This document discusses memes and memetics. It defines memes as units of cultural inheritance that can spread from person to person through learning or imitation. Memes spread through communication in a process analogous to biological evolution and natural selection. Groups of memes that benefit each other form memeplexes. While some memes spread because they are useful, others spread due to features of human psychology like emotional appeal. The concept of memes itself has become a meme that infects people. The document concludes by announcing the topic of the next session.

1. Using the
Social Web
for Social Change
Week 6 – Elluminate Session E
October 26, 2009: 7pm PT

2. Week 5: Social Video, Viral Media
& Memetics
Opening Circle
Review Last Week
Upcoming Week
Upcoming Social Change Projects
Agenda
Memes & Memetics
Special Guest: Franklin Lopez

3. Type a sentence into the
chat window about:
Opening Circle how you are feeling
tonight
something about your
BGI Beat blog
something you learned
this week
a concern

4. Week 5:
Social Video,
Viral Media &
Memetics

5. Last Week’s Assignments
Decide if you are going to have a dedicated
domain for your blog
Purchase your domain at Google
Add Analytics to Your Blog
Google Analytics
Feedburner
Identify Your Blog’s Peers
Find at least 3 blogs with related subjects and/
or keywords
Subscribe, participate, and comment
Understand their audience
Post
1 thoughtful post, 1 commentary post, 1 link
post, plus 2 comments in other blogs

6. Readings & Media
Medium number of readings this
week
Topics are
Social Video
Memes & Memetics
Participation & Engagement in Video

7. This Week’s Assignments
Post
1 thoughtful post, 1 commentary post, 1 link
post, plus 2 comments in other blogs
Find Video
Identify and bookmark 3 videos that exemplify
social change
At least one ideally should be in your BGI Beat
Create Video
~30 seconds minimum
Either a video intro to your blog
A video intro to your LinkedIn profile
A video response to a video on YouTube
Creativity encouraged
Video may be private, but this is discouraged

8. Social
Change
Projects
Learning to change the
world by doing

9. Time Expections & Grades
Remember: “Perfection is the enemy of
the good” & “Ship early and often”
Total 24-32 hours per person
40% of your grade for class
20% is completion
10% is team
10% is quality
Your team members are going to depend
on you in November. If you fail them, I
will fail you

10. Types of Social Change Projects
Social Video
2-3 minutes of scripted, edited video
Event
Climage Change Day
“Lunch for Good”
Educational Resource
web page
teacher tools
Open to your imagination

11. Memes &
Memetics

12. 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

13. Jokes &
Beliefs
Gossip
Examples of Memes
Gestures Practices

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

15. Internet Memes

16. 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

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

18. Ideologies Technologies
Memeplexes
Religions Philosophies

19. 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

20. 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

21. 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

22. 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

23. 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

24. 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

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

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

27. Questions?
Feedback?
ChristopherA@LifeWithAlacrity.com
Next: Elluminate Session F
Motivations for Participation & Change
November 2, 2009: 7pm PT