What's In A Meme?

In 1976, Richard Dawkins—an Oxford University zoologist—published The Selfish Gene, a revisionist look at Darwinian theory. Dawkins argued that evolution was not competition between biological organisms, but genetic competition. Individual organisms are doomed to die, but genes hop from creature to creature and survive almost indefinitely. Needing an analogy to describe this process clearly, Dawkins introduced the notion of the meme. A meme—to Dawkins—was a unit of cultural transmission. Anything that spreads from person to person as people imitate one another. Memes include tunes, ideas, catch phrases, clothes fashions, ways of making pots, or of building arches. The familiar seven-note jingle: Shave and a haircut, two bits. The miniskirt was a meme. Cameron Crowe sparked a meme with Jerry McGuire, when Cuba Gooding cried: Show me the money! Memes, Dawkins argued, behave like genes. They thrive by jumping from host to host. Meme spread like wildfire over e-mail. Blogs have already proven particularly adept at spreading a meme that's had little success over the past 25 years: the meme meme. Richard Dawkins coined the word in 1976, but it didn't catch on with the general public until recently, when it became a watchword among bloggers. Fair & Balanced is a meme. Consider yourself infected. If this be (fair & balanced) etymology, so be it.