A meditation on the word and concept of "meme"

[scarlettina]

I've been thinking lately about the word "meme." We all use it here on LJ pretty freely and with a generally mutually-agreed upon definition that I don't think anyone here has really articulated. I have some ideas about what it's come to mean in the LJ community, but first I decided to do some quick (and admittedly shallow) research on the origin and "official" definitions of the word.

My quick search on Google, using the term "meme definition," resulted in the discovery that the word was created by Richard Dawkins in the book The Selfish Gene about evolution, wherein he defines it as "a unit of cultural inheritance, hypothesized as analogous to the particulate gene and as naturally selected by virtue of its 'phenotypic' consequences on its own survival and replication in the cultural environment." Uh-huh. In other words (i.e., my own—and please pipe up if you disagree with this lay translation of scholarly language), an idea that propagates from one individual to another by virtue of its particular appeal specific to those individuals.

My suspicion is that in its original context, this term would apply to a situation like this: my brother tells me about a band he likes, I pick up a disc and listen to it, I dig it and then I tell my friends about it who then may or may not follow suit as their tastes dictate.

On LJ, what we call memes certainly function in this way. If I see a quiz, for example, on terri_osborne's LJ that I dig, I'll pick it up and do it here, and one or more of my friends may pick it up and do it on theirs.

But here's the difference. On LJ, we don't refer to a music or movie recommendation as a meme. We use the term very specifically to refer to a quiz, puzzle, or resume (on which more in a moment) the subject of which is, almost exclusively, ourselves. What kind of pirate would you be? What books have you read? How do you define love? Where were you twenty, ten, five, two and one year ago? It's all about us. (Look at the word. Deconstructed it says "me me!") But it's more than that, too.

I do memes because they're fun. They're self-indulgent. Occasionally they make me think. The best of them are brain games. But they do something more. They create the sense that we are bound as a community by sharing information and self-revelation. Part of the fun of memes is that one assumes that the meme-doer is functioning on a transparent level, i.e., that she's answering the questions honestly and that the results she posts are representative of her actual thoughts, opinions, memories, etc. It would be easy for me to think that because I read a meme on, for example, caryabend's LJ that I know him better. I don't really, because we've never met in person (at least not that I can recall) or spent any significant time talking. What I know about him is what he chooses to reveal by memage, by LJ entries, etc. In this sense, memes are an artificial construct intended to give the impression of a certain level of playfulness, intimacy and mutual knowledge. They generate easy labels and definitions of people for people. They present a resume for friendship (these are the books I read, these are the movies I like, these are my hobbies, beliefs, color preferences, etc.) At this level they succeed in creating kinship.

But they also succeed in creating the image we want to project to others, which may have little to do with who we really are. The Internet is a great place for people to reinvent themselves, to represent themselves in the best—or worst—way according to their own desires. Memes can be a mask to hide behind. I know that when I'm feeling like I want to withdraw from public view a bit on LJ, I resort to memage rather than to posting about what's actually going on in my life. It allows me to continue to participate in the community without exposing myself.

So I think that the word "meme," while it certainly retains its original definition as created by Dawkins, has evolved from Dawkin's original intention. On LJ, a meme may certainly be a unit of cultural information passed from one person to the next; it's also a vehicle for filtering and delivering said information, in the form of a quiz or game that provides entertainment value.


I'd love to hear your thoughts on the subject.

Comments

[lagilman]

I know that when I'm feeling like I want to withdraw from public view a bit on LJ, I resort to memage rather than to posting about what's actually going on in my life. It allows me to continue to participate in the community without exposing myself.

Yeah. Same here.

It's also a way to say "and I read so-and-so's journal, too, they came up with this" to link us more closely together and provide a potential link-back. Footprints in the ether.

I think part of the word-use is that, like any living language used at the speed of Internet, the word is not so much evolving as it is adding forms (verb, noun, adjective, etc). I'm sure one of you geekier-than-I types knows the proper name for that...

[mabfan.livejournal.com]

A few years back, I bought and read THE MEME MACHINE by Susan Blackmore (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/019286212X/qid=1102697399/sr=2-2/ref=pd_ka_b_2_2/102-2128965-8836119). Fascinating book.

I think your analysis is spot on. I have no idea why the word "meme" got attached to the concept of doing quizzes, but I'd be interested in knowing how. In other words, who started the meme of calling the LJ memes "memes"? :-)

[scarlettina.livejournal.com]

who started the meme of calling the LJ memes "memes"?

I think that's a great question, and I'd love to know the answer.

[deedop.livejournal.com]

Great analysis.

