Talk:Meme/Archive 5

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Archive 1

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Archive 4

Archive 5

This edit on 7 June added the Environmentalism (eco-memes) section.

I think the section is out of place. The article is an attempt to explain what is meant by "meme", with some reference to how the concept has been developed and applied. The eco memes section is based on a book which describes memes in a section about how to influence people. The book does not appear to use "meme" in any academic sense (it's not commenting on whether the concept is valid; it's not using the concept for any explanation).

Three references are given. A note has been aded to the first two (GM crops and Earth pledge) to point out that they do not mention "meme". The third reference (chapter 16 of online book) includes the suggestion that Eco-Memes would be useful to promote better environmental behavior.

If the section is kept (I would be quite happy to see it removed), I think it should be significantly trimmed, and the first two references omitted. Any thoughts? Johnuniq (talk) 01:34, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

-- Agree, this section is not NPOV, and does not support a distinction between 'eco-memes' and 'memes'. all in all it seems arbitrary and not relevant to this article 83.108.205.27 (talk) 02:31, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

I see most of these article does not make clearly that this is purely a theory, but the term is being bandied about as if it is fact.--MacRusgail (talk) 21:03, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

Agreed.--Jesse (talk) 17:00, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

I think the following lines, all from the lead of the article, do a pretty good job of showing that the status of memes is still open to debate and discussion:

• A meme ... is a postulated unit or element of cultural ideas...
• Supporters of the concept regard memes...
• Meme-theorists contend that memes...

Also, when you say "theoretical" do you this in the strict scientific sense of theory, like Einstein's Theory of General Relativity, or do you mean it in the common everyday meaning, which should actually be hypothetical? Your whole comment means something radically different depending on how you mean "theoretical". Edhubbard (talk) 04:29, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

The theoretical terminology should be removed from the definition of 'meme' altogether, especially the word postulated. 'Meme' is a label we put on ideas that are communicated between minds. Since ideas obviously are transmitted between minds then memes exist by definition, this much is self-evident. It is not postulated that this is what memes are, this is what memes are because that's how the word is defined. The theoretical part only comes in when you start discussing how memes work, not whether they exist. Xep (talk) 02:35, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Um, ideas are transmitted by language, body language, non-responisivness etc. The idea that they are transmitted by minds is purely hypothetical. You may be using this to mean that all ideas come from the human mind, but this is not agreed upon to any degree as the article on qualia makes clear. We have essentially no scientific understanding as to how the human mind actually works beyond the facts of chemical interactions or electrical impulses. Besides which you say "'meme' is a label we put on ideas that are communicated between minds" the article itself says "A meme is a postulated unit of cultural ideas, symbols or practices, which can be transmitted from one mind to another through speech, gestures, rituals or other imitatable phenomena." This is close to what is generally accepted but much more complicated than your own definition, which is simply the idea that we transmit thought to some degree. The actual idea of memes that Dawkins puts forth is actally very controversial in and of itself, as the article on qualia shows there isn't even basic agreement on the nature of, or whether we actally possess, a conciousness per se. But even stating that there is a general, non-philosophical acceptance of the transmission of ideas Dawkins postulates is still very controversial as he states there are units of cultural ideas. Whether there are cultural ideas itself is theory as is the question of whether said theoretical cultural ideas are transmitted by units, as is the question of whether they can be transmitted, either individually or culturally, through symbolism, as is whether they can be transmitted, either idividually or culturally, through ritual. Since this concept is clearly controversial I am following WK guidelines which state "Editors should provide a reliable source for quotations, and for any material that is challenged or likely to be challenged, or the material may be removed". Therefore I am removing all material in the article without citations. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.251.148.55 (talk) 22:12, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

I'd like to point out that meme and cream don't necessarily rhyme. The Hiberno-English article reads: "In some highly conservative varieties, words spelled with ea and pronounced with [iː] in RP are pronounced with [eː], for example meat, beat." I assume this extends to the cream, that meme is said to rhyme with. Granted, most nowaday forms of English don't differentiate between "long" e and ea, but as long as the difference lives on, i don't like the idea of ignoring those who speak that way. --Leif Runenritzer (talk) 18:49, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

Please see Talk:Meme#Rhyming_with above. As you will note there, the choice of the word cream comes from Dawkins himself, so whatever variant of English he speaks, he expected the word meme to rhyme with his pronunciation of cream. Edhubbard (talk) 21:27, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

Also, per the reference given in the article, "meme" rhymes with "cream" because it is supposed to sound like "gene" (a very roughly similar concept). While a trivial issue, other pronunciations miss the point of what the word is about. Johnuniq (talk) 02:50, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

It should be noted that substantive criticism has come from those who criticize neodarwinism and it's adherents generally. Richard Lewontin an evolutionary geneticist, Tim Ingold a cultural anthropologist, and Rod Swenson an ecologist, for example have all independently criticized the notion of memes or selectionist theories of culture in their books articles and acedemic papers. Respectively a few of these works are Lewontin - "The Price of Metaphor", Ingold - "The poverty of selectionism", Ingold - "The perception of the environment: essays on dwelling livlihood and skill", and Swenson - "Evolutionary Theory Developing: The Problem(s) With Darwin's Dangerous Idea". Typically a rejection of memes comes from a skepticism or rejection about the use of computational and information theoretic metaphors in biology, cognition, and culture which is often argued as (computational metaphors about mind or culture) a continuation or an extension of Cartesian dualism. -- DivisionByZer0 (talk) 06:37, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

Similar to the notion of cultural objects, we can associate the linguistic concept of an universal language made of primitive atomic definitions, such as Leibniz's characteristica universalis, and also proposed by Descartes for a lexicon of an universal language.--Wcris (talk) 16:45, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

The word Meme to mean a repetition of a prayer, in the manner of the Rosary, something being repeated in order that it cannot be forgotten, is used in 1920s Catholic theological texts, so how did Dawkins invent it? Did he have a time machine? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.57.242.83 (talk • contribs) 11:21, 16 April 2010

Do you have a source verifying your statement? Does the meaning of "meme" in your source have anything to do with what Dawkins described? Also, bear in mind that there have been many cases where concepts or terms have been independently invented, so it is quite possible (and for a short word like "meme", even likely) that the term has been used for similar or different meanings by many different people. Johnuniq (talk) 05:04, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

So by your own argument it's wrong to assume he invented it because you have no clue.Mattbrown04 (talk) 19:34, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

Actually I was relying on the reliable source given as reference [1] in the article (and reference [2] although it now seems to be dead). Since [1] relies on Dawkins, I have added more details below. Note that any four-letter word is likely to have been uttered by someone at sometime, so it is quite possible that the suggestion above (that "meme" was used in 1920s Catholic theological texts) may be correct. Johnuniq (talk) 05:17, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

This topic has been raised before so I have done a little searching to dispel any doubt:

• A book search showing hundreds of sources saying that Dawkins invented/coined the word "meme" is here. Sample pages:
  • Virus of the Mind by Richard Brodie.
  • The meme machine by Susan J. Blackmore.
  • Varieties of meaning by Ruth Garrett Millikan.
• At reference.com, under the "Word Origin & History" for "meme" we read 1976, introduced by evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins in "The Selfish Gene" (1976), coined by him from Gk. sources, e.g. mimeisthai "to imitate," and intended to echo gene.

Later I will edit the article to add a reference. Johnuniq (talk) 05:17, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

At the time of writing, the article begins,

A meme is a unit of cultural ideas, symbols or practices

Does that actually mean anything? Can one have a unit of ideas? What does it mean, a unit of ideas? Is it legitimate to attempt to mathematise ideas by purporting that they can have a unit, as weight can have a unit, like a gram? It seems to me to be an illegitimate manoeuvre.

Is it being suggested that a unit of ideas (if such can exist) is the same as a unit of symbols (if that means anything), or the same as a unit of practices (if that means anything)? Does this make sense: 1 idea = 1 symbol = 1 practice? Or this: 23 ideas + 4 Symbols = 27 practices?

It is unclear to me that any of it makes a titter of sense. It smells of meaninglessness.

Does the word meme mean anything beyond such existing words as motif or trope? If the word meme is meaningful, and that is an open question, it is poorly served by the present attempted definition in this article.

The following sentence in the article tells us,

Supporters of the concept regard memes as cultural analogues to genes

Is it proper to try to cross-apply a concept from biology to the field of culture, trampling blindly but buoyed by insensitive, can-do optimism over the great differences that exist between the two spheres? Does that not mangle meaning and lead to misdirected thinking?

I note with bittersweet amusement that this article is categorised under,

• High-importance psychology articles
• Low-importance Philosophy articles
• C-Class philosophy of mind articles
• Philosophy of mind task force articles

Dear me, poor old meme, only a C-Class philosophy of mind article. But wait, it is a high-importance psychology article! What can it all mean (does it mean anything)? I love the Philosophy of Mind Task Force. I wait breathlessly for the Hermeneutics Commando Attack Unit and the Epistemology Elite Assault Command Reserve, and other giddy Pythonisms. --O'Dea (talk) 11:34, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Of course article talk pages are not intended to debate the merits of a topic, but I take it that you feel the article is not helpful. Some thoughts follow. If you look at Archive 4 for my comment dated 10:36, 25 March 2010 (third from the bottom), you will see how Dawkins wrote that the meme was merely to illustrate the general concept of a replicator (so, yes, there is a genuine attempt to apply a concept from biology). The article lead (second paragraph) includes examples from the book which convey the idea of a meme pretty well: if you work out how to build an arch, and I watch you do it, I will also be able to build an arch, and others can in turn learn from me. So something propagates. Some people have tried to extend this simple idea to explain a lot more about culture; I think those attempts have not been particularly successful so far (but my knowledge of that area is very sketchy). Johnuniq (talk) 11:36, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

But, I repeat, does "a unit of cultural ideas, symbols or practices" mean anything, and is it legitimate to "regard memes as cultural analogues to genes"? Whatever the merits or otherwise of the topic, the word meme has gained a substantial foothold so it deserves a clear explanation. The trouble may be, if the concept is inherently dodgy, that a sensible definition may be impossible. In any case, the opening of the article as it stands does not invite trust in the notion. --O'Dea (talk) 15:14, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

A meme might also be defined as an invented 'word' to promote the sale of pseudo-scientific books. Or would that be too cynical? Perhaps the idea of a 'selfish gene' might confer the same benefits on it's originator. Or is that too cynical, too? (Why not a selfish molecule, or selfish atom, or selfish fundamental particle, or selfish half-baked idea, one might be tempted to ponder...?) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.176.152.164 (talk • contribs) 21:19, 11 December 2010

No more please, see WP:NOTFORUM. Johnuniq (talk) 00:36, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

I agree with the guy here. The sentence

A meme is a unit of cultural ideas, symbols or practices

is utter meaninglessness.

