When Dawkins first suggested memes as a way of thinking about how culture replicates itself and mutates into new and different forms in the process, the internet wasn’t even a word in popular use. There was no verb “to google”, there was no all-knowing wikipedia, and no one had ever tweeted except for a yellow cartoon bird named Tweety. And yet, culture was finding ways to replicate and spread, an idea that Dawkins recognized as interesting and useful.
Today we have ‘internet memes’ – a trend that shows in near-real time the phenomena Dawkins tried to describe. As cards, expressions, and graphics combine with rapid dissimination to large populations, it is possible to consider the idea of culture replication more closely. These memes almost beg to be spread, and move through the internet faster than chicken pox through a second grade in the 1980s, which of course is now no longer culturally relevant since the discovery of a vaccine. It will be interesting to see if society eventually innoculates itself against the invasion of internet memes in some way. By the way, I just happened to notice that Dawkins “The Selfish Gene” (published in the 1970s) is on the top seller list for the Guardian this week!
What is it that makes an internet meme successful in being replicated and mutating to meet different cultural norms? There is an element of funny – a sarcastic, ironic, suble, or blantent play on culture context, ranging from politics to gender wars to the mundane requirements of getting through the day. For all of us who are somewhere between humored and annoyed by the two pages of disclaimers on EVERYTHING these days, and prevelance of stupid people – this resonates:
Timeliness does not seem to be a factor – some are enduring and span generations – most people at least in the US, and possibly worldwide, can connect with the frustrated Storm Trooper, showing the legacy of George Lucas on our collective psyche, making a fun play on the ‘inspirational’ posters that invaded our professional lives in the early 2000s.
