Memes Propagate By Consumption

Meme theory makes the claim that we can absorb new memes at any time, and incorporate them into our existing memespace, thereby making a new copy of that meme.

The main thing here is to see consumption not as eating, but as inclusion. The new meme is more analogous to a virus added to a test tube full of other viruses than a new gene entering a chromosome.

There's been a lot of confusion and debate about meme propagation stemming from Dawkins' original definition. In that, he said they spread by "imitation". That ignores the way memes can spread without being imitated. One can observe a culture and describe its memes without imitating them. Someone else can receive that description and begin to imitate them. Memes can propagate through communication, but they aren't manifested until they are imitated.

I think that the key part here is inclusion. I know of a great many group-identity memes, but I do not express very many of them, because I do not identify with those groups. The memes I express are the ones I identify with, or sometimes the ones I consider more basic - part of my core identity. Ever since abstract communication became possible, memes have had this indirect propagation path.

My point is that if memes are the behaviors themselves (and not descriptions of behaviors, as many people use the term), they aren't spread until someone acts them out. They can be communicated in a dormant state.

See also, or perhaps instead, MemesShmemes.

CategoryMemes