Memes in Today’s Culture
Meme culture is a way of life.
It can also be known as genetic engineering, the digital use of language, memes, rips, memes, or word of mouth to achieve goals. A meme is a unit of cultural inheritance that acts as a template for subsequent copies. A viral meme is one that spreads itself by means of imitation through reproduction.
Memes are generally regarded as an instant group of cultural knowledge, having passed from mind to mind via imitation of actions or oral transmission of speech. The idea can be as simple as a verbal learning, or as complex as a painting that is copied from a photograph. The actual progression of a meme depends on the imagination of the creator.
Since one’s idea is the raw material for meme creation, memes pass from mind to mind, only to be invented again, in various iterations, and taken on to their final forms, the result being a perpetual self-replicating pattern. How the culture, like a ripple, continues down the line of replication is not very clear, except that it reaches as far as the end of the sequence.
Meme culture can be seen as an endless cycle of repeated memetic patterns, the success of each pattern depending on the genuineness of the former, and the result always being a new meme. In time, memes move away from each other, leaving only their simpler more well-defined successors, the “original” of that new culture.
There are many memes. Some of them live on, while others are lost along the way. The list of memes will be quite long indeed.
Some famous ones that have been around for ages include:
– Magician memes. Since the invention of photography, magicians have exploited the use of props to make some of the most difficult images – such as engravings on glass – appear to be seen with the naked eye.
– Bully memes. Slapping, head butting, even egging, which many of us witnessed as children, seems to be a meme of sorts.
– Die-hard fans. One can attribute their longevity to their ability to remain as vivid in the mind as they did in the past. Their ability to transcend time does not hurt either.
– Profanity. You cannot find an icon that is not a meme in some way. In reality, it has been believed that they add to the power of a communication.
– For and against memes – So it goes with cultural norms. There are those who regard cultural norms as an attack on memes – a fact that has given rise to several memes themselves.
Memes have become accepted in mainstream society. However, there is still debate as to the ethics of these memes. What is clear is that all memes, with the exception of self-destructing ones, exist.
Memes thrive in a culture where there is no distinction between truth and fiction. In the end, the person making the claim is the only one that can decide if a meme is a fact or a fiction.