Entertainment For Lively Minds
What have you learned today? Meme anyone?
Posted by Uncle Wheaty on 14 April 2011 - 8:39pm.
Over the last few weeks I have seen the word "meme" appearing in more and more blog posts and I had no idea what it meant.
Now I know.
This ever changing digital world makes me feel like I am becoming my father,,,but I will keep up!
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I know what 'meme' means...
...but I'm jiggered if I know how to pronounce it.
Rhymes with Lemmy
really.
*walks off whistling*
I say
meem
anyway a chef friend today told me it's easy to make bread, it just takes time so I learned that
Meme predates the interwebs
It was coined by your chum and mine, Richard Dawkins in 'The Selfish Gene' in 1976.
which shows oddly how slow
some "memes" take to spread....
And today I learnt
that William Henry Perkin created the first synthetic dye (mauve) in 1856, while trying to create quinine from coal tar.
Today I have learned
some eyebrow raising things about phone hacking. And found much respect for Hugh Grant:
http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/the-staggers/2011/04/phone-hacking-wor...
Today I have learned...
... that cheques are still in common use in the North East, but banks can't cope with them anymore
*kills HSBC*
Well, what does it mean?
Just yesterday I was driving back from Gatwick to Cornwall and my mind wondered to a recent blog that mentioned that word. I've been aware of the word for a while, but have no idea what it means. Enlightenment anyone.
The digital definition is...
A video or picture passed via the internet from one user to another
but it's not just a static
thing. The downfall spoofs are classic "memes" where the same clip from downfall is adapted for each new news story, or the ever present lolz katz etc people take up the central idea and change it /develope it.
So it is a theme then!
in internet terms it's
slightly more nuanced than that part of the attraction is the recognition of the recurring meme. So the fact that it's downfall is what makes a new version funny possibly more so than the actual script for whatever rant is being enacted.
It's a cultural analogue of a gene
Genes are self-replicating biological units; and memes are similar cultural units - such as ideas, fashions, ways of speaking, tunes - that spread through a society. The meme lodges in a human mind, and causes its "host" to replicate it into other minds.
God Dodger Dawkins
In the selfish gene, Richard Dawkins illustrated that genes are driven to reproduce themselves - hence life on earth basically. Memes by analogy, are ideas that are driven to reproduce themselves. Examples might be the Roman Catholic Church, and interestingly the concept of "memes" themselves. When you have accepted the "meme" you want to share it with others.
The Internet version is fun but much less profound.
Today I learned..
That Handbrake lets you rip DVDs onto iTunes (c/o Bob)
The name of the actor who's been nobbing the lady of negotiable affection first dibbed by Wayne Rooney. (c/o another member of The Massive)
That finely-chopped smoked streaky bacon, fried crisp, works fantastically stirred into the sauce vierge used in a warm potato salad served with grilled Dover sole. (c/o Me)
All about the Livens Large Gallery Flame Projector. (c/o Time Team and Wikipedia)
Some obscure stuff about Systemic Lupus Erythmatosus.
I think I learned quite a lot today.
We should always learn things.
Don't leave me dangling
Who's the actor? Go on, DM me please!
Then you can DM me...
It'll be our own meme!
Roy Castle
I learned that the late, great Roy Castle suffered so severely from agoraphobia that he would often have to climb into a laundry basket while filming 'Record Breakers' when the vast BBC set got too much for him. Furthermore, his co-presenter Cheryl Baker would frequently sit on the basket with Roy inside to prevent the lid from accidentally coming off.
i so
want that to be true
I have learnt
the name of the 'famous actor' with the superinjunction in place over that prostitute/Wayne Rooney scandal.
I learnt
that his contemporaries thought that Harry Houdini was a crap performer, but he was a brilliant self-publicist. The first modern celebrity, really
I learnt
that I still don't know how to do single posts....and the identity of that famous film star.
Today I learnt that
the main man from Fox (see recent TOTP related threads) wrote Under the Boardwalk for the Drifters.
Today I learnt...
...that some slebs actively search Twitter for tweets mentioning their name, and reply to the critical ones (unless one of my followers snitched on me...).
I learned
That vast quantities of red wine and whisky on a Friday night a miserable Saturday makes.
Never again then, eh?
Hic!
Never again, this time I really mean it...
I learned that
in early stage dementia, rehab techniques such as errorless learning, and cognitive stimulation therapy work quite well. Cognitive training? Forget about it.