Online Meme is Online

1. Online Meme is Online Dominic DiFranzo

2. Outline • Introduction to Meme theory • Criticism of Meme theory • Online Memes • Attributes of Online Memes • Hashtags and memes in Twitter

3. Meme • First coined by Richard Dawkins’ 1976 book, The Selfish Gene. • Defined as a unit of culture. • Memes are copied by hosts (humans) to other hosts, can change when copied, and compete for survival. • these conditions allow for Darwinian evolution. • Similar to genes in bio evolution. • Extremely high mutation rate

4. Memes • pattern that can influence its surroundings and may have causal agency (hotly debated) • three key characteristics of successful memes: fidelity, reproductive capacity, and longevity. • Undergoes processes of variation, mutation, competition and inheritance, each of which influence a meme's reproductive success. • Some global, others are more culture specific(Knobel and Lankshear, 2007)

5. Two schools • Internal Memes: Thoughts, behaviors or actions not recorded. • External Memes: Recorded artifacts of memes (books, art, music score, recipe, etc) • Debated on methodology and meaning of memes as thoughts or memes as artifacts. • The possibility of quantitative analysis of internal memes using neuroimaging tools was given by McNamara (2011)

6. The Meme Machine • Famous book by Blackmore. Coined new terms in Meme theory. • Copy-the-product: copy based only on finished product. Difficult, prone to high mutation rate, mutation will be found in copies/children • Copy-the-instructions: Copy based on instruction, not the product. Less prone to error/mutations. Errors will not be passed in copies. • Memeplex: Memes that are replicated together, such as religions and cultures.

7. Criticism of Meme Theory

8. Criticism of Meme Theory • Benitez-Bribiesca, Luis (2001) state that memes lack a code script, as DNA is for genes. This along with meme mutation mechanism being too unstable would render the evolutionary process chaotic. • Deacon, Kull (2003) from the field of semiotics, state that a meme is a degenerate and primitive sign, lack the triadic nature of traditional signs.

9. Criticism of Meme Theory • Midgley (2004) states that memetics ignore the many other factors in cultural evolution and growth and as such is too reductionist in nature. Also no clear evidence that memes exist at all. • Edmonds (2005) states that memetics fails in the gene/meme analogy, does not provide any predictive measures and does not provide any explanations of cultural evolution not already found in other models.

10. Criticism of Meme Theory • Atran (2006) communication of ideas generally trigger or elicit ideas in other minds through inference and not replication or imitation. • Ten Commandments study • Inferential capacity and autism study • Humans make poor Meme Machines.

11. Online Meme UknTW.jpg

12. Online Meme

13. Online Memes • Similar to the basic ideas in traditional meme theory, but separates itself from many of the generalities found in meme theory • Digital content allows for perfect copies, lower mutation rate, attention economy brings competition (Heylighen, 1996) • Mutations can confer swift advantage in spread • Online memes are only the artifact, not internal, do not have agency

14. Viral vs Meme • Viral – media that spreads to the masses via digital word-of-mouth mechanisms without significant change • focuses mainly on the mechanism of delivery and scale of audience, often overlooking cultural and social aspects, as well as human agency (Burgess, 2008; Jenkins et al., 2009a; Knobel and Lankshear, 2007) • Memetic – media that changes as it moves and grows through imitation and remixing.

15. Attributes of Memes • YouTube study of popular meme videos. (Shifman 2011) • 'Ordinary' people or Ordinary/Everyday themes • Flawed masculinity – men failing to meet current masculine expectations either in appearance or behavior

16. Attributes of Memes • Humor - Knobel and Lankshear (2007) found that this served as a central component in many online memes • Playfulness • Incongruity • Superiority • Simplicity – The easier the content/idea is, the easier it to copy/imitate/change/remix it

17. Attributes of Memes • Repetitiveness - includes a persuasive demonstration of its own replicability and, thus, it contains encrypted instructions for others' replication. Enhances memorization of meme. • Whimsical Content – least likely to alienate other people. The more people who can enjoy/ The more people who can share, change, remix meme.

18. Bad Content/ Good Meme • Unfinished, unpolished, amateur-looking and sometimes even weird media invites people to fill in the gaps. • Different from many viral or popular media that made be very polished and professional. • Invites people to create new meaning.

19. Share vs. Imitate • People spread texts that they find trustworthy, relevant and useful, as well as those that evoke strong emotions (Jonah and Milkman, 2010; Heath et al., 2001) • Different than the attributes discussed before. • What people tend to share differs from what they decide to become involved with through imitation.

20. Why Memes? • As a way for people to succeed in the ‘attention economy' (Lanham, 2006) • ‘networked individualism' (Wellman et al., 2003) – a way to both show our individualism while keeping to the trends in our community. • cultural and esthetic logics of participation – Memes as building blocks of larger complex cultures.