To this:

Memes can be a mask to hide behind. I know that when I'm feeling like I want to withdraw from public view a bit on LJ, I resort to memage rather than to posting about what's actually going on in my life. It allows me to continue to participate in the community without exposing myself.

I nod in agreement and add that it's possible (if you find just the right meme) to express a feeling you want to share through the meme rather than through a regular post. It's a way of eliciting support & sympathy when you're not in a mood to discourse.

Case in point, I had a very rough day a bit ago, and rather than write about it, I played with the Love is generator a few times, came up with "Sushi is Love" and posted it under the title "Because I'm feeling raw at the moment." The shorthand of meme result plus appropriate title says everything: I'm gloomy, I need a hug, yet I still want to hide.

[scarlettina.livejournal.com]

Great analysis.
Thanks!

it's possible (if you find just the right meme) to express a feeling you want to share through the meme rather than through a regular post.
That's an interesting approach. I haven't done that precisely, but I do know that on a couple of occasions I've used memes to say something to someone else without actually saying it to them, the thinking being, "I'm going to answer this question in this way with this person in mind. They won't know I'm thinking of them when I say this, but I'll know that I've told them this thing, and that gets the message out of my system." More often than not, it's a positive message I'm too shy to actually share. But this is relatively rare in my history of memage.

And while I'm on the subject, do we have any idea who coined the term "memage" to indicate the participation in a meme? It's got a Whedonesque flavor, though I'm pretty certain Mr. Whedon didn't coin it. I would suspect it was coined by a Buffy-watching LJ user somewhere.

geekette

[webcowgirl.livejournal.com]

"Cut for mercy to those who are not word geeks." - could you have dangled it in front of me MORE temptingly?

I think breaking it down into ME-ME was my favorite part of the discussion, as it was very original and insightful.

I see a meme as being more like a virus - quickly spreading and replicating, but leaves little of worth behind.

Re: geekette

[scarlettina.livejournal.com]

could you have dangled it in front of me MORE temptingly?

::chuckle:: Because, you know, none of my friends are word geeks. Nope, not a one. ::grin::

I think breaking it down into ME-ME was my favorite part of the discussion

That recognition is what prompted the essay in the first place. Thanks!

Re: geekette

[ironymaiden]

i actually first heard it pronounced me-me in a class, or read it phonetically broken out that way in a magazine article. the first time i spoke it aloud in years was this summer, and frabjousdave proceeded to laugh his ass off at my pronounciation. i was using it in the original sense at the time (talking about why i put my hand on the roof of the car when the window is open) so it kind of blew my whole big psych vocabulary thing to smithereens.

[platypus]

I think the similarity between cultural memes and LJ memes is the viral way they reproduce. The LJ memes don't carry much content, but the way they spread is highly visible (which is why many people, like me, find them so annoying). Most of the quizzes involved give all but random results, and don't tell the reader anything useful about the person who posted them. The thing that bothers me most is that some peole seem to communicate through memes to the exclusion of original content. I'd rather hear someone's original ideas on what branch of mathematics they would be than see them post quiz results about it.

[scarlettina.livejournal.com]

I think the similarity between cultural memes and LJ memes is the viral way they reproduce.

Oh, I agree completely.

I'd rather hear someone's original ideas on what branch of mathematics they would be than see them post quiz results about it.

I agree here, too.

In my discussion about memes, though, I was also including under th rubric of "meme" things like the Friday Five (now the Flyday Fyve), in which questions are posed and the user, if so inclined, answers them. Those things, which involve the user's own brain, rather than randomly generated answers based on nearly unrelated questions, can be fascinating, which is why I do more of the former than the latter.

[glitterfairy25.livejournal.com]

I do memes because they're fun. They're self-indulgent. Occasionally they make me think. The best of them are brain games. But they do something more. They create the sense that we are bound as a community by sharing information and self-revelation.

Over here from ljturns_10.

Interesting stuff. I do memes because I want to post something, but don't know what to post, or more significantly, because I *want* people to ask me things, so I ask them to me myself. If that makes any sense at all, which I don't think it does. They don't make me think per se, but they make me find out information as thought I was finding it out about someone else; from a somewhat different perspective that just wondering about stuff, I guess.

[scarlettina.livejournal.com]

Thanks for your comment! I agree about posting memes when I'm not sure what else to post but I want to. I totally get it. It's a way of keeping in touch, but the meme gives you a hand, a kind of a push in your expressive process.

[speadee.livejournal.com]

When I first saw the word, meme, I wondered what it was, and looked it up. I received the same answer for the definition, and wondered what it had to do with surveys and quizzes. You gave us a good idea of it.