How Memes Control Everything

• Memes are units of cultural imitation


• We absorb memes that seem to work and fit with our prior memes


• When we absorb a meme, it gets expressed in our behavior


• When we express a meme, other people see it and might copy it


• Memes evolve through mutation and natural selection just like genes do


• People resist memes that don’t fit into their existing network

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The word “meme” was originally coined by Richard Dawkins in his classic 1976 book The Selfish Gene. In it, Dawkins defined memes as “a unit of cultural transmission, or a unit of imitation.” Dawkins’ examples were “tunes, ideas, catch-phrases, clothes fashions, ways of making pots or of building arches.” Today, the list includes gifs, emojis, acron... See more

Memes are essentially just patterns we imitate to achieve some desired effect. For example, in fifth grade I learned to play guitar because I thought it would make me cool. In college I smoked clove cigarettes and conspicuously read Heidegger. Today I write blog posts about business strategy and wear a recreational continuous glucose monitor.