Most of you reading this should already have an idea of what memes are, (if you don't then why are you here? and where the hell you been?) I kid of course... I will educate you all.
Now lets start at the beginning, in 1976 there was a man by the name Richard Dawkins who believe there was something else at play in regards to evolution and the way humans interact and pick up cultural information. He derived a theory which put MEME's as the answer to how humans pick up and share cultural information. the idea behind this was that Genes would be the physical differences in evolution, and Meme's would be the cultural difference in evolution. Dawkins stated in his book the selfish gene -
“Examples of memes are tunes, ideas, catchphrases, clothes, fashions, ways of making pots or of building arches. Just as genes propagate themselves in the gene pool by leaping from body to body via sperms and eggs, so memes would propagate themselves in the meme pool by leaping from brain to brain via a process which in the broad sense can be called imitation.” (Dawkins, 1976)
one of the best ways to describe what he is saying is in a metaphor (this could go horribly wrong but work with me on this)
person 1 - is walking down a street humming a tune of their choice
person 2 - walks past them and almost subconsciously takes note of the tune and later on begins to hum the exact same tune
This imitation, is an example of a meme in action.
This is a video of Richard Dawkins in cannes and he bought along a video of his own, all about meme's (this is what i imagine an acid trip feels like). It's not vital to watch the video just thought it was cool, plus it breaks up this blog a little.... enjoy!
Now if you have recovered from that 'trippy' video allow me to carry on...
essentially if I haven't explained myself properly, this blog is just about memes and where they came from and how their existence has almost been 'hijacked' in the 21st century.
When we think of meme's we tend to think of the 'overly attached girlfriend' or 'grumpy cat' (both hilarious I totally recommend checking them out), internet users have managed to re- appropriate the term 'Meme' and have turned it into a term for sharing images and video around the internet ... which isn't too far from the description Dawkins fave decades before.
“What internet users seemed to have grasped — and Richard Dawkins couldn’t have imagined back in 1976 — is that the meme is the best concept to encapsulate some of the most fundamental aspects of the internet in general, and of the so-called participatory or Web 2.0 culture in particular” (Shifman, 2014:18)
Well thats a kinda brief summary of what a meme is and how they came about I guess all thats left is to give you some example heres some that I have created, stole and beaten out of other people... (I kid of course).
there are 4 main types of meme
VIDEO - I mean I really don't feel like this need any explanation, but I guess if you're struggling with the concept feel free to head over to the contacts page and drop me a message...
photo - exactly what it says - it's a photo which seems to go viral, some of you may remember a few years ago there was that thing where people would plank in all kinds of weird places and their friends would take pictures of them and share them on social media.
macro - is and image with superimposed text over the top.....
word - is a word or phrase which gets shared socially tends to be more charitable or for a cause just like the image below.
This is pretty much all I got so feel free to wait for me to upload a new blog which hopefully shouldn't long, the topic is still undecided so watch this space..... any question or wanna talk about message me using the contacts page
thanks for reading
Jaylen signing out
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