21. Twitter • Spread of texts can change, and change meaning • “Street style shooting in Oxford Circus for ASOS and Diet Coke. Let me know if you’re around!!” • “Shooting in progress in Oxford Circus? What?” • “Shooting in progress in Oxford Circus, stay safe people.” • Recently companies have been trying to hop on currently developing memes for ads. • "We may not collect #tigerblood," the organization posted to its Twitter feed, "but we know our donors & volunteers have fierce passion for doing good! #RedCrossMonth."

22. Hashtag categories

23. Hashtag categories Cheong:‘What are you Tweeting about?’: A survey of Trending Topics within Twitter, 2010

24. Semantics of tagging • Huang et al (2010) states tagging in Twitter is more about filtering and directing content so that it appears in certain streams. • Not organizational like Flickr • micro-memes • Users add tags to join discussions on existing topics. See clever short-lived tags catch on and then die-out quickly.

26. Works Cited • Benitez-Bribiesca, Luis (2001): Memetics: A dangerous idea. Interciecia 26: 29–31, p. 29. • Blackmore, Susan (2003). "Consciousness in meme machines". Journal of Consciousness Studies (Imprint Academic). • The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins, Oxford University Press, 1976, 2nd edition, December 1989, hardcover, 352 pages,

27. The Meme Machine by Susan Blackmore, Oxford University Press, 1999 • McNamara1 A (2011) Can we measure memes?. Front. Evol. Neurosci. 3:1 • Brodie, Richard. Virus of the Mind: The New Science of the Meme. Seattle, Wash: Integral Press, 1996.

28. Terrence Deacon, The trouble with memes (and what to do about it). The Semiotic Review of Books 10(3). • Kalevi Kull (2000), Copy versus translate, meme versus sign: development of biological textuality. European Journal for Semiotic Studies 12(1), 101–120.

29. Atran, Scott (2002), In gods we trust: the evolutionary landscape of religion, Oxford [Oxfordshire]: Oxford University Press • Atran, Scott (2001), "The Trouble with Memes", Human Nature 4 (12) • Aunger, Robert (2000), Darwinizing culture: the status of memetics as a science, Oxford [Oxfordshire]: Oxford University Press

30. Distin, Kate (2005), The selfish meme: a critical reassessment, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press • Fracchia, Joseph; R C Lewontin (February 2005), "The price of metaphor", History and theory (Weleyan University) 44 (44): 14–29

31. Kalevi Kull (2000), "Copy versus translate, meme versus sign: development of biological textuality". European Journal for Semiotic Studies 12(1), 101–120. • Terrence Deacon, "The trouble with memes (and what to do about it)". The Semiotic Review of Books 10(3).

32. Knobel, M. and C. Lankshear. (2007) ‘Online memes, Affinities, and Cultural Production’, in M. Knobel and C. Lankshear (eds.), A New Literacies Sampler, pp. 199– 227. New York • Jenkins, H., Li, X., Krauskopf, AD and JB Grean (2009a) If it Doesn't Spread, it's Dead (part one): Media Viruses and Memes

33. Heath, C., Bell, C. and E. Sternberg (2001) ‘Emotional Selection in Memes: The Case of Urban Legends’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 81:1028–41. • Burgess, J. and JB Green (2009) YouTube: Online Video and Participatory Culture. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.

34. Burgess, J. (2008) ‘All Your Chocolate Rain are Belong to us? Viral Video, YouTube and the Dynamics of Participatory Culture’, in G. Lovink and S. Niederer (eds.) Video Vortex Reader: Responses to YouTube, pp. 101-109. Amsterdam, Netherlands: Institute of Network Cultures. • Beck, U. and EB Gernsheim (2002) Individualization: Institutionalized Individualism and its Social and Political Consequences. London: Sage.

35. Marwick, A. and d. boyd (2011) ‘I Tweet Honestly, I Tweet Passionately: Twitter Users,ContextCollapse, and the Imagined Audience,’ New Media and Society 13(1): 114-133 • Pech, RJ (2003) ‘Memes and Cognitive Hardwiring: Why are Some Memes More Successful than Others?’, European Journal of Innovation Management 6:173-181.

36. A. Java, X. Song, T. Finin, and B. Tsen. Why we Twitter: An analysis of a mi- croblogging community. In Proc. 9th WebKDD and 1st SNA-KDD 2007 workshop on Web mining and social network analysis, pages 118–138. Springer-Verlag, 2009. • d. boyd, S. Golder, and G. Lotan. Tweet, tweet, retweet: Conversational aspects of retweeting on twitter. In Proc. HICCS-43, 2010.