It's basically an attempt to make the topic sound intelligent when it's not. It's not in the spirit of science (though that's clearly the intention), which is to say thing as they are, with no nonsense. I came onto this discussion page to say that; I'm glad others agree with me. 86.41.77.237 (talk) 23:13, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

"(The etymology of the term relates to the Greek word μιμητισμός (/mɪmetɪsmos/) for "something imitated".)[2] " μιμητισμός would be either /mɪme:tɪsmɔs/ in Ancient Greek or /mimitiz'mos/ in Modern Greek (preferred). I can't edit the article though. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Meidei (talk • contribs) 21:48, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

I think there need to be separate articles on "Meme" and "Memetics", but the parallel with "Gene" and "Genetics" is not, I feel, a correct one (it's a contested claim made by memetics advocates, who argue that memes literally exist as physical phenomena). I suggest that most of the Dawkins-inspired theorising goes to Memetics to avoid a content fork, while this page is shorter and deals with the use of "meme" in a variety of places (including Dawkins, but also the far less contested usage of the word as in "internet meme"). What this article calls "meme theory" is in fact memetics.VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 05:13, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

Well, you're plunging into a kind of cultural divide here because "meme" as in the Dawkins' meme vs. gene analogy is institutionally and academically sourced whereas the meme as shorthand for "hip backstory-loaded internet catchphrase gone viral" has some catching up to do in reliable sources. Wikipedia is conservative in this respect...it's not cutting edge in terms of cultural content, it's cutting edge in terms of cultural content now made available in a "free encyclopedia". Professor marginalia (talk) 05:37, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

I appreciate that there is a sourcing bias here, but can you see that there is a content fork? (In particular in the "criticism of meme theory" section.) Part of the problem, as far as I can see it, is the back and forth borrowing from authority (sociologists citing Dawkins, memeticists citing Darwin and the internet), so that the difference between meme as viral catchphrase, and meme as cultural gene (in the modern evolutionary sense) becomes blurred in the literature. Meme in one sense is not contested by scholars, meme in the other sense clearly is. How this is expressed on wiki while avoiding OR seems to me the biggest issue. Yet as it stands, the wiki page on memes reads as if it's basically Dawkins' version - which is what the page on memetics should be about. VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 06:05, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

Dawkins didn't do much if any work in memetics. He opened the door to the field--he didn't do any work at all in it, so far as I'm aware. Professor marginalia (talk) 06:10, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

Well, he lent his authority to the Journal of Memetics, was pretty clear that the meme-gene comparison was analogous, not metaphorical, and is seen by many writers as the founder of modern memetics. But that's beside the point - the problem is how the two pages should have information about memes spread across them without there being POV, forking or OR. Strictly speaking, if an RS author claims they are following the more literal memetics view, we have to say they are, even if they're patently not, and critiques of memetics wouldn't begin to touch on their research. That is, the debate on memetics is hard to separate from the use of "memes" as a word, but it would be a pity if we can't make some headway in doing so.VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 06:36, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

As "genes" and "genetics" are related but actually not the same, the meme and memetics articles should make this clear. Memetics was intended to develop scientific methods to scientifically examine memes. As "gene" and "genetics" have separate articles, that's the relevant comparison. You can't separate genetics from genes, ....., analogy being--. Unfortunately this article tends to accrete the kind of catchphrase meme bits that nobody is analogizing to genes or studying with memetics. There is the internet meme article which may be a better place to develop a good article about hot pop memes typically catching on today. Professor marginalia (talk) 07:04, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Professor marginalia. I do not know, but my suspicion is that memetics is not likely to produce any useful results in the near future, and while there is an analogy with genetics, the latter is of course based on observed objects and has been very successful in real-world predictions. Nevertheless, memetics exists and an article on it is appropriate. Dawkins had some good ideas when he introduced the term "meme" (see my comment above dated 11:36, 16 July 2010 for a quick summary of my understanding of what Dawkins wrote), and the meme concept was widely examined long before pop culture attempted to assimilate "meme" to refer to things like viral videos. Accordingly, I believe separate articles are appropriate, and see no reason to introduce further commentary on Internet memes here. Johnuniq (talk) 08:48, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

Hold on - I'm not suggesting that there should not be two articles, nor that we fork material from internet meme. I am suggesting that we move material on what this article calls "meme theory" into memetics, and therefore be clearer about the difference between meme in general and memetics in particular. Reading this article, one would get the impression that "meme theory" (i.e. memetics) is part and parcel of understanding what a meme is. The first paragraph on transmission is right out of memetics, and stated as fact when memetics is contested. "Evolutionary influences on memes" is clearly memetics. The "criticism of meme theory" is criticism of memetics, not memes per se. I think this article should be shorter, and such theories based on the modern evolutionary synthesis that purport to describe how memes mutate, transmit and affect their hosts should be put over to memetics. (The material here is better written than on the memetics page too).

Johnuniq, I think your understanding of what Dawkins was saying (and people like Blackmore and Dennett followed up on) is not as radical as he seems to have confirmed in his later statements (I think I had a similar understanding to you until I read further). It's not that some ideas can spread in a similar way to genes (replication, mutation, affecting hosts's chances of survival and thus its own survival), it's that all ideas, theories, cultural artefacts in general spread like this, and that they do so by literally parasitising brains. It wasn't a metaphor for understanding genes, but a statement about socio-cultural development. It's a kind of grand theory. I'm keen to separate out this slightly fringey grand theory (how many social scientists or psychologists go along with it at all?) from the general material on memes. By all means this page should cover what is meant by a meme in memetics, but it's currently doing far more than that.

It is my understanding that the original structure of wikipedia was to have a simple definition in the beginning to be followed by the in depth definition and back story. What I see here is that the beginning is so complicated by unnecessarily complex wording that the average person can make neither heads nor tails of it. We don't want to make wikipedia an encyclopedia for only the college educated. We want it for both the educated and the common man. Could we reword the beginning to make it more palatable? e.g. [ A meme... is a postulated memory-carried gene-like element for behavior imitation.] could more clearly be written [A meme ... is a memory that exhibits some behavior similar to genes. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sack36 (talk • contribs) 00:36, 18 December 2010

I agree that many articles are too pompous and could be written more helpfully, particularly in the introduction. However, I do not know a good way to say what a meme is, even in a lengthy paragraph, so we need suggestions (which should be based on reliable sources). Your suggestion above (a meme is a memory...) may not use "memory" correctly. Johnuniq (talk) 02:29, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

Very true, this whole article is one big waffle... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.196.104.6 (talk) 17:31, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

"and such a reduction as failing to produce greater understanding of those ideas." And such a reduction as failing to produce? I can't make heads or tails of what that means. I suggest the person who wrote it rewrite it. GeneCallahan (talk) 11:06, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

By the way, the fact that Godwin's "law" is being suggested as an instance of "applied memetic engineering" shows just how thin is the intellectual ice upon which this subject skates! GeneCallahan (talk) 11:09, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

Examples, examples. This article desperately needs examples of memes. Examples are a powerful tool for helping people to understand, or at least form their own mental map of, concepts which are complex or vaguely defined. Memes appear to be a classically vague concept!

Perhaps some of the people who have written so much about memes in the article would like to add one or two examples of what they consider to be memes. With this the nature and extent of the world of memes would slowly become clearer to the rest of us.

I suggest that a new section, 'Examples of memes', be introduced near the top of the article (I would suggest between the current sections 'Concept' and 'Transmission'). It should not be long. Some 20 or 30 memes from different cultural areas should probably suffice.

Cricobr (talk) 11:23, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Yes, but any examples must be sourced to appropriate academic works. Possibly some less-than-scholarly sources might be acceptable if they were highly reliable and had a significant analysis of the topic (not just have you heard...? commentary). Johnuniq (talk) 04:38, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

We already have some examples from Dawkins' own book in the lead ("melodies, catch-phrases, fashion, and the technology of building arches"), and have "[Dawkins] pointed to melodies, fashions and learned skills as examples" in the "Concept" section. This seems a clear enough set of examples, and I don't think the article would gain much by giving a more specific list of some actual melodies or skills. If the literature has a good example of a meme that has changed over time, though, it might be worth putting that in. --McGeddon (talk) 08:07, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

I changed the definition from:

unit of social information.

to

an idea, behavior, or style that spreads from person to person within a culture.

the webster's dictionary definition.[2]

A unit of social information? What does that mean? unit of what? Talk about being so vague that the definition is meaningless. Only Wikipedia, only tehcnical pages are worse than word definition pages. Errectstapler (talk) 22:02, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

The meme is phoney. There should not be an article on this pseudo-scientific rubbish. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.97.194.200 (talk) 15:40, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

The text recently added on John Gray (diff) is a little undue. The criticism is fine, but an article should not include two long quotes unless the work is of great significance (and noted as such in reliable sources). If someone gets around to fixing it, the correct links are: John Gray and Straw Dogs. Johnuniq (talk) 04:29, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

Why is the introductory paragraph, "A meme is an idea, behavior or style that spreads from person to person within a culture . . ." when the body of the article discusses meme as Dawkins coined it, which has nothing whatsoever to do with ideas or beliefs?

Maybe there should be a split, such as "meme (genetics) or meme (sociology). This article is clearly about meme (biology), not ideas. 174.3.161.217 (talk) 06:35, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

I agree that there's a problem. It's not biology versus sociology, though, it's meme versus memetics. The former accords with the definition at the top of this article, the latter is a theory of how ideas and cultures changed inspired by Dawkins' suggestion. That is, it's a sociological theory thought up mainly by a few natural scientists. The former is noncontroversial in its usage, the latter is considered by some to be pseudoscience. I'd support a cleaner separation.VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 07:19, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

Only to fill a gap in utilitarians' perception, the meme was invented. How on earth is it possible for such useless art, to persist in a daily struggle for existence. Dawkins, stuck to English tradition, was of course far away from not putting bold question marks in it's many gaps, but behind the whole utilitarianism. Apart from anglo-saxon learnedness the meme theory is hard to understand, because the problems are missing for which it is trying to give answers. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.192.108.109 (talk) 10:13, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

You're talking about Memetics more than Memes as such - and there are lots of anglo-saxons who find it problematic too. In any case, you're discussing your own opinions, whereas on Wikipedia we discuss other people's opinions. VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 14:21, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

Pseudo-scientific attempts have been made to apply the methods of science to psychology for many years. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.27.109.117 (talk) 17:45, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

Please discuss the reasons for removing the sections, as "offending" is not a valid reason, Wikipedia does not censor information that may be considered "offensive". - SudoGhost 14:06, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

This article is now semi-protected for 3 weeks, since the contributions from anonymous editors in recent history has not been constructive. They are welcome to comment here. ~Amatulić (talk) 14:10, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

This section suffers particularly from the general problem on this page of confusing memes (a well-established name for ideas that spread quickly) with memetics, which is a fringe theory of how/why ideas and ideologies spread and develop. I suggest moving a lot of it to memetics as an example of people trying to employ memetics to analyse ideological development. That page is basically history plus criticism, without any illustration of people using it.VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 03:23, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

I do not have the profound philosophical nor biological foundations authors clearly have and so I have to agree that this very sublime and immaterial subject urgently needs EXAMPLES of how people, rather than whales, have been trying to take advantage of this concept, and keeping one of Wikipedia Columns - the one of notability - as strong as possible even here, providing&supplying both the examples where the notion 'meme' worked properly and those when it failed. I have commented on Set Theory the same way somme time aago - examples are vitaly necessary. Secondly, the transmission section, in fact critical for the practical use of the concept, may be a good thing to make the article less confusing if memes were moved to memetics. Moreover, we would add the hierarchical aspect to the information and this is always helpful when a human being (and maybe robots as well) wants to get things clear finding explantion in Wikipedia: let us not underestimate the crucial meanining of source-target one direction stream and its hierarchical features of how html works and it seems to have been working perfectly for wikipedia so far.
--Capekm (talk) 00:35, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

I was just thinking the exact same thing about the whole article. Parts of it are about memes and parts are about memetics, with no clear distinctions about which one is being discussed. Some of it is very confusing. I will try to work on it when I have time, but it is not my field of expertise and might be easier for someone with more interest/knowledge in the subject.

I just edited a sentence that said "Advocates of the meme idea say that memes may evolve by natural selection in a manner analogous to that of biological evolution" - what exactly are "advocates of the meme idea"?? I changed it to "proponents theorize", but perhaps it should actually be "proponents of memetics theorize"? There are numerous other examples like this. -MsBatfish (talk) 04:53, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Which simply proves the necessity to move parts into memetics. Considder people using Wikipedia worldwide who do not speak English as their mother language. There is little consolation saying we can have our Wiki in all languages of the world for the foundantions have been laid in English as should be as firm as possiblee.--Capekm (talk) 00:35, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

This is the citation to support whales being added as an animal that learn how to sing by imitating their parents or neighbor. I don't know how to do the citation in text though. http://www.cell.com/current-biology/abstract/S0960-9822%2811%2900291-0 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Robotman666 (talk • contribs) 04:02, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

well you are right and they are so hard to find at times --Capekm (talk) 00:35, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

Hey guys, I was just reading over this article and thought the usage of the term 'better' in the passage "Thus "better" memes are selected" in the concept section is poor lexical choice. In this sense 'better' reflects more able to reproduce and spread, relative to a particular environment, which seems more precisely covered by the concept of fitness. 'Better' on the other hand, comes with a certain amount of conceptual baggage. It could conceivably relate to other qualities such as the extent to which the meme in question conforms to standards of proof, allows for a more accurate interpretation of events or processes or a closer correspondence to reality etc. though these are clearly at odds with the intended usage.

