The ‘not science’ part is what irked me and I tagged that on for laughs and irrelevant discussion (as is the following I’m not mad, but like to dabble in pedantry today):
But on that part, in the old days the dawkinsian meme was misappropriated to denote a specific image format. Of course it is a Dawkinsian one, too as it is a vector of ideas.
Then it got misappropriated again as ‘any funny image on the internet’, including microblogs, like you seen to defend. You then use the argument that it’s a meme in the Dawkinsian manner (and you’d be technically correct).
But using that logic anything in any medium is a meme. I could upload a Gilbert Gottfried narration of Atlas Shrugged, a clay tablet or the transcripts of all of money pythons movies and sketches. That would all be Dawkinsian memes, and debatebly funny, however not the kind the people here are interested in seeing.
So in in the camp ‘a meme means an image with caption’ and not micro blogs, otherwise anything goes.
I’m in the Dawkins definition of meme camp. Memes are a funny thing, pun intended. :)
The ‘not science’ part is what irked me and I tagged that on for laughs and irrelevant discussion (as is the following I’m not mad, but like to dabble in pedantry today):
But on that part, in the old days the dawkinsian meme was misappropriated to denote a specific image format. Of course it is a Dawkinsian one, too as it is a vector of ideas.
Then it got misappropriated again as ‘any funny image on the internet’, including microblogs, like you seen to defend. You then use the argument that it’s a meme in the Dawkinsian manner (and you’d be technically correct).
But using that logic anything in any medium is a meme. I could upload a Gilbert Gottfried narration of Atlas Shrugged, a clay tablet or the transcripts of all of money pythons movies and sketches. That would all be Dawkinsian memes, and debatebly funny, however not the kind the people here are interested in seeing.
So in in the camp ‘a meme means an image with caption’ and not micro blogs, otherwise anything goes.
Thanks for entertaining my diatribe.
Dawkin’s definition had nothing to do with humor. His definition was an idea that is spread through society. Its the intellectual equivalent to genes.