Correct use of the word "meme".

[champ3000]

Great example. If you met someone who didn't know that "cool" also refers to temperature (given that english is their first language), would you consider them ignorant/uneducated? I would.

I would. But wouldn't consider someone uneducated because they didn't realize that meme was just a made-up word coined by some relatively unknown writer in the 70's.

[Tziva]

What I don't understand is why it is being argued that the term should cease to be used in a perfectly legitimate context just because the word has a broader meaning that can also be applied elsewhere. Words don't ever work this way.

It's simply a reflection on how critical the internet is to modern culture that you seem the term used more frequently on the internet than off. It doesn't mean the users are ignorant of other applications. But even if they were, why does that necessitate discontinuing its usage?

[Howard Moon]

I would. But wouldn't consider someone uneducated because they didn't realize that meme was just a made-up word coined by some relatively unknown writer in the 70's.

The founders of Google were also relatively unknown in 96 when they started the company, yet everybody and their grandma uses the verb "to google" nowadays to say "to search on the internet" (a meme itself). I don't see how that's important?

Btw, ALL words are made-up

---------- Post added 2011-08-30 at 11:07 AM ----------

What I don't understand is why it is being argued that the term should cease to be used in a perfectly legitimate context just because the word has a broader meaning that can also be applied elsewhere. Words don't ever work this way.

It's simply a reflection on how critical the internet is to modern culture that you seem the term used more frequently on the internet than off. It doesn't mean the users are ignorant of other applications. But even if they were, why does that necessitate discontinuing its usage?

You have some good points there. I'm sorry but I can't come up with any better reasons than I already have posted. I guess it's just a personal pet peeve of mine when people use the word meme for such petty stuff as an image macro or an ugly rage-guy comic. I'll just have to get over it I suppose, since evidently I am alone in this

[Simulacrum]

Further muddling and obfuscation of the meanings of the words we use to communicate with each other is always bad. It makes our communication more confused and unfocused, and does the same to our thinking. There's a reason medical professionals have highly specific words for every single tiny little part of the body, and don't just describe parts relevant to their conversation in vague, uncertain terms though those terms would make sense in context. Unfocused language leads to unfocused thinking.

[Metalogic]

Further muddling and obfuscation of the meanings of the words we use to communicate with each other is always bad. It makes our communication more confused and unfocused, and does the same to our thinking. There's a reason medical professionals have highly specific words for every single tiny little part of the body, and don't just describe parts relevant to their conversation in vague, uncertain terms though those terms would make sense in context. Unfocused language leads to unfocused thinking.

Always bad? I have to disagree there. Muddling/obfuscation has a place in poetry and related art. An example:

Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night's Plutonian shore!"
Quoth the Raven "Nevermore."

The word "nevermore" here functions as a dual answer to the question - 1) 'My name is nevermore'; 2) 'I will never answer'. Shakespeare also played around with language quite a bit, as do many modern-day comedians.
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fyi, I have a post back on the first page that you all may or may not have seen (for some reason it required moderator approval, and didn't show up until this was already on page 2). It's rather long, but check it out if you're interested.

[hightides24]

You have some good points there. I'm sorry but I can't come up with any better reasons than I already have posted. I guess it's just a personal pet peeve of mine when people use the word meme for such petty stuff as an image macro or an ugly rage-guy comic. I'll just have to get over it I suppose, since evidently I am alone in this

I understand where you're coming from; things such as this get on my nerves as well. It's not really that the term is being used incorrectly, but the fact that people don't know that it's really a more broad term. It's not that they're stupid for not knowing or anything like that (I too used to think that meme referred specifically to an internet joke), but its just a minor annoyance.

Like when people don't know the difference between you're and your. I understand what they're saying, but it pisses me off to no end when people say things like "Your dumb".
And they're, their, and there. Please people, learn the differences.

[Howard Moon]

fyi, I have a post back on the first page that you all may or may not have seen (for some reason it required moderator approval, and didn't show up until this was already on page 2). It's rather long, but check it out if you're interested.