I am sorry if i sound like a pendant, but i do think the distinction is important and should be stressed at every opportunity. For example, within a context of inter-group conflict, memes relating to strong identification with in-group goals, biases in the positive perception of the behavior of ones group and hostility toward outsiders would seem to be out-compete memes emphasizing personal accountability, the tolerance of difference and the potential inter-group cooperation in the pursuit of shared goals to improve the situation. And yet aside from their capability to reproduce within this given environment, it is hard to argue that the more successful memes are 'better', especially as such memes see capable of generating increasing hostility, violence and barbaric behavior.

I haven't made the change, as I am a new contributor uninterested in unintentionally aggravating anyone

Skankenstein (talk) 19:13, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Yes, what you say is correct—that is why better is in scare quotes. An improvement would be good (feel free to try editing), but bear in mind that we don't write an article based on our interpretations (that would be original research); instead, all information must be verifiable. It may be possible to tweak the wording a bit without requiring a reference, but fundamentally no concepts should be introduced unless it is highly likely that a reference could be found for verification, if needed. If pressed, I might re-read the section in The Selfish Gene to see what Dawkins wrote—that would be a good starting point for that paragraph. Johnuniq (talk) 00:59, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Ummm... i fail to see how the distinction between fitness and better could be considered 'original research'or even a new concept. In fact, the following transmission section seems to outline the difference quite well. The example was intended for this page to illuminate the difference. Anyway, i will have a go at rewording the concept section in line with what i proposed, limiting myself to small changes in lexical choice aimed at removing loaded terms...99.224.234.141 (talk) 02:57, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

This very small section "Internet culture" (2 lines; a bit too small... however there is a link to a full page "Internet meme") has a little flaw which should be corrected as it seems to me rather weird and unprofessional (weird also that one can't correct this very secondary item directly and has to create a whole new discussion section for that, 10 times longer than the 2 lines which should be corrected ! so this is an opportunity to expand the subject here....)

(i) the 1st problem is the rather improper or misleading small reference to a USA-today article note n°39...

this rather inept and second class USA-Today's article has almost nothing to do with the subject of "Internet memes", except between brackets 14 words of a very quick definition, probably found in various dictionaries, of the word (Internet) "meme", words which are unhappily rather improperly quoted here, while on the other hand, one may think that ref. n°39 corresponds to the whole 2 lines of this § "Internet culture" and even worse and waste of time to a whole article about the subject of "Internet meme" (one will immediately understand my point in reading the following true full quote copied from this USA-Today's article about stupid products sold nowadays on eBay) (quote, USA-Today) ...they want to be the next Internet meme." (A meme is a concept, catchphrase or byword that spreads from person to person —in other words, such eBayers are hoping to invent the next mood ring or "Whassssssup")...(unquote, that's all there is about "meme" in this brief article !) At least one should just write the proper definition, and not more, in relation to ref. n°39 such as (my suggestion of a correction, in using the present sentence in the "meme" page; between [] extra comments):

Internet culture

Main article: Internet meme

The term "Internet meme" refers to (quote)"a concept, catchphrase or byword that spreads from person to person"(unquote) [then HERE put the ref. to ref. n°39 ...but is it really worth quoting -and advertising for- USA-Today for these 6 words which don't even mention the term "Internet" ?!] through Internet-based email, blogs, forums, Imageboards, social networking sites, instant messaging, video streaming sites, etc. [one can erase the reference to YouTube here, a company which doesn't deserve here any specific advertising !].

(ii) beyond these very minimalist corrections suggested here above, one (who would be allowed to write on this "meme" page !) should find a better reference, if ever need be, than this USA-Today page !, or a better definition. It would be in particular very interesting for a lot of people (it was the goal of my search in fact) to understand why and when exactly this same word "meme" originally a complex intellectual concept (and controversial as one can see with the protection of this page !) has flourished, often mispronounced, in the geek and social network cultures... Just quoting a 2007 sub-sentence from USA-today doesn't respond to any serious enquiry ! Wikipedia deserves better. However things might not even be so easy and simple... (i.e. the possible link between "Internet meme" and Dawkins'meme concept)... when one read the long and inflamed discussions at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Internet_meme !

(iii) beyond this beyond, it seems there could also be another, more obscure and complex dimension, far less superficial and possibly more interesting, to the "Internet culture" dimension describe here of the "meme" concept... but which curiously does not seem to be discussed or presented anywhere, except through 2-3 weird links found at the end of this "meme" page !? It appears -and came to my mind ...almost by chance- in following these curious links found at the end of the page, links which are obviously related to Internet -links on the present "meme" page in the § "See also" -: in particular one link leading to "viral marketing" and another to the book "Electronic revolution"... Someone put these links but however with no explanations or mention in the § Internet culture or anywhere else in the page (well maybe I didn't read carefully)...  ?! Reciprocally the page concerning the book "The Electronic revolution" leads back in § "See also" to "meme" and "memetics" ...and also "tabula rasa" (a whole new and very interesting concept -i.e. not mentioned here in this "meme page", even it seems a concept also possibly related to Dawkins' "meme" concept apparently, at least through this reverse linkage !?) Well, this could open (our eyes to) a whole new field of investigations -or studies ?-, related to Dawkins' "meme" concept in relation to the study of the social impacts of mass media (and possible manipulation of masses and of cultures through the use of mass media, advertising -including Internet-... in using the "mimetic" aspect of the transmission of these mass cultures, ...possibly going back to Adorno & co., etc. etc.) well, it seems there is matter here, if ever not done yet -but it is, most probably- for a full PhD thesis, or serious book here, ...or at least on Wikipedia to a new large § concerning "meme" and "Internet" ...and not just a page about this superficial concept of "Internet meme" in use on the Web often wrongly pronounced and apparently created/used mainly by digital natives or computer geeks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cestmoicestmoi (talk • contribs) 14:36, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

All paragraphs before

"the word meme originated with Dawkins' 1976"...

in the section Origins are bordering to WP:OR/WP:SYNTH or outright so. AFAIK Dawkins invented the word "meme" to sound like gene, and all others, "mnemes" and such, are unrelated unless Dawkins says so. Rursus dixit. (^mbork³!) 22:15, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Except possibly what John Laurent claims, but I honestly doubt those claims, because he seems to speak some kind of off-topic matter. Rursus dixit. (^mbork³!) 22:20, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

I agree. No doubt people had speculated about related concepts before Dawkins wrote The Selfish Gene, but there is no reason to doubt what Dawkins wrote in that book, and certainly no secondary source which claims otherwise. Laurent's claims are just speculation. I wonder if some alternative title like "Precursors" or "Related concepts" might avoid the issue, although it would still be borerline SYNTH where editors add what they think are related ideas. Johnuniq (talk) 00:39, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

I also agree. Basically, everything before "The word meme originated with Dawkins' 1976..." should be deleted as WP:OR/[[WP:SYNTH]. 70.126.129.223 (talk) 00:55, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Same here. Unless the "shortening" is explicitly expressed by some source with regards to the development of the word meme, it should be removed. As is, I don't even find it believable because "meme" in "mimeme" isn't even pronounced the same. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.180.38.20 (talk) 14:59, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

I propose to add a sub-section titled "Archaeology of the meme metaphor". In chapter 11 of his book The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood (2011), James Gleick shows that the description of information as a living organism was already in the air a few years before Dawkins coined the word meme. He cites this phrase from Jacques Monod, ″the Parisian biologist who shared the Nobel Prize for working out the role of messenger RNA in the transfer of genetic information″: ″Ideas have retained some of the properties of organisms. Like them, they tend to perpetuate their structure and to breed; they too can fuse, recombine, segregate their content; indeed they too can evolve, and in this evolution selection must surely play an important role.″^[1] In a somewhat looser way, language had already been compared to a virus a few years before, according to Kenneth Mondschein: ″Dawkins's insight was presaged by William S. Burroughs's observation that "language is a virus from outer space" ^[2]. In 1938, H.G. Wells described his revolutionary project of a world encyclopaedia as a living thing: "It can have at once the concentration of a craniate animal and the diffused vitality of an amoeba."^[3]Codex26 (talk) 07:36, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

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It should be respelled or pronounced to me-me or mimi

Mintteafresh1 (talk) 22:57, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

Many people do not know how "meme" should be pronounced, but as an encyclopedia, the pronunciation given is correct and reliably sourced. This article discusses the encyclopedic meaning of "meme". Johnuniq (talk) 23:37, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

If the spreading of memes or mimemes could be delegated to an Austin-Powers-inspired "Mini-Me", would that generate minimemes, minimimemes, minimememes, or minimemimemes? 89.144.192.225 (talk) 21:35, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

I'm unsure as to how useful the "Potential lack of philosophical depth" section under criticisms is. The criticism is attributed only to a single author, Dieter Lohmar, who does not appear to be overly notable. It also strikes me as very much a pop-science rather than real science, though perhaps this is merely the way that it is rendered here and the original work presents its criticism more robustly. 203.173.33.126 (talk) 15:49, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

This falls under the undue weight rule. A mention by a philosopher in a chapter of a book about phenomenology, with no other references, is not notable enough to include in the article, much less get its own section.. --George100 (talk) 12:28, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

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In the section about Internet culture, reddit.com should be added as an example, because it is a major source of most internet memes.

Nerfherder32 (talk) 04:32, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

I don't think that is needed here as this is supposed to be an encyclopedic article about a real topic (which is not Internet memes), and should not be used (particularly without reliable sources) to list examples or websites that are only tenuously connected. Johnuniq (talk) 04:48, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

I suspect that the term meme has part of its origin in the term morpheme, which is a linguistic unit, a sound segment that has meaning. The root of morpheme is morph as in metamorphosis. That leaves the suspected suffix -eme, which may have become a quasi-generative suffix.(EnochBethany (talk) 17:59, 23 September 2012 (UTC))

The most successful meme („Ideology“) of all times was perhaps „Jewish culture“, because all other cultures directly or indirectly depend of it: christians, muslims, protestants, capitalists, communists, Marxists, fascists, Nazis, Hollywood cinema, etc. etc. --- and no body has understood so far that he is just a slave of this silly 2000-year old Jewish tradition, because all “humans” are under the unconscious influence of these “jewish memes” (political correctness)! (Even the word “meme” may have been coined by a Jew) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.0.125.208 (talk) 21:10, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

I have just now run across this article and must say that, after reading through it, I have only the vaguest notion of what a "meme" is. Perhaps this material is understandable and useful to professional sociologists or psychologists, but given Wikipedia's intended layperson audience, I think that the article could, and should, be made more understandable. For example, I did not notice any example of a "meme" in the article. Perhaps there is one that I missed, but there is certainly not one in the introduction. Examples are the main way that people learn new material. I say this based both on general knowledge and on five years of experience as a full-time, college-level educator. If anyone is in a position to add one or more examples of a "meme," then I think that doing so would make the article much improved. ChicagoDilettante (talk) 22:45, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

The second paragraph of the lead section contains the sentence "Examples of memes given in the book included melodies, catch-phrases, fashion and the technology of building arches.", which seems plain enough. The article itself also gives the examples of tool-making, hammering a nail and religious prohibitions. --McGeddon (talk) 23:11, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

I don't want to intrude in an area I don't really work with much. However, I do not think that the referenced sentence gives concrete, specific examples of memes, nor am I sure, after reading this sentence, what a meme really is. (Is it ALL melodies, catch-phrases, etc.? Or just those that spread virally?) If I DO understand what a "meme" is, and that's a big "if," then perhaps the sentence could be rewritten to read something like "For example, fashion is a meme because it tends to spread from influential design houses in New York and Paris to knockoff makers to urban areas and, thus, permeates society. Similarly, catch-phrases can be memes, as in 'my bad,' which started with youth culture and now has been copied by others and spread through North American English-speaking culture." That (if indeed it's even correct) would give concrete examples that would make clear to the uninitiated what a meme is. ChicagoDilettante (talk) 23:33, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

You mentioned interest in examples of memes. This might help. http://www.aleph.se/Trans/Cultural/Memetics/metamem.txt Keith Henson (talk) 05:25, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

Major examples from China: http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2012/12/19/the-top-10-chinese-internet-memes-of-2012/ — Charles Edwin Shipp (talk) 16:06, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

To quote: "If 2011 was the year social media arrived as a force in Chinese culture and politics, then 2012 was the year social media supercharged one of contemporary China’s finest forms of cultural and political expression: the Internet meme. To be sure, the Chinese Internet has been a fertile producer of memes for quite some time."

