Slidecast (slides + audio) on the topic of memes and memetics. An excerpt from an online lecture in the sustainable MBA program at BGIedu in the class "Using the Social Web for Social Change".

1. Memes &
Memetics

2. Definition of Meme
“A unit of cultural inheritance”
A meme consists of any idea or
behavior that can pass from one
person to another by learning or
imitation
Typically propagated by symbolic
communication or language, but not
limited to that
Propagation through contagion,
analogous to a virus

3. Jokes &
Beliefs
Gossip
Examples of Memes
Gestures Practices

4. Fashion Beauty
Examples of Memes
Give me
Liberty or
Music Phrases
Give me
Death!

5. Internet Memes

6. Richard Dawkins
The concept of the meme was first
used by evolutionary biologist
Richard Dawkins
Became popular with the publication
of his book “The Selfish Gene” in
1976

7. Memeplexes
Groups of memes can work
symbiotically together giving rise to
memeplexes
They exist together because they
benefit each other

8. Ideologies Technologies
Memeplexes
Religions Philosophies

9. Natural Selection
Memes have other analogies to
Charles Darwin’s Theory of Natural
Selection
replication & inheritance
variation & mutation
competition & selection
genes compete in the “gene pool”
through natural selection giving rise
to evolution
memes survive in the “belief pool”
through a similar selection process

10. Memetics
“The study of of the transmission of
ideas”
Applying tools from genetics to
understanding ideas is useful
There is not a scientific consensus on
memes
some say “a nice metaphor”
some say “denies free will”
same say “anti-religious”
But it does explain some things that
don’t fit in evolutionary psychology

11. Selfish Memes
Evolution (genetic or memetic) is not
about the individual, but the success
of replication
Thus like genes, they do not have to
be beneficial to their hosts
The only thing a meme “cares” about
is propagation

12. Infectious Memes
“When you plant a fertile meme in
my mind you literally parasitize my
brain, turning it into a vehicle for the
meme’s propagation in just the way
that a virus may parasitize the genetic
mechanism of a host cell.”
— N.K. Humphrey, The Selfish Gene

13. Meme Propogation
Some memes propagate by being
effective or useful
language
agriculture
scientific method
However, memes also propagate
through features and weakness of the
human psyche
emotional appeal
need for hope
bandwagon

14. Memes as Viruses
If memes can be compared to
viruses, they also are analogous to
their viruses properties of infection
and for immunity
infection
proselytization, fear, indoctrination
immunity
doctrine, contempt for knowledge,
dogmatism, emotional hijacking

15. Thoughts Contagion
Some thought about transmission
(See Wikipedia on Meme)
Quality of parenthood
Efficacy of parenthood
Proselytic
Preservational
Adversative
Cognitive
Motivational

16. Memes as a Meme
The idea of memes itself is a meme.
You are now infected