Woops, you are right. I never even saw that. I guess they monitor long posts by users with low post count to prevent spam.

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That's fine; I'm ok with coining a new word. My issue is with the field of "memetics", and how Dawkins, et al. use the word as if it's cutting-edge science. I view the word "meme" in much the same way that people view the word "blog" - a pop-culture, layman's use is fine; but there's really not a rigorous scientific definition (at least not that I've seen).

You are right, the lack of a proper scientific definition is a problem, especially for me right now since I'm here advocating its proper use . I don't really agree that scientists consider mimetics as cutting-edge science though, mainly since they haven't even bothered to give it a scientific definition in the first place. But words can have specific meanings without them being scientific. And sure, word meanings are often flexible or evolve over time. My argument was that "meme" as a word seems to be evolving in sort of a crappy direction. From my subjective point of view, of course.

I think this puts what a meme is into kind of a grey area. Is X itself a meme (after it has been spread), or is the actual spreading of X the meme? According to Dawkins, examples of memes are "...tunes, ideas, catch-phrases, clothes fashions, ways of making pots or of building arches." This points toward the information itself being a meme. However, does this information have to be stored in at least two "containers" (minds) at all times, lest it cease to be a meme?

What if I wrote a computer script to generate strings of three random words from a dictionary, then copy these strings to other computers - all the while making sure no human has viewed the strings? Can we consider these strings to be memes, or must the "containers" be conscious?

Hmmm, well I think any information is technically a meme, though we wouldn't use the word "meme" to describe it unless it became a successful meme. Successful at replicating, that is.

As for computers propagating the three words, that is an interesting question. I think from the point of view of the computers, these three words would be a meme. One reason why they wouldn't, though, is that there is no copying error involved. No evolution of the meme. One of Dawkins' points about memes is that they evolve thanks to copying errors that occur when propagating from person to person, from generation to generation, over time. Just like genes mutate slightly every time they are copied down to the next generation, thus giving rise to variation. Thanks to natural selection only the best fit mutations survive and are allowed to replicate further. In the computers scenario those three words would remain identical on every computer at any given time, so I think that disqualifies them from being memes under Dawkins' definition. Of course you could program in some simulated copying error.. that could be an interesting experiment

I actually have read it, and found it fascinating; until he started talking about memes. The whole idea just doesn't seem to be backed up well enough to be anything more than a buzzword of sorts. This is fine, I guess, but it doesn't really seem to have a place in any scientific work. That's my only real gripe with the idea. It just irks me a bit when Dawkins, Dennett, etc. keep discussing them.

I also think the analogy to genes is a bit misleading. First, (I mentioned this earlier) it seems impossible to do cladistics (organization based on heredity) with memes. How could we possibly track the heredity of memes, given that ideas not only mix with each other much more readily than genetic information, but also frequently appear "out of thin air"? We'd have to organize memes with phenetics (organization based on similarity). To do even that, we would have to rigidly apply attributes to ideas - and how would we do that?

Second, while memes may be transmitted from person to person, genes really aren't transmitted in the same way - alleles are. Let's take an example gene, allele, and meme, and see what happens:

Gene - hair color
Allele - red hair
Meme - building houses with stone

There seems to be something missing here; namely that the meme seems more analogous to the allele, but there seems to be no gene counterpart. We could say that the memetic counterpart to the gene is something like "different ways to build houses", but that's just another meme. We'd have one meme analogous to an allele, and another meme analogous to a gene. Seems kind of iffy, and makes it so you can't really fully understand memetics by understanding genetics.

Interesting post! Unfortunately, I don't know much about genetics (or mimetics either, for that matter) to provide an intelligent discussion. I'll do my best though

I think with a lot of memes you ARE able to do cladistics and phenetics. Take for example the t-shirts with "Marijuana" written on them using the Coca-Cola font. You could very well say that the "parents" of that meme are, on one side the meme of recreational Marijuana use, and on the other side the meme of the famous Coca-Cola logo. Okay maybe that sounds like heredity for dummies to you, but it's sort of valid, isn't it?

