Where do memes come from?
The actual term meme was coined in 1976 by Richard Dawkins in his book The Selfish Gene
(The behavioral equivalent of a gene) he was basically saying that memes are not always copied perfectly they might become refined combined or otherwise modified with other ideas which result in new memes this paper was on genetics. But the idea of transmission from one person to another is the idea. Memetic’s.
his paper on the selfish gene can be found here for reading
https://alraziuni.edu.ye/uploads/pdf/The-Selfish-Gene-R.-Dawkins-1976-WW-.pdf
Dawkins interview
This was an interview with Dawkins about his MEMETICS name meme being used for what it is quite a good read
https://www.wired.co.uk/article/richard-dawkins-memes
Before the internet memes were spread by diskette, BBS (Bulletin Board Services) in offices were stuck on walls in office booths and the naughty ones were sent by internal mail or held in manila folders under desks. Photocopiers and Duplicator machines were used to duplicate and copy them as they got passed around to friends, family and work colleagues. Graffiti on walls of buildings help spread them also.
Hackers used to add ASCII code on hacked games as memes on intros to software that was hacked this was around in the 70s 80s and is still around today, so the internet is just the medium in which they are transferred from one person to another.
This humour was sent around on token ring networks before the internet was a thing it was sent to friends via BBS mail systems over 100 baud modem the actual first modem for mass production was released in 1962 by AT&T all this was before the internet’s inception to say the internet started these things is totally wrong.
”Borth, D. E. (2022, May 26)” states the first modem to be made commercially available in the United States was the Bell 103 modem, introduced in 1962 by the American Telephone & Telegraph Company (AT&T). The Bell 103 permitted full-duplex data transmission over conventional telephone circuits at data rates up to 300 bits per second.
The internet has helped memes to be passed around much easier than it used to be it is the medium of choice today instead of being in offices, workshops, walls of buildings and on latrine walls this was named memes in 1996.
Graffiti was another way memes are spread.
The best example is Kilroy where the GIs used to tag on walls of buildings and tanks equipment in WWII in the 1940s
A YouTube video depicting this with the character and the slogan Kilroy was here!
The Internet is the medium for the transfer
Before the internet you had ARPANET which turned into the internet this system was established in the 1960s and the first email was sent in 1971 between computers still in development over time it became known as the internet.
DARPA the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency” states that ARPA research played a central role in launching the “Information Revolution,” including developing or furthering much of the conceptual basis for ARPANET, a pioneering network for sharing digital resources among geographically separated computers. Its initial demonstration in 1969 led to the Internet, whose world-changing consequences unfold on a daily basis today. A seminal step in this sequence took place in 1968 when ARPA contracted BBN Technologies to build the first routers, which one year later enabled ARPANET to become operational.
The only thing that has changed is the medium that spreads them the idea is still the same and the name was stolen from Richard Dawkins’s paper, and they named it meme in 1996 when they have always just been office humour, school humour, Workshop humour, Latrine humour, stuck on walls or on computer games, on hacked games. Naming them memes matches up with the work of Richard Dawkins and it’s actually a fitting name as it explains exactly what they are.
Are we approaching an age where culture automatically and magically creates infinitely more culture?
No in this case as memes have just been a new buzzword added to a thing that has already been in existence for a long time.
Are memes a sign of a “cultural singularity?
They are certainly everyone’s favorite pass time making, reading them I have spent hours by myself adding to them over the years we all have to be honest.
Cultural singularity I would think not yet as technology keeps getting better maybe one day but it is getting near critical mass that is for sure.
as technology increases more tools for creating things have come about and then evolved, and now more and more people have access to the tools to create content creation for themselves,
today everyone can use the internet to post up creations or to add to ones created by others now the creator can access the internet there is no use for the old-school distribution channels of companies that have been doing this since the inception of books and other forms of media distribution.
as the years have gone by more and more people have found it easier to create things we have more musicians, artists, writers, and poets than ever before as technology evolves only time will tell how far it will go.
Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, Google, and YouTube just to name a few there are hundreds more platforms around, they have all made it easier for people to be able to express themselves creatively on a platform designed to do such things as time goes on these platforms have now interlinked creating a mass media entity everyone is now linked together in a mass media content platform entity.
References
Kilroy MEME information
Youtube video Kilroy
Voxdotcom. (2015, December 11). The World War II meme that circled the world. Retrieved December 3, 2022, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFw8MSF7yE4
Kilroy was here. (n.d.). Retrieved December 4, 2022, from http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-kil1.htm
Richard Dawkins MEMETICS
Solon, O. (2013, June 20). Richard Dawkins on the internet’s hijacking of the word ‘meme’. WIRED UK. Retrieved December 3, 2022, from https://www.wired.co.uk/article/richard-dawkins-memes
Baud modems
Borth, D. E. (2022, May 26). modem. Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/technology/modem
Papers
(PDF) https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1 … (n.d.). Retrieved December 4, 2022, from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/283502872_httpswwwgooglecomurlsatrctjqesrcssourcewebcd1cadrjauact8ved0CBwQFjAAahUKEwiOzpzfovnIAhWK0hoKHZsRDXkurlhttp3A2F2Fwwwajolinfo2Findexphp2Fjolte2Farticle2Fview2F41781usgAFQjCNFcNdN1lY-ttCpfBO9SSPOmwJmIfg
Dawkins, R. (n.d.). Richard Dawkins-the selfish gene. Retrieved November 28, 2022, from https://alraziuni.edu.ye/uploads/pdf/The-Selfish-Gene-R.-Dawkins-1976-WW.pdf
Arpanet the Intrernet
(n.d.). Retrieved December 4, 2022, from https://www.darpa.mil/about-us/timeline/arpanet