More links at the end of this article, including a Chinese cheerleaders meme. [3] — Charles Edwin Shipp (talk) 16:30, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

Obviously meme and Zeitgeist are related terms. The Zeitgeist could be considered to be made up of the popular memes. Perhaps some (exalted) reliable SECONDary source has said so. A quick google brought up a number of sites that relate these terms, more or less. (EnochBethany (talk) 17:49, 23 September 2012 (UTC))

'Zeit' is time in German and 'Geist' is something like spirit or feeling (I think.) You may be aware that Tina Brown says that the end of her Newsweek magazine is because it did not keep up with the spirit of the time (or some such sentiment.) [4] You should read this very interesting article where 'meme' is used only once. Here are some quotes:

• "Ben Smith, editor-in-chief of Buzzfeed, a website with a mission to capture, shape, and echo back the many fleeting obsessions mined from the millions upon millions of regular people who populate Twitter and Facebook, jokes that talk of Zeitgeist is above his pay grade. But he said: "Ideas and phrases and memes that capture the moment still can and do spread widely, but they don't need a launch pad or a resting place."
• "In other words, there's no need for a Newsweek to explain What It All Means (serious capital letters included), when so many of us are doing so constantly and fluidly online."
• "This social conversation has always driven what used to be called the Zeitgeist," Smith continues. "You couldn't always see its component parts. It required these big, clear statements to make it visible. Now that conversation is always visible. What we're talking about is an elite conversation. Zeitgeist is an elevated word for it. Now it's on Twitter." — Charles Edwin Shipp (talk) 16:17, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

I've found refs from the 1990s: [5], [6], [7], [8], [9]. We can use them here and on the memetics article, since it looks like they don't use these refs yet. There's quite a lot of info that can be used to expand the article. - M0rphzone (talk) 01:23, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

--- I'm not sure how helpful this will be, but near the end of the section headed, 'transmission:' "Researchers have observed memetic copying in just a few species on Earth, including hominids, dolphins and birds (that learn how to sing by imitating their parents or neighbors).[14]" it's cited (14) which i believe was from 1990 and is outdated at best and at worst nonsense. hominids and birds are not species. and there are a slew of species that are referred to as vocal mimics as well as other types of behavioral mimics. my point is the number of species transmitting memes are not to be counted as a "few." i'll find a good resource, but in the mean time, i think the previously quoted line should be deleted, as it would remove incorrect and/or old information and take nothing away from an excellent article that i assume is gaining views every day. 184.57.80.152 (talk) 03:52, 31 January 2013 (UTC) 1/30/2013 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.57.80.152 (talk) 03:49, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

It was poorly phrased (may well have been me who wrote it) and I've deleted it. Unfortunately, it appeared when I last tried to find appropriate references that the nascent science of memes seemed not to have progressed so much as it had been abandoned. As a result a lot of the claims from these aging references can go unchallenged. (Wikipedia's prohibition against engaging in original research prevents editors from assembling or disassembling such claims based our own assessments of published research findings unless the authors themselves made direct ties to the topic at hand-as in this case, memes). Professor marginalia (talk) 06:57, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

On Twitter, @RichardDawkins commented today:

"Wikipedia entry on 'Meme' is excellent: long, thorough, accurate, fair. http://bit.ly/cJbvdg . It allots one sentence to 'Internet meme'" [10]

"It is very good that Wikipedia also gives a page to 'Internet Meme'. Internet memes are arguably the most important subset of memes today" [11]

Regards, HaeB (talk) 04:52, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

A picture of a meme is worth a thousand words about meme. Start with a good 'internet meme'. I'm good with suggestions and words, but not with finding the best internet meme and putting it in here. Suggestions? The cheerleaders from China gets a vote from me. [12] — Charles Edwin Shipp (talk) 16:38, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

Actually, I'm sure there are better examples. Cheerleaders are creating formations all the time but do they represent a movement? How about activities at the mall? How about Tim Tebow? http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/tebowing — Is 'Tebowing' the most famous meme ? — Charles Edwin Shipp (talk) 15:33, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

Huh, I'd always pronounced it 'me-me' on the basis that all the memes prevalent on the internet seem to be about getting attention, and thus "me! me!" You learn something every day. 92.7.83.115 (talk) 16:57, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

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Legacy150 (talk) 16:14, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

Not done: please be more specific about what needs to be changed. Vacation9 17:06, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

Phrase: "As a factual criticism, Benitez-Bribiesca...": 'factual criticism'; perhaps 'In particular,"? Jamesthecat (talk) 02:32, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

This has only one very short paragraph, outlining the history of the term. It needs an outline of the development of the theory, how it started, how it has developed, who has contributed to it, what books have been published, etc. Jamesthecat (talk) 02:32, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

The table of contents is somewhat unsystematic.

Firstly, there's no need for a heading, then a single subheading containing all the content of the heading: "1 History 1.1 Origins".

Secondly, after the sections: "2 Concept 3 Transmission 4 Memes as discrete units 5 Evolutionary influences on memes 6 Memetics 7 Criticism of meme theory 7.1 Applications" are the sections: "8 Religion 9 Memetic explanations of racism 10 Architectural memes 11 Internet culture"

It would be better to have something along the lines of: 1 History 2 Concept 2.1 Outline 2.2 Transmission 3 Applications 3.1 Religion 3.2 Architecture 4 Proponents 5 Criticism

Jamesthecat (talk) 03:15, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

"Dawkins used the term to refer to any cultural entity that an observer might consider a replicator." -not very clear Jamesthecat (talk) 03:15, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

"Malcolm Gladwell wrote," "Adam McNamara has suggested"

-it is not clear who these people are. The reader could look them up, but it would then be outside the context of the peice. There needs to be a 'History of the Idea" section, with those reference outside of such a section mentioned in it, along with their relevance to the topic. Jamesthecat (talk) 03:15, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

This is a good section, but flaps around a bit. It should begin with the motivation for discussing it, e.g. "Fred notes that the concept of the Meme has an assumption of cultural quantisation. He notes that a gene is a descrete unit, and this idea of culture being formed from such units is imported from genetics...", and then go on to outline the proponents and critics of such a position.

The section begins with a list of different definitions, and does not clarify how they developed, how the proponents argued for or against the different definitions, or again how the proponents fit into the scheme of the theory's development.

"The inability to pin an idea or cultural feature to quantifiable key units is widely acknowledged as a problem for memetics." -'widely acknowledged' by who? Jamesthecat (talk) 03:15, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

This starts off well, as it begins with the idea's originator:

"Richard Dawkins noted..."

"Unlike genetic evolution, memetic evolution can show both Darwinian and Lamarckian traits." The section starts to loose referencing here. (Also, there are occasional Lamarkian traits in genetic evolution; hence the rise of 'epigenesis': this needs clarifying.)Jamesthecat (talk) 03:15, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

Despite what it says in the talk section, it might be worth merging the sections and simply focus on improving the one section.

"Fracchia and Lewontin regard memetics as reductionist and inadequate.[28]" It needs to be outlined why they think this.Jamesthecat (talk) 03:15, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

This whole article veers towards original research; "*Quote from more artistic works themselves — books, films and popular media — for more direct examples to make it more easly comprehensible or illustrative, etc." might take it closer.Jamesthecat (talk) 03:25, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

John D. Gottsch seems to have been born in about 1950. His qualifications are in ophthalmology. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.27.109.117 (talk) 10:31, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

Susan Blackmore does not mention atheist texts, such as those of Marx. In general, the whole article is just a lot of pseudo-scientific atheist drivel. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.27.109.117 (talk) 10:34, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

Upon further consideration, I'm not at all convinced that this article (or the study of the topic it covers) is "drivel" of any type. Anyone who believes the study of memetic evolution is pseudo-scientific simply because memes don't necessarily require a sort of permanent physical medium has apparently never played Chinese whispers with its mutations, variations, and all.

"An objection to the study of the evolution of memes in genetic terms (although not to the existence of memes) involves a perceived gap in the gene/meme analogy: the cumulative evolution of genes depends on biological selection-pressures neither too great nor too small in relation to mutation-rates. There seems no reason to think that the same balance will exist in the selection pressures on memes."

False.

Counter Example: If Sally says something to Betty about Jane that is so scandalously unlikely as to be ridiculous then Betty could ignore Sally's remark and selectively choose to not pass it along, and the meme effectively dies. By contrast, if Sally says something to Betty about Jane that is so blasé as to provide no benefit in promulgating the news, then she could again ignore the news and selectively choose to not pass it along, and again the meme effectively dies. But if Sally says something to Betty about Jane that is realistically possible, probable even, and Betty sees an opportunity to benefit from passing it along, then she could choose to do so, and the meme would propagate.

"As a factual criticism, Benitez-Bribiesca points to the lack of a "code script" for memes (analogous to the DNA of genes), and to the excessive instability of the meme mutation mechanism (that of an idea going from one brain to another), which would lead to a low replication accuracy and a high mutation rate, rendering the evolutionary process chaotic."

Who ever said that evolutionary processes had to be orderly? On the contrary, history and science has shown us that they're almost always quite the opposite.

"British political philosopher John Gray has characterized Dawkins' memetic theory of religion as "nonsense" and "not even a theory... the latest in a succession of ill-judged Darwinian metaphors", comparable to Intelligent Design in its value as a science."

That's certainly not a fair comparison. Intelligent design is viewed as a pseudoscience by the scientific community, because it lacks empirical support, offers no tenable hypotheses, and aims to describe natural history in terms of scientifically untestable supernatural causes. Memetics, on the other hand, easily lends itself to testable hypotheses that are so easy to think up that even Hollywood television show writers can think them up. Honestly, if you don't think that good ideas spread quickly when they bestow an advantage on their carriers, then you probably shouldn't ever hope to specialize in intellectual property law.

Memetics certainly is an interesting vehicle by which to study religion. Religion is all about individual ideas or behaviors propagating for some perceived benefit, viz. reduced suffering, eternal salvation, or something similar. Thousands of years ago, before the time of modern scientific understanding of most common natural phenomena, the world probably seemed like a scary place to many. Accepted religious memes may have provided some sense of peace of mind, unity, and safety in numbers from such scary phenomena. As science advances, old untenable memes would (presumably) be discarded in favor of more likely explanations. Remember that ideas should work for people, not the other way around. The interesting aspect of religious memes, is that their carriers are not always entirely rational, and will actually work to protect the ideas, rather than the other way around, even when those ideas have been empirically falsified and may even disadvantage their biological fitness and ability to reproduce genetically (think martyrs, suicide bombers, and the celibacy of Shakers). Furthermore, carriers will often "agree" on certain religious ideas, even when others are in conflict. For example, if you say to two Christians "Jesus saves" they'll surely agree, but if you say "Presbyterianism is the correct path to salvation", then surely the Congregationalists will disagree, even when neither has any falsifiable proof. Memetics is a great way to study the propagation of religion, because religion is all about the point-by-point transmission of individual ideas that can also clump together into bigger ideas. I would also be interested to see this article discuss the role of repetition (e.g. 'Hail Mary' recitations, or the five daily prayers of Muslims) and/or memorization (e.g. rote catechism teachings) in the role of memetic propagation of religious faith, as repetition tends to have an important role in memorization, and thereby the retention and propagation of memes.

