Once there was this nebbishy little guy named Rich. He was a scientist. He noticed that ideas and tunes and jokes were good at getting stuck in peoples' heads and copying themselves into other peoples' heads. He thought that was a lot like the way genes were good at getting in peoples pants and moving themselves into other peoples' pants.
So he rounded up all the ideas and tunes and jokes and called them "memes." He thought the word had a nice ring to it.
He was right. It had such a nice ring that it copied itself into thousands and millions of other peoples' heads. Today, geeks the world over talk about "memes" non-stop because they're too cool to concern themselves with, you know, content. Everyone else mostly just enjoys humming "The Ketchup Song" over and over.
Today with the aid of technology and also the internet, "memes" can spread and copy themselves more quickly than ever before.
For example.
Today on the rabbit blog I learned that the University of Texas is giving real credits to students who can document "web logs." The students have to answer six questions:
The rabbit did her readers (and UTexas students) the favour of filling in the blanks, which was nice. I'll do that tomorrow and then you can do the same on your "web log" and the next thing you know we'll have a "meme" on our hands. Whee!
...
There is an interview with Dick Cheney at strongsmell.com today. It is provocative.
Posted by Bret at February 13, 2003 03:57 PM