nice tweet.

IT'S TOO LONG TO BE A TWEET

"A meme", in its original context, was simply a unit of intellectual/ cultural data, in much the same way that "a gene" is a unit of biological data. Dawkins, like most of his scientific colleagues, took a sociobiological approach to the fluffy soft-science of sociology; according to him, cultural constructs were forever battling it out in a sort of Darwinian battle to the death. Fit ideas - that is, fit "memes" - would survive, whilst unfit ideas would die out, or at least become restricted to small ecological niches.

In a sense, Mr Bort, I guess you could say that the original "meme" meme (which has since nearly died out, due, ironically enough, to memetic selection) held that the word "meme" meant BOTH "an idea" and "a trendy thing". Certainly, the original meme meme carried with it a much deeper meaning than the modern meme meme does; the modern meme meme being essentially just short-hand for "viral image and/or catchphrase macros". But the new meaning is not that far off from the old meaning, and I think that the way in which the meme meme memetically metamorphosed can prove highly instructive for understanding Dawkins' original point.

For example: thanks to the internet and basic human nature, the modern meme meme has a sort of 'insectoid reproductive advantage' that allows it to mature and spread much faster than the original meme meme ever could. This ties in quite neatly with one of the major themes that Dawkins, Gould, et al were constantly hammering home in their writings: that "fitness", in a Darwinian sense, is not necessarily a measure of how "desirable" or "progressive" a given trait might be, at least not in the eyes of posh, educated human-beings! The Myth of Progress is one of the biggest misconceptions in the popular understanding of evolution, common during the Victorian era and possibly even more common today. You can see the poverty of this antiquated political optimism for yourself by looking at how, over the last two decades, the word meme has so rapidly and thoroughly "devolved". (note the sneer quotes: in reality, there is no such thing as devolution, there is only evolution, and evolution doesn't really care if it makes things "better" or "worse", merely that it keeps its charges reproductively fit)

I guess I'm questioning whether Dawkins was treating memes as a thing worth taking seriously of their own accord, or were they primarily an amusing illustration of mutation / selection / evolution in a very different setting. You may have answered that but it's been a rough weekend.

http://nonadventures.com/2013/07/27/you-say-you-want-a-devolut ion/

I think he wanted them to be taken seriously; Dawkins devoted a good deal of energy to fleshing out the idea, and from what I've heard, "memes" were all the rage in academic circles for a time (I think people eventually got sick of talking about them)

I miss memepool. It was like POE, but completely anonymous. You had no idea who was collecting those links. I always assumed it was some weird cultist.

All right, sounds like I ought to read Dawkins to get his take on it.

... I still say the term "meme" is used stupidly on the Internet, but that doesn't necessarily reflect poorly on the original concept.

Check out "The Selfish Gene" if you haven't already; IIRC, that was the book in which he first coined the term "meme", and it's a jolly good read either way!

It's used stupidly the way people say "hashtag" in front of words now. Which is even more stupid than the way hashtags are used now anyway. A Hashtag is used in IRC to refer to a certain group or interest, like #poetv, or #americanidol, not necessarily #whydtheyletravongoguessimvotingforjaxnow

Funny thing is, the song itself was a meme for other memes that never took off. Exhibit A:

http://www.poetv.com/video.php?vid=64242

Exhibit B:

There is no Exhibit B.

I'm just pissed off it's pronounced "meem". I refuse to pronounce it "meem".

It's really pronounced like Al Jolson saying "Mammy".

Yeah I owned Short Bus, so what?

Oh fuck you.

I love you too.