Richard Wolfgang Semon seems to have committed suicide. He was an early exponent. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.27.109.117 (talk) 11:17, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

We received feedback on this page via OTRS, with the opinion that it is incomprehensible. To be honest, I can understand that opinion. Could somebody make it a bit more accessible? Jcb (talk) 13:02, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

Aaron Lynch seems to have commited suicide in 2005. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.27.109.117 (talk) 10:42, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

Aaron Lynch's page here claims that he died: "from anoxic encephalopathy after taking an overdose of an opiate-based pain killer, described as an accident in the Coroner's Report." --209.6.54.239 (talk) 12:40, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

The top-level sections of the article about racism memes, architectural memes and meme maps seem to be of questionable significance. I think this material should be condensed, summarized, demoted or removed. --TylerTim (talk) 20:16, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

"While the identification of memes as "units" conveys their nature to replicate as discrete, indivisible entities, it does not imply that thoughts somehow become quantized or that "atomic" ideas exist that cannot be dissected into smaller pieces."

That's all well and good, but atoms actually can be dissected, and not just into electrons and nucleons. Though, in the Standard Model of physics, electrons are truly elementary particles with no internal structure, both protons and neutrons are composite particles composed of elementary particles called quarks.71.236.136.184 (talk) 00:37, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

It is used in a negative sense, so it is saying that ideas can be dissected. If we are being pedantic, "atom" is being used here in its original Greek ἄτομος meaning of "indivisible" Bhny (talk) 23:53, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

To your first point: I know. I wasn't arguing that part. To your second (pedantic) point: Touche, though I still don't like what the sentence implies since atoms are not actually indivisible. Past ignorance does not justify perpetuating misconception. Furthermore, now that I've finished reading the article, I would think it perhaps appropriate to mention the Marketplace of ideas. In fact, racism isn't the only potentially "maladaptive" meme. You could say the same thing about any non-empirically supported phenomenon that reaches a certain critical mass of adoption. Take, for example, any pseudo-scientific belief or practice, like Chiropractic. In fact, couldn't you say that the common practice of a married woman taking her husband's last name is evolutionarily adapted to promoting the husband's name at the cost of the wife's name? So I suppose male chauvinism or patriarchy could be just as memetically contagious.71.236.136.184 (talk) 00:37, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

The husband's last name doesn't influence the custom of inheriting surnames from fathers, though. In evolutionary adaptation, traits influence their own propagation. --TylerTim (talk) 12:54, 1 December 2013 (UTC)

The "criticisms" section of this page seems unnecessarily feeble. Culture clearly exhibits cumulative adaptation as complex and old culture illustrates. Similarly "meme" was never a synonym for "concept" - since memes were always defined to be culturally transmitted. Most of the other critics seem similarly clueless. Perhaps the whole "Criticism of meme theory" section should be moved to the "memetics" page. If there's criticism here, perhaps it should be of the meme concept - not of the various theories which have been built on it. --209.6.54.239 (talk) 01:20, 1 December 2013 (UTC)

I agree with the above anonymous user that the whole "Criticism of meme theory" section should be moved to the "memetics" page (and merged with the section there). (Peter Ells (talk) 03:12, 4 January 2014 (UTC))

The idea to move the criticism section of the article to Memetics is well-intentioned but I think not in the spirit of Wikipedia MOS, which requires that an article include all notable views, and not be slanted or biased. Most people unfamiliar with the science of this subject know only the term "meme" and not the term memetics. I even had to add it to the See Also list, as no one had ever done so -- even though it is mentioned inside the text of the main article and linked to there. To remove the criticism section would result in a large number of people being left with the incorrect perception that the concept of memes as analogous to germs has no criticism at all -- even if it existed on another article on Wikipedia they did not know to click on to learn the opposing views. One should not be given the false sense that memetic theory by Dawkins is settled science or settled philosophy. Genes and genetics are settled science. The analogy between memes and genes is not. It is a theory. Whether or not one sees the criticism section as feeble or not is subjective; the fact remains it is well-referenced, and there is no encyclopedic basis by which to move it to another article, when it definitely means what it says. It is cited criticisms of meme theory by reliable sources. I say it ought not be removed from this article, but kept. If anything, Memetics ought to be moved to Meme. Dazedbythebell (talk) 16:24, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

The point of the move is that criticism of memetics is not a notable perspective of memes, it's a perspective on memetics, and therefore since there is a separate article for memetics, belongs there. The reason Memetics wasn't in See Also is because it's already linked not only in the existing dedicated subsection called "Memetics" but right up in the lead (and therefore doesn't belong in WP:SEEALSO). Not good practice to include something just because a reader might miss all the links to the page about that thing. If you feel the case for memetics is made too strongly on this page the best way to go may be to simply tone down that language? --— Rhododendrites ^talk |  23:09, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

This material was removed from the article, and placed here for discussion, because it is the result of a dispute at a journal during peer review. The manuscript that advanced the position was withdrawn, and it appears that the author has chosen to publish it here instead. Until the criticisms are properly published, it should not be included (as per the WP:NOR guideline). JTBurman (talk) 13:50, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

It has also been argued that the misunderstanding that memes are "real" is a result of a popularization based on a confused interpretation of Dawkins' The Selfish Gene. According to Burman, the idea of an "infectious idea" was taken seriously only because of Hofstadter and Dennett’s re-presentation[4] of the original text. This supposedly new interpretation should be useful only if used under certain conditions. Dennett, according to this theory, regards memes only as a philosophical method, not as a scientific object.[5][6] However, Dawkins did reify memes and consider them more than just a philosophical method;[7] Dennett also made it clear that neither he nor Dawkins considered memes only metaphorically;[8] and Blackmore's memes[9] are not more or less reified than Dawkins' characterisation of them as "physically residing in the brain".[10] Burman's late reification theory is therefore not supported by textual evidence.

I'm too lazy to find when that was added, but it appears to match the description in the OP, so I support the removal. Johnuniq (talk) 21:33, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Here's a link to the page history, comparing the edits.[13] It was made by an unregistered editor.[14] Their user contributions page shows that they have made several similar OR edits to other related pages (e.g., Richard Dawkins). JTBurman (talk) 16:34, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

It's not a good idea to revert valuable information provided by an expert on the topic. It's completely irrelevant that this was presented on a blog. A blog written by a researcher is a reliable source, and MOS needs to be changed to take this into consideration. Until we find the same or similar info published by the same expert or others in sources preferred by MOS, this info is still much better sourced than most of what is in most Wikipedia articles. The comment "paragraph already talks about similar ideas" of the revert completely ignores the fact that the article does not mention more than a few other terms and that the removed blog links have detailed info about what terms were used when and by whom, which we definitely need to add to the article. --Espoo (talk) 18:40, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

I don't see how an editor with your long history here can so horribly misread WP:RS. Chris Troutman (talk) 18:47, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

Seconded. MOS is the Manual Of Style, and has nothing whatsoever to do with reliability of sources. As far as I can tell from looking at Tim Tyler's blog, Facebook page, personal website, etc., he is not a 'researcher' but an author with a diversity of interests. Since he did write a book on Mimetics (self-published, though), he can claim to be knowledgeable, but a self-published book or two does not make him a recognized expert.

Furthermore, it's rather clueless to state that "[some Wikipedia guideline] needs to be changed". This talk page is not the place to discuss that, and this article is not the place to build any sort of consensus about changes to established policies or guidelines. If you want community feedback on the reliability of this source, take your case to WP:RSN. ~Amatulić (talk) 19:00, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

(edit conflict)It's not about the manual of style, Espoo, it's about, as Chris troutman says, standards for reliable sources. The post about synonyms may be useful in the way it points us toward more reliable sources, but just inserting "but many other terms have been used too" immediately after the attribution to Dawkins just appears to be trying to undercut that claim without actually adding value to the article. Don't get me wrong, I think if other people have tackled the same topic using different terminology it may be useful, it needs to be better fleshed out and supported by reliable sources. I don't personally have a huge problem with this blog, you're characterizing it as though the author is a well-known scholar who just happens to be writing this in blog form. Anybody can be a researcher. Anybody can publish their own research. The guy looks very interesting and shows a long-term commitment to this subject, but in terms of WP:RS: where are the peer-reviewed (or at least third party published) publications? --— Rhododendrites ^talk |  19:05, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

Thanks to all of you for your input, and sorry for my sloppy and cranky comments, but you've all missed the main point: the info in the links is valuable and the article is much less good without it. This kind of valuable info is regularly added to Wikipedia articles without providing any source, so it's simply silly and contrary to common sense to remove both it and the source simply because the source isn't as good as it should normally be. In addition, the info consists of a simple list of terms and researchers/thinkers and dates, not any kind of essay or opinion piece or even a synthesis or analysis which would require peer review to be able to qualify as research in the academic world and as a reliable source for WP.

And yes, i know i was sloppy and incorrect in talking of the manual of style when i couldn't bother to check whether the relevant part of the Wikipedia "manual" talking about reliable sources is called a guideline or principle or pillar or whatever. And yes, i know this is not the place to discuss whether the relevant guideline should be changed, but it doesn't mean i can't add my opinion about a need to change them. And RS specifically and even more fundamental principles and even pillar no 5 say to use common sense and to sometimes not follow rules if there's a good reason, which is this:

By not having the removed valuable info about which important researchers and thinkers used which similar terms and discussed which similar concepts and when, we are in fact only doing our readers and even Dawkins a serious disfavor. Dawkins would be the first to say he stands on the shoulders of others, some of whom are giants, especially in this field of cultural analysis, in which he is only an amateur.

The now missing info about the terms and concepts that are the precursors of the term and concept "meme' is only the most blatant sign of the lack of quality in the current state of the article. It's not as bad as Internet meme, but in need of info from much more than the list of terms i tried to add. Please look at Talk:Internet meme. Thanks, Espoo (talk) 12:28, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

All you had added was "but many other terms have been used (mostly before 2011) for this and closely related ones" to the end of a sentence, which doesn't tell the reader very much - if something would be "valuable" to the reader, we should write it in the article rather than hoping they might follow up on a reference.

Dawkins does indeed say that he "stands on the shoulders of others", with the very next sentence quoting him as crediting L. L. Cavalli-Sforza, F. T. Cloak and J. M. Cullen for inspiring his own work. Some more detail would be welcome there, but it should be drawn from reliable sources rather than an amateur blog. --McGeddon (talk) 12:36, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

To put a finer point on it, you're trying to say "this is good information, it just happens to be on a blog." (Are you a Finn? Is this your blog, by the way?) Wikipedia's guideline is "If the information was good, it would be found in a reliable source." Your argument is against Wikipedia's guidelines and your argument about ignore all rules is against consensus. A blog is not a reliable source, therefore the information is not good. Claiming it is good information is original research. Find this same information in an independent reliable source and we'll accept it. Chris Troutman (talk) 12:46, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

McGeddon, it is valuable for the reader to know that other terms were used for this and similar concepts before Dawkins coined "meme". This is even much more important than a list of these, which can very well be in a footnote or even a link. Right now readers are mislead to believe Dawkins came up with both the concept and the term. Saying he was inspired by others is very different from the real situation. And my edit was a typo. It should have been "but many other terms have been used (mostly before 2011) for this and closely related concepts".

