Thursday, October 23

Meme (n)

There's a term bandied about on the internet that at first glance is easy to define. The term is "meme". Just the sound of it conjures up something that is prevalent, that is easy to identify. The definition, on the other hand, is tricky to lock down. [and for you wordies, I'm defining meme here as it applies to the internet, not as it exists in the real world.]

Simply put, this definition is key: "a viral encapsulated idea, with built-in feedback loop." What that means is that I might put something on my blog that's an ongoing theme and you provide the feedback via comments. Another definition confirms this: "an idea, project, statement or even a question that is posted by one blog and responded to by other blogs".

The best definition is this long-winded diatribe from the American Civil Rights Union: "Leftist pseudo-intellectualese or linguistic affectation, generally used in the pejorative, employed to designate a commonly held position, thought or expression as worthy of or susceptible to attack or denigration by superior leftist 'critical thought' which the employer possesses in abundance."

Oh yeah.

Moving forward1, I'll be including some of the more prevalent internet memes here in my blog, although I've already covered the meme "fail" on a number of occasions.

Check back tomorrow for the first of an ongoing series of meme attacks.


1 I SO hate the term "moving forward". WHEN did "In the future" become less-desirable, and "moving forward" become the norm? HAD to have been the current political climate. If only Obama or McCain could throw in a "henceforth", I'd be impressed.

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