Me-me-meme
Richard Dawkins coined the term meme in his 1976 book, THE SELFISH GENE. He based it on the Greek word mimeme which means “a thing imitated.”
A meme is similar to a gene. A gene passes on biological information from one generation to the next; a meme passes on cultural information from one generation to the next. One might think of memes as religious values and affiliations, cultural music, shared stories or myths — those kinds of things.
On the internet, particularly in the ahem blog-o-sphere, a meme is a list of questions passed on from one blogger to another. The game is that these questions are answered in a blog post and then passed on to other bloggers. Those bloggers are said to be tagged.
I’m told I have to pass on the rules. Here they are:
The rules of the game get posted at the beginning. Each player answers the questions about himself or herself. At the end of the post, the player then tags five people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know they’ve been tagged and asking them to read your blog.
And this is where I already cheat. I’ll tag my five people now — realize that my friends are anti-social iconoclasts and generally do not participate in these kinds of things. I anticipate only one person taking a stab at this. Here are the people that I’d like to hear from:
- Noah - He hasn’t written in a while, perhaps this will kick start him;
- Reid - He doesn’t have time to write that much anymore and this will seem to be a complete waste of his time;
- GK - Likes to write fiction. If he participates, I guarantee an interesting post;
- px; - He prefers the visual medium to prose. I’d be interested to see a thing like this done figuratively in pixels;
- The Ruminator - You can always count on Dr. Thompson to participate in a good meme. It just depends on if he considers this good.
There are my five.
Here is the list of questions:
- Ten years ago I was …
- Five things on today’s To-Do list …
- Things I’d do if I were a billionaire …
- Three bad habits …
- Five places I’ve lived …
- Six jobs I’ve had in my life …
Here’s where I cheat again. I’m not going to do this all in one post. I prefer a series of posts. Each of these topics have stories. Each story deserves its own voice. It’s my website, I do it my way.
The next time you hear from me I’ll be telling you about life ten years ago.
If you liked that, maybe you will like this:
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