Meme source

Do you ever wander where all these memes come from? Maybe it’s just me that thinks this. I was doing a meme a short while ago and it got me thinking about the roots of memes. In many respects (bar the threats to your well being) memes remind me of chain letters. Well, I’ve never had a meme that has said if I don’t pass it on I will have various forms of death bestowed on me. Memes are I guess a fluffy version of online chain letters. They also remind me of chinese whispers as sometimes they change along the way.

This year one of the possibly most widely spread memes in the design community that I can think of was the designer wallpaper meme. The source of this meme could be found at Mr Hicks. From a rather innocent post on his blog this meme arose and spread worse than hay fever in a geek meeting. Most got caught up in the flickr group and the post itself was a comment fest. For that meme the source was really clear to trace. Often though this isn’t the case.

Maybe it’s a distant learning to be Mrs Marple in me – I really hope not as I can’t make jam or knit. Anyways, I often wander when a meme is tagged to me of the actual source of this meme. Was it some random supposidly A-list blogger, was it another unrelated origin like Mr Hick’s, or did someone do some passing irc comment that spread like net virus?

Memes really show the power of the internet. Viral marketing has been a proven method of using the viral spreading nature of the internet. I wander how long it is before memes are used as a soft sort of market research – this may have even be done for all I know. Start a meme about what are you top favorite technology things you own, monitor it in search engines and technocrati and bang you’ve got a fair chunk of market research.

Memes I don’t think would be possible without the use of blogs, these are the carriers for memes. Like humans to colds, blogs and memes live together. They pass from one blogger to another along the chain. Each time often 5 or so are tagged and shouted ‘IT’ from down the internet. Sometimes, you know where these come from and often you don’t. Memes are liked by some, refused by others. I choose which ones I participate in and I think most people are like that as sometimes it does become a bit memetastic if you join in on everyone. Heck if you did that you might as-well just set up memeanswersblog.com.