing though, by the very nature of memes, every other meme that Dawkins put out is going to be trounced. All of Dawkins memes are pieces of shit, in him coming up with the concept of Meme, all he really did is come up with the reason why none of his other ideas are going to live on.
Language is more a combo of creationism and evolution. There are artificial and evolutionary forces at work shaping our language. Meme itself has become popular because people are too dim or naive to realise it is just a repackaged version of custom, tradition or culture.
Memes are idea viruses. They are seperate entitys with wills of their own that are able to enter a host when the host is introduced to the idea. The idea then uses the host to spread the idea further and further. Some memes have the ability to destroy and others have the ability to heal! And everyone is infected!!!
