Could someone tell me about this word? I see it used so often in Y2K discussions. What does it mean? Are there several senses of the word? Is it an abbreviated form of another word, such as "enthymeme"? Was there one person or group who popularized it? Apart from its strict meaning, what does it connote?

-- Lawrence (not@this.time), July 23, 1999

Answers

A meme is an infectiously popular idea or cultural practice. See it all here.

-- Ct Vronsky (vronsky@anna.com), July 23, 1999.

According to "Wired Style - Principles of English Usage in the Digital Age," which I just happen to have handy, a "meme" is a:

"Contagious idea. Virus of the mind. Unit of cultural inheritance.

Evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins introduced the word (though not the idea) in The Selfish Gene. His meaning: an idea that functions in the mind the same way a gene or virus functions in the body. An especially infectious idea is a "viral meme." These replicating thoughts are to cultural inheritance what genes are to biological heredity."

So, there you have it!

-- pshannon (pshannon@inch.com), July 23, 1999.

Lawrence, if I remember my grade school french well enough,"meme" means "same". La meme chose = The same thing. I assume there is a latin root.

-- Puddintame (achillesg@hotmail.com), July 23, 1999.

Thanks for the links. Thank you, especially, Jonathan, for providing an example of a meme, although I'm not sure you meant it as an example:

"A computer glitch will not bring about the end of civilization. It takes hordes of panicking people to do that."

-- Lawrence (not@this.time), July 23, 1999.

Hello,

Alas, my tag line is not nearly as infectious as one would hope. If it is a meme, it is a fairly weak "strain". :) :)

Jonathan

-A computer glitch will not bring about the end of civilzation. it takes hordes of panicking people to do that.-

-- Jonathan Latimer (latimer@q-a.net), July 23, 1999.

Other words using the mem root:

memento

memo

memoir

memorabilia

memorable

memorial

memory

remember

commemorate

But to really answer the question, meme is a term used by optimists to imply that concerns about potential Y2K effects are merely urban legends.

-- Linkmeister (link@librarian.edu), July 23, 1999.

Doc Paulie, who is neither a doctor nor a Paulie, is the inspiration for the trolls who get their training over at Bonkers -- i.e., he is the Chief Meme-Buster. Here's what "Doc Paulie" has to say about memes:

http://www.InsideTheWeb.com/messageboard/mbs.cgi?acct=mb237006&MyNum=9 23989532&P=Yes&TL=923846196

Debunking Y2k webboard

Re: Re: Go back to Y2kchaos Tuesday, 13-Apr-1999 03:45:32

208.211.54.153 writes:

...What you might want to consider is the fact your post "looks" like just so many we have seen over the many hours on these Y2k webboards. Some of us have come to believe in a very real concept called Memes, Memetics. The link at the top of this forum called the Millennium Contagion deals with a meme swirling around Y2k specifically.

What I think I am trying to tell you in a polite way is you are operating from a position not of your own doing. The meme(mind-virus)is operating for you. You will deny this but you are, OK? Many here could write your views on this issue off the top of our heads we have seen it(the meme) so often. There is just too much similarity in view by most that it is impossible it could be anything but a foreign entity at work, it is.

See simple

Doc Paulie

-- OutingsR (us@here.yar), July 23, 1999.

Then there is the special meme classification known as a "wet" meme. I have wet memes every now and then when I am asleep. I start to dream (meme?) about two scantily clad sexy chicks, their bodacious bodies sleek with oil, wrestling in the mud. And the next thing I know ... well, you get the idea.

-- King of Spain (madrid@aol.com), July 23, 1999.

Hm, let's see.

A biologist made up a word.

How many studies did he perform to establish the existence of this "unit"? What was his control group?

How were the studies received by his peers?

What journals were the studies published in?

What evidence for the existence of "memes" has been discovered in psychology and sociology, and what journals were these published in?

What are the contradictory studies (there's always a contradictory study)?

OOOohhhhh....you mean there hasn't even be ONE study to support this "concept"?

Hmmmmm....

Anita Evangelista

-- Anita Evangelista (ale@townsqr.com), July 23, 1999.

Anita, see my link (above) for the history of the 'meme' thing. It should be viewed as a suggestive metaphor rather than a rigorous scientific reality of any kind. Note also that the idea of, or belief in the concept of, 'the meme', is itself just a meme.

-- Ct Vronsky (vronsky@anna.com), July 23, 1999.

KOS,

To my chagrin I was ROTFLMAO as I usually am when you discuss mud-wrestling. I hope that no one is offended at this late date.

Vronsk,

I just LOVE deconstruction, don't you?

Of course, love is perhaps the ultimate meme.

-- nothere nothere (notherethere@hotmail.com), July 23, 1999.

Ct Vronsky:

Thank you for the clarification. I guess you're actually saying that there is no supporting evidence for the existence of "memes"...since we're dealing with "suggestive metaphors".

My personal favorite "suggestive metaphor" is the Morphogenetic Field Theory. A genuine biologist popularized that one, too. But I think the hundred monkeys didn't want to cooperate.

Alas, another brilliant concept, lost because nobody could prove it existed!

Anita Evangelista

-- Anita Evangelista (ale@townsqr.com), July 23, 1999.

Isn't that the name of the little midget in the new Austin Power's movie? I'm sure his name is Meme.

-- chuckles (chuckles@clown.com), July 23, 1999.

An excellent treatment of the subject of memes is in this book:

Surviving the Feminization of America : How to Keep Women from Ruining Your Life by Rich Zupaty

www.y2ksafeminnesota.com

-- MinnesotaSmith (y2ksafeminnesota@hotmail.com), July 24, 1999.

Kevin, you take this WAYYYYYY to personal, and often misrepresent optimists. A meme is not used to say that y2k is no problem.

Yes meme's are real. Every single one of us has participated in the distributing at one time or another.

First, read this publication by Dr. Lynch.

Then, read this on e-mail contagions.

Now BE HONEST and admit YOU have forwarded those types of e-mails (even if only when a newbie to the WWW)

Viola! you now not only understand what a meme is, you have a personalized, first hand example!

What do you think?

-- Psych Major (psychob@b.le), July 30, 1999.

"Viola! you now. . ."

What made you choose viola over, say, violin or bassoon?

-- Good (sense@of.humor), July 30, 1999.

Thought contagions a meme thread.

-- (meme@ornot.tomeme), July 30, 1999.

Good, I suppose I could have written phonetically

Wall-ah

for the impaired

The question is, will anyone admit to having participated in the meme spreading? if not on-line, at least to yourself?

If you can be honest with yourself you are on the road to freedom

-- Psych Major (psychob@b.le), July 30, 1999.

Psych Major: I think the "science of memes", regardless of whatever redeeming social value might otherwise exist, has been very MIS-APPLIED to take a technical problem -- to wit, BAD COMPUTER CODE THAT WILL NOT BE REPAIRED BY WHEN IT NEEDS TO BE -- and attempting to convince people that to be worried about this is to be under the influence of some kind of infectious-doomer-meme. Deliberate mis-application smacks of the kind of "psychological re-education" that the Soviet Union practiced way back when.

Anyone who HONESTLY believes that to worry about the possibility that computers will be non-functional or unreliable due to a well established and documented technical flaw is indicitive of a bad meme, is him or herself a looney-toon nutcase.

(Also, Doc, I have a personal question: Are wet memes normal? Should I be worried about them? Frankly, the number of times that I have to have my sheets cleaned is causing embarrassing talk around the castle....)

-- King of Spain (madrid@aol.com), July 30, 1999.