I don't believe at all that ideas, memes, can appear "out of thin air". In my oppinion there is ALWAYS an idea or group of ideas that inspire a new one. A meme always has parent memes. When you write a song, as original as it may be, you are always "borrowing" ideas from existing songs. Maybe from throusends of them, often even unconciously, but "new" ideas always come from somewhere.

About alleles, I have to admit I am drawing a blank there. But I can see your point: if you are fluent in genetics, the idea of memes may seem kind of shallow. Maybe scientists should sit down and take a serious look at the subject. Hopefuly then, "meme" could be saved from being stuck as a badly drawn cartoon of a sad man with a huge chin who is forever, alone.

[Metalogic]

Going to try and keep this post a bit shorter so it actually shows up...

Regarding memes and science, I think the proponents of memetics should indeed take a closer look at what's going on. If Dawkins developed a robust "meme theory", it would settle the problem of how we should use the word. I doubt he knows about the problem, though. He doesn't seem like the kind of guy that spends his time looking at stupid pictures online. Who knows, maybe one day we'll see a 1000+ page tome on meme theory written, much like Gould did with The Structure of Evolutionary Theory.

Until this happens, though, we should look at which usages of the word are most beneficial or allow the most specific communication (as we should do for all non-technical words, IMO). We currently have two uses on the table:

1) A unit of cultural transmission consisting of information
2) an online in-joke based on a "joke template"

The first use certainly helps us communicate a certain idea; however it seems to me that we already have other words to describe this concept: idea, method, trend, fad, etc. Perhaps "meme" can be used to describe these slightly different ideas collectively, but do we need to do that?

The second use, I think, serves a rather more important purpose. All the other words I can think of that we have to describe such a thing seem to fall short. "caffeine dog is now an in-joke/image macro/funny picture" just sounds awkward to type and say. There doesn't seem to be any jargon to describe such a thing, other than "meme" (although I might be failing to think of a word).

A third option, though, is a compromise of sorts - use it effectively in both contexts. We already do this with many other words, such as "run", "web", etc.; with the correct meaning being inferred from the rest of the conversation/situation. Maybe the two uses of "meme" are different enough to allow this. I guess my overall thought though is this: until much more work is done, we shouldn't say that the only acceptable usage is the technical one, as we do for words like "chromosome".

[Annoying]

Some topics discussed here are less memes and more idioms. Calling something "cool" and meaning amazing rather than "lacking heat" is an idiom and not a meme. As for internet memes, it's often thought that, as Meta put it:

2) an online in-joke based on a "joke template"

is a meme, whereas it isn't. The joke is a joke, and the "template" is the meme. A picture of a cat doing something stupid isn't a meme, but the idea of conveying information over lolcats is a meme. Strange use, but the meme itself isn't the content contained within, but the method of delivery. Replying with "cool story bro" isn't a meme, but the idea of replying with a well known generic answer to something you find uninteresting is a meme (tl;dr, any form of trolling, ibtl, etc...).

[schweinsteiger]

Replying with "cool story bro" isn't a meme, but the idea of replying with a well known generic answer to something you find uninteresting is a meme (tl;dr, any form of trolling, ibtl, etc...).

Cool story, bro is the ultimate shut down to *******, obvious trolling, and tl;dr infecting the internets, to which there is no response
Troll: "Halo invented the FPS video game genre!"

Other Guy: "Cool Story Bro"

---------- Post added 2011-08-31 at 06:19 PM ----------

An appropriate response to a story that went nowhere and/or was completely uninteresting.
"This one time me and my brother were eating sandwiches and he was like 'dude, I hate mustard' and I was like 'yeah.'"
"Cool story bro."

Cool story bro can also be worked on into a meme.

User was infracted for this post for hurtful language.