The Meme Machine (1999) | Hacker News Reader

The Meme Machine (1999)

susanblackmore.uk

32 pointsxo5vik19 comments

It still makes me a bit sad that the concept of "meme" managed to shift from being an informational analogue of genes to a viral image with goofy text. I'm not sure how that happened, but at this point the ship has sailed.

The word has simply acquired two meanings: "meme" as in the informational analogue of genes, "meme" as in an internet meme.

The two meanings are unrelated, they just happen to share the same word, probably since memes propagate in a similar way to memes. The "concept of meme" as informational analogue of genes is a thing independently of any other meanings the same word may acquire.

There are a few academic groups, like the Bard Meme Lab (https://memelab.bard.edu/) that are still interested in the original meaning of the meme, but also noting its current incarnation and usage, and doing research within that frame

Here's the strategy I go with:

I use the term "memeplex" in order to differentiate it from what a meme is in the mainstream.

(Btw - I don't think the difference between "memeplex" and "meme" is substantial: It's a mereological distinction anyways. Similar to "Data" and "Datum").

"These are all examples of groups of memes that are replicated together. Dawkins calls such groups ‘coadapted meme complexes’, a phrase recently abbreviated to ‘memeplexes’ (Speel 1995). Memetic jargon is changing so fast and much of it is so poorly thought out and so misused that I shall try to avoid using it. However, ‘memeplex’ is a handy word for an important concept and so it is one of the few new words I shall adopt." -- page 35

It's shifted even more than that at this point. Any joke or pun is considered a meme if the text is shared in the form of an image (often with the address of a site that stole the content, such as ifunny, slapped across the bottom).

Or you could expand your information bubble to see memes that aren't image macros

Most appropriately: ¿Porque no los dos?

I read the selfish gene back in 2006-7 ish, and I think that both the modern conception of meme and the original presentation of the idea fit rather nicely together and aren't contradictory. The more technical definition is broader, but non-exclusionary to the common usage. I think most people understand that the idea of meme goes beyond image macros: abusively quoting a moving to the point its devoid of meaning ('your father was a hamster and your mother smelled of elderberries'); cats (looking at you ancient Egypt); fart jokes (medieval art).

Memes that people call memes are memes. And some people recognize things more broadly and also call those memes. The definitions are nested and non-exclusionary, which is rather convenient.

I think meme is such a complex concept nowadays that anything can be a meme, the word has almost no meaning at all

Happens a lot with popular words. People use them in slightly broader and broader contexts until eventually the word can no longer communicate an idea as precise as it initially could.

Now that I think about it, I wonder if that's why writers like to use words that are uncommon in general conversation. Since they're not used casually, they haven't been watered down and thus do a better job of getting ideas across to the reader.

If you say "meme" to an average person on the street they're going to be picturing a goofy gif, not the work of Dawkins and Blackmore. That's my point.

Sure or videos or anything else, but those items are covered by the traditional edition of an idea that spreads virally rather than through formal publishing

Watching a decade ago her TED talk (https://www.ted.com/talks/susan_blackmore_memes_and_temes) was something like a shock for me, as I was unaware of the concept back then.

Even if you don't agree with her conclusions, watching things a different point of view can give you new insights.

I first discovered Susan Blackmore's work last March from this here at HN: NASA's free history e-book collection (nasa.gov)[1]

Scanning this awesome collection of publications I found, Susan Blackmore. “Dangerous Memes; or, What the Pandorans Let Loose” (Cosmos & Culture [2] p297)

The ideas discussed in the essay could not have found me at a better time--2020's COVID disinformation, Fake News, Q and on and on.

I'm not an anthropologist, nor in any way invested in anthropological orthodoxy. I simply find the idea of memetics useful for identifying and describing behaviors and cultural products in new ways. I frequently listen to NPR programs such as WNYC New York's On The Media[3], who make an effort to explicate news media. And yet I feel the explanations are repetitive, contingent and continue to fall short. Memetics simply acts as another perspective in the vein of what Scott E Page calls "Many Model Thinking[4]--a second opinion to a George Lakoff[5] or other perspectives of the _new normal_ in media[6]--just to offer a few examples.

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22718489

[2]: https://www.nasa.gov/connect/ebooks/hist_culture_cosmos_deta...

[3]: https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm

[4]: https://hbr.org/2018/11/why-many-model-thinkers-make-better-...

[5]: https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/segments/keep-subst...

[6]: https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/episodes/on-the-med...

> The memes took a great step forward when they invented writing – and then printing, and then other forms of communication, from railways and ships to fax machines. The important concepts of copy-the-product versus copy-the-instruction are explained. We can now understand how and why the internet has evolved and guess at the direction the memes will push it in.

From the synopsis. Oh boy was that prescient.

I'm also glad we don't have to wait for our memes to arrive by railway, as was seemingly done in the past.

This introduction crystalized a lot of the subject/debates around that time to me: https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/13108434.pdf

The History of 4chan?

I like, that the book was written years before 4chan, but the cover looks like a shitpost from a few years ago.

The cover could pass as Meme Man's slightly more rendered cousins.

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