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Otta Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Better than saying "couldn't get it done up,

> huh?".


Not really, at least that would be honest. They are not asking if it is any good, they are asking if you want to buy it. It can be good but you may not want to buy it. Prob a cultural thing but to me it seems mad to ask a different question than what you want answered.


Irrational rage in its full glory.

stress_head Wrote:

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> They are not asking if it is any good, they are asking

> if you want to buy it.


I think you are being harsh - they are asking if you like it, it fits you, you like the colour or the style - all of which they can assist you with. "Any good?" covers these quite succinctly.

yeah yeah awright!!


I tend to hate trendy new words, especially when we have a perfectly good word in place.

I get annoyed when meme gets misused, but give me a nice word for an idea that is repeated and spreads (and perhaps mutates) in a viral fashion over modern technological, especially social communications.


I guess we have 'cultural marker' but even that is not really there is it.


I think you're just neologophobic ;-P


a quick swizz at google ngrams shows meme as the idea of conflating genetics with the spread of cultural ideas has been around has been around for quite a while!! (though most of the really old ones are just the french "m?me")

https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Meme&case_insensitive=on&year_start=1800&year_end=2008&corpus=15&smoothing=7&share=&direct_url=t4%3B%2CMeme%3B%2Cc0%3B%2Cs0%3B%3Bmeme%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BMeme%3B%2Cc0

some of that corpus stuff was from the sixties, was he publishing back then? not impossible i guess.


there you go, 1976, richard dawkins!!

http://books.google.ie/books?id=P6lRgAmsp9gC&pg=PA209&dq=%22meme%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=1DX3U7_dFNSp7Ab9g4DoBA&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=%22meme%22&f=false



wow, and those calulators!!!!

Loz Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> stress_head Wrote:

> --------------------------------------------------

> -----

> > They are not asking if it is any good, they are

> asking

> > if you want to buy it.

>

> I think you are being harsh - they are asking if

> you like it, it fits you, you like the colour or

> the style - all of which they can assist you with.

> "Any good?" covers these quite succinctly.


Harsh? Yes obviously it is, as well as entirely irrational....

Otta Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> What exactly is a meme? I thought it was the

> pictures with captions, but it seems to be more

> than that.


I thought it was more general than that... sort of a cultural trend. Whether it's dressing a certain way, a certain type of music, the use of Facebook, or pictures of cats with mis-spelled captions.

Wikipedia:

"A meme is an idea, behaviour, or style that spreads from person to person within a culture. 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. Supporters of the concept regard memes as cultural analogues to genes in that they self-replicate, mutate, and respond to selective pressures."

think long hair as counter cultural act of rebellion, spreads from california (or wherever) to east coast, thence to europe, but mutates as countercultural elements become mainstream, you end up with burt reynolds in a mullet, meanwhile it also mutates into spiky hair in punk, and post punk fractures to all sorts, weird flock of sea gulls curtains etc.


More recently with ideas flying over social media, forums etc this can be something like the downfall with alternate subtitles, copied, then parodiedetc (though the concept was probably nicked of something else), or "your bases are belong to us" from original in game weirdness to in-joke to a sort of badge of geekdome.


I guess it also covers things like the ice-bucket challenge or the #3positivethings, though they're more viral marketing, but share properties i guess.


I guess analogously the internet is more like th edeep rainforests where genetic markers spring up and dissappear rapidly in aplace of high fertility and competition.

El Pibe Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------


> I guess it also covers things like the ice-bucket

> challenge


Or the collective feeling that the i-b.c. and other excuses-to-put-more-self-regarding-'look-at-me-aren't-I-wacky'-type-photos-all-over-social-media (planking, Owling, Batmanning etc etc etc) are arse-achingly dull, uninspired, sheep-like activities that are capable of provoking irrational rage?

i have seen irrational rage over the ibc, which is ostensibly mean-spirited given the amount it's achieved in raising awareness, and hopefully money, for research into an awful condition....

.....and yet....and yet....it is rather exactly how you describe isn't it, especially the smug c-list shlebs trying to up the stakes in a bid for attention.

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