At dinner last night a friend in his mid 50s asked, quite genuinely: so what exactly is a meme? Our teenage son laughed about this apparent ignorance but the confusion is well founded given that many people today use the word to mean a short lived fad on the internet, as compared to the original usage as a unit of meaning that is culturally transmitted and self-replicating (hence the coinage which is based on “gene”). The two usages are obviously related and yet also different. In particular,...

At dinner last night a friend in his mid 50s asked, quite genuinely: so what exactly is a meme? Our teenage son laughed about this apparent ignorance but the confusion is well founded given that many people today use the word to mean a short lived fad on the internet, as compared to the original usage as a unit of meaning that is culturally transmitted and self-replicating (hence the coinage which is based on “gene”). The two usages are obviously related and yet also different. In particular,...

Last Friday I wrote about the power and danger of the meme of suppressed truth. In the post, I suggested that one form of countering negative memes is through positive ones. Since creating memes is definitely not my strength, please don’t expect any novel GIFs in this post. But let me start with an example of what I have in mind via GIPHY Yes, Captain Picard! Star Trek is a great source of positive memes. The show in its various incarnations is one of the only sustained narratives of a divers...

Last Friday I wrote about the power and danger of the meme of suppressed truth. In the post, I suggested that one form of countering negative memes is through positive ones. Since creating memes is definitely not my strength, please don’t expect any novel GIFs in this post. But let me start with an example of what I have in mind via GIPHY Yes, Captain Picard! Star Trek is a great source of positive memes. The show in its various incarnations is one of the only sustained narratives of a divers...