And Chris, you're of course right, and i don't intend to try to beat you at wikilawyering, but you of course realize that it's against common sense to put such a list of terms and dates (and even a link to this!) on the same level as quoting from an opinion piece. --Espoo (talk) 13:09, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

I'm not sure which direction your common sense is pointing there, but an amateur, unchecked blog entry would rank below an editorially-reviewed newspaper opinion piece in terms of reliability. --McGeddon (talk) 14:51, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

The Tipping Point seems to deal with same idea yet there is not a link here to this book. can it be added? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.82.140.235 (talk) 10:49, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

Seems to contain all the meaning of meme and is an earlier term. It should be in the article somewhere. I do not add it as there seems some stupid edit war going on. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 178.191.188.167 (talk) 02:53, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

Pity this article is edit-protected. I was about to add two more criticisms, so now I'm putting them here for discussion:

Psychologist Gustav Jahoda, spezializing in the psychology of superstitions and paranormal cult beliefs, critizizes Blackmore's meme theory as a mix of banal truisms about culture already common throughout the 19th century with Blackmore's own "highly speculative and questionable" concepts, and accuses it of violating Occam's razor. (G. Jahoda: The Ghosts in the Meme Machine. In: History of the Human Sciences, vol. 15, No. 2, 2002, p. 55-68.) Argentinian physicist and philosopher of science, Mario Bunge, and German biologist and philosopher of science Martin Mahner critizize Dawkins's meme theory in a 2004 book (Mario Bunge, Martin Mahner. Über die Natur der Dinge. Materialismus und Wissenschaft. ("On the Nature of Things: Materialism and Science"), Stuttgart, 2004, p. 126) as "so conceptually muddled that it borders on non-sensicality", as "ignoring the entire history of psychological and sociological research into human communication", and as an "idealist fantasy draped in an evolutionary biology disguise" while "fundamentally violating all known forms of ontological reductionism or physicalism".

--84.180.255.151 (talk) 12:52, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

The edit-protection should stay. It seems to me the main problem is general comprehension, and understanding of what the concept is offering. We attack what we do not understand (I think you will agree). Tylor defined culture, but he was not all that precise. This concept is offering a fundamental unit of culture, the meme, parallel to the phoneme or morpheme in linguistics, and many other fundamental units. I'm bringing in the anthropology box and adding this to it. Meanwhile, if comprehension is the fundamental problem, let's try to make it more comprehensible. I notice that in the last few years some groups of professional scholars have taken a hand on some WP articles. This looks like it is in that category. Naturally, being professionals they want to use a language only comprehensible to professionals. WP on the other hand is trying to make a generally comprehensible encyclopedia (which fascinates me). It seems to me the answer is not to attack the more erudite concepts and try to drive the professionals altogether away, but to make more comprehensible what they have done. This one is not all that hard to understand. We should resist the trashers on this one.Botteville (talk) 09:42, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

on the grounds that ‘pseudoscience’ is a judgmental epithet; also it is, IMO, a very stigmatizing label. In this case, the epithet is wholly unjustified; memes are mainly culture, not pseudoscience.--Solomonfromfinland (talk) 05:10, 13 February 2015 (UTC)

Hi @Solomonfromfinland: This article is way outside my wheelhouse, but WP:CAT says that there must be an obvious reason for a cat to be added and in this case, there is prose to support it. Granted, the prose might represent a fringe position, and I'm not commenting on that, but it is at least supported. I'll leave it to the smarty-pantses to figure out the details, though. I don't have an agenda here, I've only got this article watchlisted in my capacity as a WikiGnome. Cyphoidbomb (talk) 06:28, 13 February 2015 (UTC)

That does not mean that memes themselves are inherently pseudoscientific; they, as i said, are mostly cultural. Popular culture is not meant to be scientific, so the term “pseudoscience” does not normally apply. Also, given the stigmatizing nature of sad epithet; if there is doubt as to whether to place a page in Category:Pseudoscience, the decision should be no.--Solomonfromfinland (talk) 06:31, 13 February 2015 (UTC)

P.S. Good that you don't have an “agenda” here; it suggests you are impartial.--Solomonfromfinland (talk) 06:33, 13 February 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the removal. I noticed its recent addition but was too occupied elsewhere to bother. Any concept can be abused and it is likely that some people have a view of memes that would warrant a pseudoscience label, but the overall idea is nothing to do with pseudoscience. Even if it were ever demonstrated that there is some other explanation for the issues that memes address (that is, that the memes idea is totally wrong), the topic still would not be pseudoscience—it would just be wrong. Johnuniq (talk) 06:48, 13 February 2015 (UTC)

Good thinking, Johnuniq. Concise and eloquent.--Solomonfromfinland (talk) 08:42, 13 February 2015 (UTC)

There does seem to be some blurriness between the subject of "meme" vs. "memetics" and "meme theory" here. There is a section with the names of both the latter, but the section heading is the only place in the article "meme theory" appears. There are claims of pseudoscience with regard to memetics and the one under "meme theory" begins "Luis Benitez-Bribiesca M.D., a critic of memetics...". I'm not sure why these are separate sections, but in any event it's clear that if the pseudoscience category applies, it's to the memetics article. --— Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 14:23, 13 February 2015 (UTC)

The other uses disambiguation header seems to, unlike in other articles with such a header, not make clear about what kind of meme this article is that may be confused with others, most notably [Internet meme], I think the header should be expanded to reflect this. Jurryaany (talk) 09:05, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

No criticism at all of the Meme concept? I think it has value and those who think it's pseudo science are misinformed, but there should be some mention of criticism, no? This is hardly an uncontroversial concept, but one would think the theory of evolution is more biologically controversial than the meme concept from looking at the two articles. This has been PeacefulEditor. Peace. — Preceding unsigned comment added by PeacefulEditor (talk • contribs) 04:20, 11 December 2015 (UTC)

There is some mention, the article has had a "Criticism of meme theory" section for years. --McGeddon (talk) 20:54, 25 May 2016 (UTC)

In my opinion, i believe this page should be protected permanently, due to the massive risk of trolling. 24.61.98.93 (talk) 19:38, 24 August 2016 (UTC)

Doesn't the sentence "The word meme originated with Richard Dawkins' 1976 book The Selfish Gene. Dawkins's own position is somewhat ambiguous: he welcomed N. K. Humphrey's suggestion that memes should be considered as living structures..." contradict itself? If the word originated with Dawkins' book, how could he welcome someone else's suggestion in it?

In any case I would have to question the 1976 date, there is a line in 'Magic Corner' sung by Belita Woods in 1967 which refers to "Lover's memes" carved on an old oak tree (Which is why I'm here right now looking up what it means).--Deke42 (talk) 12:25, 17 July 2016 (UTC)

Nicholas Keynes Humphrey is said N. K. Humphrey. Please link it. ---Pawyilee (talk) 08:25, 31 July 2016 (UTC)

was unbarred, so linked him, myself —Pawyilee (talk) 08:33, 31 July 2016 (UTC)

There is no contradiction in the text of the book. Page 192 of the 30th edition (it's also in the second edition, and possibly also the first) has

As my colleague N. K. Humphrey neatly summed up an earlier draft of this chapter:
'... memes should be regarded as living structures, not just metaphorically but technically.*'

Humphrey is also thanked in the preface (with many others) for commenting on drafts of the book. The asterisk refers to an endnote about a paper by Jan Delius (a brain scientist); the paper considered what the "neuronal hardware of a meme might look like".

I heard mention of an oak tree, but no mention of "meme" in Magic Corner. Johnuniq (talk) 10:09, 31 July 2016 (UTC)

So the word didn't originate with Dawkins, it's just the earliest written reference that any has found so far?

Verse 2 of Magic Corner.

"And at the same old corner

There's a tall, tall oak tree

Where love memes and my name baby

Both written where they ought to be"

Personally I think that should be 'with' not 'where', but it sounds like 'where' all the same so I'm not about to correct it! --Deke42 (talk) 10:11, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

Of course the word originated with Dawkins. First, Wikia's lyrics just shows one person's interpretation of the very indistinct words in the song. Second, the words you quote do not make sense—what meaning of "meme" would fit in that sentence? Note the "Both written..."—what would be written for "love memes". Third, when I listen to the phrase, I hear "Where love's name and my name baby", and that makes sense. Googling "love's name" shows it is often used as part of "your true love's name", and the song is suggesting that the singer's true love's name and the singer's name would be carved in an oak tree, where they ought to be. Johnuniq (talk) 11:41, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

A recent edit (diff) by Mountain9 added the following text (the following uses straight quotes as recommended by MOS:CURLY):

Although Dawkins invented the term 'meme' and developed meme theory, the possibility that ideas were subject to the same pressures of evolution as were biological attributes was discussed in Darwin's time. T. H. Huxley claimed that 'The struggle for existence holds as much in the intellectual as in the physical world. A theory is a species of thinking, and its right to exist is coextensive with its power of resisting extinction by its rivals.'^[1]

Google offers this with what I think is the text of the reference.

The edit is not suitable for Wikipedia due to WP:NOR (no original research). It's a subtle point that takes time to digest, but the basic problem is that articles would be an unreliable mess if editors (that is, anyone on the internet) could quote some text from a work and then state that the text has some significance. Wikipedia requires a reliable secondary source to make a connection between what Huxley wrote and the topic of this article. Perhaps someone with a lot of knowledge of Huxley (hi Macdonald-ross!) would agree that Huxley was referring to the same concept as covered by memes, but that would not matter unless the opinion was published in a reliable source. I'll leave the edit for now, but it has to be removed unless a secondary source is available. Johnuniq (talk) 00:17, 30 September 2016 (UTC)

Thank you for taking the time to explain how I should be using reliable secondary sources. I had thought that Huxley’s use of the well known phrase ‘struggle for existence’ which he took from Darwin’s ‘Origin of Species’ makes it clear that Huxley was comparing competition between ideas and competition between species and that it did not need a reliable secondary source to understand or interpret Huxley’s sentence. Its significance to the meme page is that while Dawkins created the word ‘meme’, it is not correct to imply that Dawkins was the first person to have the idea that competitive selective processes might apply as much to ideas as to biological evolution. The reference is to Huxley’s original publication. The Google reference is from ‘Darwinalia’ – a re-publication by Huxley of matters relating to Darwin.

Would the following be a suitable incorporation of a reliable secondary source?

Although Dawkins invented the term ‘meme’ and developed meme theory, the psychologist Rosalind Ridley has argued that the possibility that ideas were subject to the same pressures of evolution as were biological attributes has been discussed since Darwin’s time^[2]; for example, T. H. Huxley claimed that ‘The struggle for existence holds as much in the intellectual as in the physical world. A theory is a species of thinking, and its right to exist is coextensive with its power of resisting extinction by its rivals'^[3].

