Reading Response 3 - Dillon Marlatt

After reading the article and using my mind's extensive database of internet knowledge, I have concluded that the definition of meme's become convoluted by their own nature.  Richard Dawkins defines memes as "an idea, behavior, or style that spreads from person to person". Though, as evident with class definition before this reading assignment, and with the main usage of the term "meme" today, we see that such a broad definition that meme carries doesn't hold, which is odd because Richard Dawkins said the exact same thing about the usage of genes in culture, saying "we need a name for a new replicator, a noun that conveys the idea of cultural transmission"(pg. 192).


I am unsure whether this is partly due to the impossible commonplace usage of the word or a misunderstanding of what it means that contributes to the misdefinition of what is a meme. I am convinced it is to do with the nature of a meme itself. EXAMPLE TIME! The transmission (more like over-population) of meme's on the internet has become the primary example people who are first exposed to the idea think about, therefore becomes the definition. Advice Animals, Meme Faces, and all other internet memes have become the natural progression of "memetics".

I don't believe that the Darwinian can be directly applied to media and culture. Like a population, media and culture can expand infinitely, but population is restricted by space available  while media and culture (being non-physical entities) are not restricted by space. Though other thoughts, such as Darwin's postulates of variation is fitness and the inheritance of variation, the more amusing/better quality/perceived importance of a certain meme would have a memetic advantage over lesser memes, so in some instances, Darwinism can be applied.