Meme

Overview

The word meme was coined in 1976 by scientist-author Richard Dawkins to describe the idea that ideas have discernable attributes that affect the ways in which those ideas spread.

Although it may seem that "idea" and "meme" are indistinguishable, since all ideas are memes and all memes are ideas, it is generally presumed that an "idea" spreads only if it is a good idea, i.e. an idea which is generally seen to be beneficial in some way. A successful "meme", however, may spread because of attributes which have nothing to do with the idea's inherent value.

For example: the idea that "Bill Gates is giving away one million dollars to the thousandth person who forwards the message you are currently reading to 10 of their friends" has spread repeatedly across the Internet – not because the idea is in any way valuable (since it is utterly false), but because it successfully masquerades (in a small but sufficient percentage of cases) as a valid idea and contains suggestions which further encourage its propagation (again, in a small but sufficient percentage of cases).

It is the property of spreading in spite of being of questionable value (if not actually harmful) that is most notably "meme-like" about some ideas.

Meme-like Traits

The following traits tend to cause ideas to propagate out of proportion to their value as ideas:

• comprehensibility: ideas which are easy to understand ("this medicine will make you healthy" as opposed to "this medicine might make you feel somewhat better if your illness meets certain conditions...")
• explainability: ideas which are easy to explain
• promise / threat: ideas which promise reward and/or an avoidance of some undesirable consequence ("believe in the Word and be saved; those who believe not shall go to Hell" or "you need to wear make-up or men will think you are unattractive" or "you really need these ultrasonic deer sirens on your car if you want to avoid an accident")
• self-spreading: ideas which encourage the recipient to spread the idea ("send this email to 10 of your friends"; "spread the Gospel so that others may be saved")
• untestability of claims: if a claim isn't easy to prove or disprove, this makes it harder to argue against the meme (because it might be true); this is particularly effective when combined with promise / threat
• repetition: ideas which are deliberately seeded repeatedly tend to spread more rapidly; because of such spread, any given individual will tend to encounter such ideas from multiple sources, thus lending them additional credibility.

In general, these traits are most effective when combined in particular ways that effectively put up roadblocks against any of the obvious "exit reasoning" strategies, and thus make the meme very difficult for each new victim to resist.

Reference

• Wikipedia

Related Articles

• The Concepts category lists a number of issue-related concepts
• Power structure meme: a type of meme with a particular agenda

Links

• Survival of the Fittest Ideas: The New Style of War – a Struggle Among Memes by David Brin