Mountain9 (talk) 16:21, 30 September 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply but I won't have an opportunity to think about this for a while. There's no rush. Johnuniq (talk) 23:01, 30 September 2016 (UTC)

This edit request to Meme has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

RileyDude (talk) 05:16, 11 October 2016 (UTC) A meme (/ˈmiːm/ meem)[1] is "an idea, behavior, or style that spreads from person to person within a culture".[2] A meme acts as a unit for carrying cultural ideas, symbols, or practices that can be transmitted from one mind to another through writing, speech, gestures, rituals, or other imitable phenomena with a mimicked theme. Supporters of the concept regard memes as cultural analogs to genes in that they self-replicate, mutate, and respond to selective pressures.[3]

Proponents theorize that memes are a viral phenomenon that may evolve by natural selection in a manner analogous to that of biological evolution. Memes do this through the processes of variation, mutation, competition, and inheritance, each of which influences a meme's reproductive success. Memes spread through the behavior that they generate in their hosts. Memes that propagate less prolifically may become extinct, while others may survive, spread, and (for better or for worse) mutate. Memes that replicate most effectively enjoy more success and some may replicate effectively even when they prove to be detrimental to the welfare of their hosts.[4]

A field of study called memetics[5] arose in the 1990s to explore the concepts and transmission of memes in terms of an evolutionary model. Criticism from a variety of fronts has challenged the notion that academic study can examine memes empirically. However, developments in neuroimaging may make the empirical study possible.[6] Some commentators in the social sciences question the idea that one can meaningfully categorize culture in terms of discrete units, and are especially critical of the biological nature of the theory's underpinnings.[7] Others have argued that this use of the term is the result of a misunderstanding of the original proposal.[8]

The word meme originated with Richard Dawkins' 1976 book The Selfish Gene. Dawkins's own position is somewhat ambiguous: he welcomed N. K. Humphrey's suggestion that "memes should be considered as living structures, not just metaphorically"[9] and proposed to regard memes as "physically residing in the brain".[10] Later, he argued that his original intentions, presumably before his approval of Humphrey's opinion, had been simpler.[11] At the New Directors' Showcase 2013 in Cannes, Dawkins' opinion on memetics was deliberately ambiguous.[12]

 Not done because there is nothing actually requested here. You simply copied and pasted the lead section to this talk page. I don't see any suggestion on what you are proposing to change. ~Amatulić (talk) 06:26, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

This edit request to Meme has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

A meme is a text based (Sometimes it does not need one) funny photo. It has a photo that people would recognize. The photo has names, such as: Bad Luck Brian, Doge, and Me Gusta http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/popular. It also sometimes has puns JJthewolfboy (talk) 14:15, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format. JTP ^{(talk • contribs)} 14:34, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

I have explicitly added Dawkins' name to Para 1, as coiner of the term, even though it is covered later under Origins, for two reasons: 1) since the coinage occurs in a particular book and can be ascribed to one individual, that should be mentioned in the opening section; 2) I linked to the article from an eBook reader while reading The Selfish Gene to confirm Dawkins' originating the term, was surprised by his name not being in the opening paras, and my ebook reader is not particularly friendly either to extensive scrolling or hyperlinks, a situation which must be not uncommon these days. BTW, I called it a "neologism" even though it has been in use for 40 years, as it is still not in very common usage, and was certainly a neologism when Dawkins coined it. D A Patriarche, BSc 06:50, 21 March 2017 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by D A Patriarche (talk • contribs)

Within the last several years, the sharing of videos and memes has increasingly become a large part of the actions that users take on social media. While websites such as Reddit can be a source for viewing memes, a popular way that many people engage with memes is on the social media platform of Instagram. On Instagram, there are many accounts that are dedicated solely to the sharing of memes. While anyone can create an account and post memes, there are many "popular" meme accounts such as @fuckjerry that have tens of thousands of followers who engage with the meme account daily. Instagram users have the ability to direct message these memes to other users, or to comment on the meme and tag other users in the photo in order to share the meme. Given the amount of times that Millennials spend engaging with memes on Instagram, I think a section of this page should explain the importance of Instagram to the dissemination of memes. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Uwildcat27 (talk • contribs) 20:44, 2 April 2017 (UTC)

See Internet meme for encyclopedic information about stuff people do. Johnuniq (talk) 00:20, 3 April 2017 (UTC)

This edit request to Meme has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

The usefulness of the meme concept is currently subject to debate (ref: Simon, C., & Baum, W. M. (2012). Expelling the meme-ghost from the machine: an evolutionary explanation for the spread of cultural practices.) 2001:700:700:11:6450:C680:B708:1507 (talk) 09:03, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

 Not done It is unclear what changes you are proposing to be made. Please resubmit your request in an "Please change X to Y" format. Boomer Vial^{Holla! We gonna ball!} 09:05, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

This edit request to Meme has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

Something should be written to correct the false notion that this word did not exist for decades in the daily usage of University of Chicago from the time of Leonard Bloomfield who coined it. It did. And in the specific form memes. I doubt that more could be said than that Dawkins altered the chief meaning, by putting it into a dubious context with Evolutionary Theory. And thus misleading the public in several ways. 169.229.11.164 (talk) 22:52, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

An edit request must involve a precisely specified proposal to change text in the article. An edit request is not suitable for a vague assertion that the entire article is wrong, particularly given the reliable sources in the article. Johnuniq (talk) 23:38, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

This page is great, hands down, includes detailed information and loads of stuff that I didn't know about memes, probably my favourite page on wikipedia, keep up the good work!

~ from AquaPigg (・∀・ )

List all known memes — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.165.83.100 (talk) 16:06, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

This edit request to Meme has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

Grammar corrections. Some commas are missing Dumdum321 (talk) 18:18, 12 October 2017 (UTC)

Not done: Can you please mention exactly where some commas are missing so someone doesn't have to proofread the entire article to try and find every single place where a comma is missing? Thanks. SparklingPessimist ^{Scream at me!} 19:43, 12 October 2017 (UTC)

I went through and fixed a few that I found, but yes, we need a request of the form "change X to Y." ~Anachronist (talk) 19:44, 12 October 2017 (UTC)

This edit request to Meme has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

memes are an internet things that do a funny 2A02:C7F:1418:A600:84BC:25D8:F320:6520 (talk) 19:21, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format. SparklingPessimist ^{Scream at me!} 19:40, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

This edit request to Meme has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

I believe this article needs more images of "the modern meme" including video memes, or memes relating to everyday life, such as: evil kermit meme, pepe the frog, and other demonstrations of the younger generation's humor. Disneygeek (talk) 01:41, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. would would need sources proving notability Cannolis (talk) 02:28, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

How is a "meme" different from a “Critical Meme” (Ruiz)?

There is a difference between a meme and a critical meme. Some people just choose randomn/meaningless images and paste some words on top of it and call it a “meme”. One popular meme example is the following:

This meme doesn’t really say much other than, “Keep Calm and ________ (fill in the blank).” It doesn’t really prompt critical thinking, and it doesn’t really catch anyone’s eye in a critical manner, as it just asks one to “keep calm”, which means to accept a certain type of behavior because it promotes “calmness” and “normalcy”. It is merely advocating a certain type of behavior without provoking much thought about the action itself. It has been replicated over and over, and perhaps it shows some element about western culture, but it is not asking for deeper reflection upon a social issue. This is why this meme, in a nutshell, is not a “critical meme” because to be critical means to question. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Idruiz (talk • contribs) 19:56, 12 October 2017 (UTC)

The recent edits by Chiswick Chap (diff) added more speculation about origins (and duplicates "Although Dawkins invented the term 'meme'"). See Talk:Meme/Archive 5#Origins section dubious for a brief discussion where mneme and Laurent were mentioned in 2012. The Laurent source is speculation with an obviously false logical base—how can Laurent rationally produce a "more straightforward source for the term" than the author of The Selfish Gene? If Dawkins had not written the meme chapter, the stuff Laurent mentions would have remained unknown except to a few specialists. In essence, Laurent's assertion is that Dawkins was lying or deluded when he wrote about memes. Until a gold-plated source known to be reliable for this topic says otherwise, there is no reason to spread doubt about the very clear statements that Dawkins wrote. From the Endnotes, "In discussing memes in the final chapter I was trying to make the case for replicators in general, and to show that genes were not the only members of that important class." Does anyone have any information about what makes John Laurent a reliable source for this topic? Johnuniq (talk) 09:52, 10 November 2017 (UTC)

No. No-one, certainly not me, is asserting Dawkins is lying or deluded, indeed "Dawkins invented the term" explicitly states he was not. As for the phrase "more straightforward source for the term", it does not occur in the paragraph. All that's being said is that there were similar antecedents in the shape of Richard Semon's 1904 and Maurice Maeterlinck's 1926 use of "mneme", for which there is rock-solid evidence. We do not need to rely on John Laurent at all, though it might be courteous to mention him since he noted their existence. Chiswick Chap (talk) 10:03, 10 November 2017 (UTC)

Not sure whether it's vandalism, but he added the paragraph on top reading "Meme can also be identified by the symbol "[...]", also known as a "lenny face". See the above for more information." I think it's completely out of place, because "above" there's no reference to lenny face and there's nothing to back up this conjecture. Lenny face is also a very recent Internet meme itself and seems to be of no particular relevance in overall context of memes or memetics as a concept. I however can't revert it.— Preceding unsigned comment added by SianaGearz (talk • contribs) 19:56, 1 December 2017 (UTC)

@SianaGearz:  Done Thanks for pointing it out. Chris Troutman (talk) 01:17, 2 December 2017 (UTC)

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The "Internet Culture" section of this article is short and vague, despite the Internet meme having the most impact on modern society. We need to add examples of Internet memes, especially the classic ones (for example: Grumpy Cat), and other ways memes spread, specifically on YouTube (like Pewdiepie's "Meme Review" series, which is so popular that Elon Musk was a host on it). Heartybrock (talk) 16:44, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

This article isn't going to go into a great deal of detail (that detail should probably be in the article at Internet meme), but if you have specific suggestions for how this article can be improved, feel free to make them! ‑‑ElHef (Meep?) 16:59, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

Well, as a dank meme lord I myself happen to know quite a bit about meme culture. A meme can have many different interpretations and/or styles (such as wholesome memes, deep fried memes, surreal memes, dank memes). For example, you may see a meme such as "LeT'S gEt tHiS BrEd" vs. "i wAnNa kA-sHoOt mYsElF". The interesting thing about the 'meme' is that it can be anything related to a post on the Internet. It can be a really unhelpful coping mechanism, a way to laugh, or even just a way to relieve the stress of life, usually in a sarcastic/mocking/ironic way. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Queen suvu (talk • contribs) 20:54, 10 December 2018 (UTC)

To be more specific, a meme is not only text on a form of media (usually a picture), but any form of online post with a form of relability, irony, and/or comedy. Many Internet memes have developed with the help of Tik Tok (former name being Musical.ly), YouTube, and Twitter. There are also subreddits dedicated to the spread of memes and their humor. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Heartybrock (talk • contribs) 16:52, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

See Memology^[1] — Preceding unsigned comment added by Danlabs (talk • contribs) 20:18, 13 May 2019 (UTC)

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Add https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/memology to article to describe the process of recording, understanding and etc of memes. Danlabs (talk) 20:17, 13 May 2019 (UTC)

Isn't that a fairly uncommon neologism? We might add it if it gains more widespread use in reliable sources – Þjarkur (talk) 22:09, 13 May 2019 (UTC)

seem to be similar as are mentifacts - can links be added — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.249.7.24 (talk) 08:49, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

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Memes have progressively gotten worse in quality over the years (obviously) 66.119.4.186 (talk) 18:25, 13 September 2019 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. aboideau^talk 18:44, 13 September 2019 (UTC)

"meme" finds its root in ancient Greek, however its evocation of "similarity" comes from the French word which is spelled exactly the same (without the accent), "même": same Latin/ancient Greek root and meaning, although it isn't considered as the noun of an object like "meme" but rather an adjective/attribute. --173.206.165.197 (talk) 17:00, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

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Please discard "Meme map" section entirely, it's really unnecessary and add nothing to the "Meme" wiki page. Vansh9 (talk) 02:41, 7 November 2019 (UTC)

 Done –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 02:52, 7 November 2019 (UTC)

The definition in the WP:FIRSTSENTENCE of an idea, behavior, or style that spreads from person to person within a culture is a word-for-word copy from the M-W website definition. Is this considered a WP:COPYVIO, or fair use? If the latter, shouldn't it be in double quotes, at least? Mathglot (talk) 10:34, 25 November 2019 (UTC)

A meme is usually associated with the internet in today's society and are very popular with platforms such as social media sites and online video websites — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:C7F:4888:E200:11D0:588F:17D4:33F0 (talk) 18:43, 12 February 2020 (UTC)

A meme is definitely one of the harder concepts to define, but even so, the intro section does a really bad job communicating what exactly they are in modern usage. Having an example photo of an internet meme could be quite useful; any suggestions on one to use? Sdkb (talk) 20:48, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

Internet meme is a separate article. --Thi (talk) 23:33, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

