So, yeah... memes. Or Mimemes, as it's actually technically called (which spell check is trying to advise me I have horribly destroyed the word "mimes" to type there). It is the idea that a thought is a thing. Or rather, even less anthropomorphically, that information strives to replicate itself using the minds and behaviors of living creatures. In this case, it also embraces the radical theory that ideas and information are the same as DNA, passed along from one living organism to another; the only difference is that it is transmitted via sound and sight and occasionally touch and smell instead of through the union of zygotes and all the fun and angst that surrounds that particular action.
When I initially stumbled on to the U Penn campus a few years back, I had no idea what I was going to do with my life. Honestly I figured I would go in to communications because I liked people and I liked picking apart how people learned and picked up information from ads, books, the news, whatever. I figured it would serve me really well in whatever job I managed to get in the dying realm of radio or broadcast television.
Then fate intervened, and during a mandatory elective class I had to choose, on a whim I chose sociology. At one point during the class they talked about the transmission of ideas over social media (which was really only then starting to show up en-force.... weird, right? There was a time before Twitter!) and how it was going to affect us socially and culturally. And then they did the awesomest thing ever. They played Susan Blackmore's TED Talk on Memes and "Temes".
I'm going to link it here because it's short and it's AWESOME.
In 21 minutes my world was changed. I knew that this thing I had for studying how people passed knowledge from one person to another and seeing how we behaved with one another, what we picked up off one another, was my calling. I had to do the Meme Thing.
Then came the fun of going through all of the classes to learn about how culture shifts and responds based on given stimuli and how it can change based on economic level, education level, religion, region, gender... and I fell further in love with all of it.
To this day, if you stand in front of me in line, I will watch you for non-verbal clues about you, from how you dress, to how you stand, to how you observe those around you and how you speak, and I can tell pretty much where you came from immediately.
Sounds creepy, right? Guess what? We ALL do this. It's sometimes oversimplified as "stereotyping", but we all guage one another like this ALL the time. How awesome is that? Our brains are built to be mini sociologists, to figure out how to interact with one another. It is THAT important.
I guess you could say I am studying the science of the brain studying interactions. Or just interactions between human beings. Or really, I just watch people talk, if you want to get stupidly simple.
I could go on at great length about this, but please understand this above all else... I AM A SUSAN BLACKMORE FANGRRL. I care not for your fancy arguments against the idea of meme as thing! Which I guess is obvious, since I'm throwing many thousands of dollars at this whole goal of professionally studying them, huh?
If anybody is still reading and has any comments, thoughts, or wants to do some (polite) arguing/trading of viewpoints on ideas, I am absolutely open to it in the comments. And thanks for listening.
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