I’m sure my audience for this blog is familiar with the concept of memetics. If not, the basic premise is the idea that there are little bits of information that spread from person to person by observation and imitation. We call these little bits of information "memes" and they’re a lot like viruses.
As Wikipedia, the bastion of human knowledge and an absolutely incredible memetic feat, says, "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". This is a pretty cool idea. Internet memes - those little funny copypasta phrases and images - get their name from this memetic concept.
The thing is, most memes have some …
I’m sure my audience for this blog is familiar with the concept of memetics. If not, the basic premise is the idea that there are little bits of information that spread from person to person by observation and imitation. We call these little bits of information "memes" and they’re a lot like viruses.
As Wikipedia, the bastion of human knowledge and an absolutely incredible memetic feat, says, "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". This is a pretty cool idea. Internet memes - those little funny copypasta phrases and images - get their name from this memetic concept.
The thing is, most memes have some kind of meaning behind them. In general, the reason a copypasta is funny is because the textual content makes you laugh. A silly image or gif is funny because it has some kind of humor in it, usually. That’s what gives them their virality. Nobody will spread an informational virus (yes I read Snow Crash recently, how can you tell?) that has no meaning. They need a way to infect people, and humor in order to be spread.
Or do they?
The genius of 6-7
Imagine a meme with no content - the purest informational virus possible. One that spreads itself and gains its infection vector purely by being a meme. The humor of this meme would be its own being a meme.
I’m sure you know what meme I’m talking about. I’m talking, of course, about 6-7.
Look, I’m sure there are other pure memes. But 6-7 is the most recent and most viral example. It’s gained its virality with no real reason other than its being a meme. Why is 6-7 funny? I know it has an origin in some guy’s song, but I’ve never heard the song, and I still find it funny. Something about its funniness has become embedded into our information environment and propagated its infection without preserving its original meaning at all.
I think that’s pretty cool. Don’t you?
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