Thi yes, but per that article, internet memes are a type of meme, and they seem to be the type currently predominant in our society, so they're the ones readers are most likely to be interested in. WP:RECENTISM is certainly a legitimate concern, but I can't think of a historical meme that'd serve as a better prominent example than a modern one. And regardless of that, the concern about clarity remains. This article in its current state very nearly merits a {{Technical}} tag. Sdkb (talk) 05:51, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

I'm afraid that the photo would instead confuse some readers. I think that it is safer option to make a clear difference between two phenomenons: meme theory (metaphor or theory how ideas spread in society, cultural evolution) and funny viral things in the net. This article contains the image of Kilroy graffiti, the first globally viral graffiti meme before the age of Internet. I don't think that other example pictures are necessary. The lead section could contain something about internet memes. On the other hand, as it is said in the Internet meme article: "Dawkins explained that Internet memes are thus a 'hijacking of the original idea', the very idea of a meme having mutated and evolved in this new direction." In general, lead sections should not give undue weight for rival concepts or any subtopic. --Thi (talk) 09:51, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

Fair point about confusing readers. I'm not well-versed enough in meme theory to know whether internet memes truly should be classified as memes, but that debate seems something this article might eventually want to cover a little more. Sdkb (talk) 21:35, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

It's a debate I suppose. I'm of the opinion that they are certainly memes, at least a representation of a meme, I guess. It doesn't make a lot of sense to separate the concepts. The Internet just seems to be a medium of which memes are propagated and often influenced, the image itself being more akin to a totem of a concept full of evolving modern cultural meaning (or a totem of a meme?). I think to disregard Internet memes as "funny viral things in the net" demonstrates a disconnect in understanding how a variety of Internet memes have had serious and lasting impacts on just about every culture, positive and negative. Additionally, just because Dawkins coined the usage, and seems to disagree on "Internet memes" being the same concept, doesn't mean he's an absolute authority, I don't even follow how it's a "hijacking", unless he seems to believe it's a non-lasting cultural fad (so I suppose a meme itself, which is why I believe this is his view), that's been getting stronger over the past 12 years or so. I'd have to say I think that's silly and only time will truly tell. 2607:F2C0:E288:92:E24E:6A35:E1FE:964A (talk) 19:06, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

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Please gives examples other than "kilroy was here" in picture. UrBoiDankMeme (talk) 00:18, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. JTP ^{(talk • contribs)} 00:28, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

Abhishek Gurung (aka drspider) is the father of memes. Dr.spiderr (talk) 15:28, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

It seems a History section has been removed, or not been made. A 1921 example. Proper memes may require being copied, modified and re-circulated, and such examples could have been present before the term was coined. TGCP (talk) 10:04, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Internet meme which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 03:51, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

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In the section shown above, the word "graffito" is hyperlinked to the Graffiti page instead of being hyperlinked to the Graffito page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graffito_(archaeology) EffyJohn (talk) 22:35, 20 September 2020 (UTC)

 Note: Removed a hefty copy/paste from the article. In any case,  Not done. It's not clear what changes you want to make. If you want to change the link target, that would be inappropriate. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 23:51, 20 September 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for making this “wiki pedia” “page”. Now I can understand what my grandson keeps looking up on my “windows-computer” when he comes to stay. SkeletosAngelos (talk) 14:57, 15 December 2020 (UTC)

I have not looked at this article for a few years. It has become overcomplicated to the point of being almost incomprehensible.

It's a simple concept, no need for it to be this complicated.

I wrote several of the early published articles.

Keith Henson (talk) 04:43, 27 February 2021 (UTC)

I have a property with 100 sheep to keep the grass down and they are lambing at present. When lambs are first born, I can drive or walk up to them and pick them up. They do have some innate characteristics like wanting to be with mum because she feeds them. Later during lambing season, if I try to get close, mum runs and the lamb follows. By the end of the seasons, lambs will run like hell when I show up.

Isn't that the idea of a meme? There are even better examples but this was the easiest. Euc (talk) 21:43, 3 October 2021 (UTC)

@Euc: That reminds me of a story a colleague told me about his childhood. He grew up on a sheep farm. He remembered having a whole bunch of sheep crowded in a pen in for a period of time, and then he opened the gate of the pen because the sheep needed to be moved, but the sheep all behaved as if the gate was still closed. Then one small lamb who "didn't know better" wandered across the opening, at which point the rest of the sheep followed by jumping over the space where the gate used to be until the pen became empty. My colleague was a physicist who described the phenomenon as looking like a standing wave in a flow of sheep. I guess from the point of view of a sheep headed toward the exit, it must jump over the invisible gate if it sees the sheep in front do so.

Is that a meme? Probably. It may say something more about the intelligence of sheep than the viral transmission of an idea. ~Anachronist (talk) 01:47, 8 October 2021 (UTC)

meme is a joke that is normally published on the internet trying to make people laugh sometimes they can go viral and spread to schools. memes normally have movie or game scenes in them having a text go from a troll face to sadness/depression some are so bad that their funny rarely there are good ones. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.148.28.222 (talk) 19:45, 19 October 2021 (UTC)

This meme article covers much more than that. You might be looking for Internet meme — see if that article is more what you're looking for. Schazjmd (talk) 19:47, 19 October 2021 (UTC)

remove the term social science as that is nonsense, there is no such thing 2600:1700:6CC1:2A70:AC5E:875:E05E:BBDA (talk) 13:03, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

It's a commonly used term, I've added a wikilink to the article Social science for clarity. Schazjmd (talk) 14:51, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

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Most memes are caption memes. There is a need for the psychology behind what makes a meme. Nowdays, there are so many, that they all share a common trait:

• omission of words, which makes it innacurate
• playing with well known ideas and pop elements
• usually contains more emotions and logic
• most memes have a spelling or a grammar mistake
• many times there is no connection between the caption and image, but a parallel idea
• the humour is medium to harsh, slightly retrograde, and meant to feel umcomortable

Types of memes:

• memes with captions
• memes with overwritten text
• memes with replies or comments
• memes without images
• memes as gifs TudorTulok (talk) 09:52, 2 February 2022 (UTC)

Your ideas seem to apply specifically to Internet memes, that's a different article. Schazjmd (talk) 14:55, 2 February 2022 (UTC)

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add a link to "subreddits" to where it says subreddit where it says r/wallstreetbets Iambossofthegame (talk) 13:55, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

 Done ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 14:09, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

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Heinz von Förster introduced the term "meme" in 1948 in his essay "The Memory. A Quantenphysical Investigation". In it he understood the "meme" as the "carrier of the memory features". In analogy to the view developed by Delbrück, Schrödinger and others, to interpret the "gene" as the carrier of hereditary characteristics, as the quantum state of a large molecule, he saw the "meme" as a micro-complex capable of various quantum states.^[1] OHcr (talk) 14:49, 7 May 2022 (UTC)

 Not done for now: Please find a secondary source which says that Förster's usage is the one which "introduced" the term, as Förster's text is a primary source for its own text, and us saying that he introduced the term there would be an inappropriate interpretation thereof RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 01:22, 8 May 2022 (UTC)

let's put it another way:

Heinz von Förster used the term "meme" as early as 1948 in his essay "Memory. A Quantum-physical Investigation”. In it he describes the "meme" as "carrier of the memory features". In analogy to the conception developed by Delbrück, Schrödinger and others to interpret the "gene" as a carrier of hereditary properties, as the quantum state of a large molecule, he saw the "meme" as a microcomplex capable of different quanta states.[1]

Warren McCulloch recognized the importance of the article in 1949 and invited Heinz von Foerster to take part in the Macy conferences. https://archives.library.illinois.edu/thought-collective/cyberneticians/heinz-von-foerster/ OHcr (talk) 07:38, 8 May 2022 (UTC)

Please quote the page heading (so we know which page to look at) and some words from the text to see where "meme" is described. The archives.library.illinois.edu link does not appear to mention that term. Johnuniq (talk) 11:16, 8 May 2022 (UTC)

Arthur James Balfour treated the idea in his Gifford lectures of January and February 1904. In the written form, Theism and Humanism, he writes:

Is there not, you may ask, a "struggle for existence" between non-heritable acquirements which faintly resembles the biological struggle between individuals or species? Religious systems, political organisations, speculative creeds, industrial inventions, national policies, scientific generalisations, and (what specially concerns us now) ethical ideals, are in perpetual competition and conflict. Some maintain themselves or expand. These are, by definition, the "fit". Some wane or perish. These are, by definition, the "unfit". Here we find selection, survival, elimination; and, though we see them at work in quite other regions of reality than those explored by the student of organic evolution, the analogy between the two cases is obvious. (pp. 111-112).

The book is available at https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/57773 109.38.156.247 (talk) 10:37, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

Places include: Ohio (2019-2023), Wyoming (1990s-2023), and many others. These hold significant value in the internet memes recently, and should atleast have an honorable mention. KingdomOfAgia (talk) 03:08, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

Do they have significant coverage by reliable sources? If not then they get no mention whatsoever. ― Blaze Wolf^Talk_{Blaze Wolf#6545} 03:10, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

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i need to add examples Ilikecatsyeet (talk) 15:43, 14 April 2023 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. — Paper9oll (🔔 • 📝) 16:19, 14 April 2023 (UTC)

Ive written a long Article on the Website "Soybooru" a website for uploading "Soyjaks" and vice versa. I might need help as im not a native english speaker + add more info or Citations, etc. Here's the Link: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft:Soybooru Ayyyple2 (talk) 22:31, 22 April 2023 (UTC)

Memes are apart of internet culture 2603:7080:C838:E536:C5E:C57D:F939:16B8 (talk) 18:19, 22 September 2023 (UTC)

That's why there's an entire section Meme#Internet culture. PS: "apart" means 'separate from'; the words you are looking for are "a part".  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  19:16, 22 September 2023 (UTC)

The section for Internet should spawn another section, "Politics" due to the application and overlap in the last few USA presidential campaigns. The Internet is the site of political activity and memes are the language. Governmental and civic sector concern for "disinformation" is political and like the Internet is global in scale. Church of the Rain (talk) 19:12, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

>Memes that replicate most effectively enjoy more success, and some may replicate effectively even when they prove to be detrimental to the welfare of their hosts.

The quoted portion exists in the introduction to this article, and I don't understand what application this could have to most memes, or what would constitute a "host" in this context. (E.g., would the host be the person or idea featured in a meme, the person that created and/or posted it to an online forum, or the online forum, itself?)

Unless a substantive reason can be provided for keeping this, I would like to remove it. At present, it does not seem to add to the article in a meaningful way. Goatvillage (talk) 03:48, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

Daniel Dennett (in From Bacteria to Bach and Back (2018), ch.13 fn.95) gives an example of a detrimental cultural meme by saying "It's like, when, like, you use a phrase which, like, isn't really, like, doing any serious work, but, like, you go on, like, using it". In this example the meme is the habit of interjecting the word "like" and the host is the person who exhibits that habit. The behaviour may be detrimental to the speaker (host), but the habit (meme) persists nonetheless and may even spread to other people (other hosts) who are exposed to it.

Memes, like viruses, may be mutualist (ie, helpful), commensal (roughly, neutral) or parasitic (ie, detrimental), and this is an important aspect of memetic theory that isn't explicitly described in the article (although there may be more under Memetics). I think the portion you quote is confusing because it has an unreasonable burden to carry in introducing a large and non-obvious concept without any prior explanation. Perhaps the article would benefit from a more thorough explanation of this aspect memetics in a separate section. Gholson (talk) 08:17, 12 May 2024 (UTC)

>For broad appeal, a meme might appeal to dissatisfaction and provide rough explanations for why things are going wrong. ... As such, fascism is the meme of collective brutality against those seen as "weak" or "foreign".

This (currently final) paragraph of the Etymology section doesn't relate to etymology in any way, but I'm undecided whether to simply remove it or to move it to another section (possibly Politics?). Gholson (talk) 09:10, 12 May 2024 (UTC)