Know Your Meme

From Wikiboom, the official Rocketboom wiki

A meme is a theoretical unit of cultural information. Memes are the building blocks of cultural diffusion, propagating from one mind to another, analogously to the way a gene propagates from one organism to another as a unit of genetic information.

Biologist and evolutionary theorist Richard Dawkins coined the term in 1976 in his book The Selfish Gene. He illustrated some examples of "classic" memes: jingles, catch-phrases, beliefs, clothing fashions, ways of making pots, and the technology of building arches.

Meme-theorists contend that memes evolve by natural selection similarly to Darwinian biological evolution. Via variation, mutation, competition, and inheritance, some ideas propagate less successfully and become extinct, while others will survive, spread, and, for better or for worse, mutate.

1 Meme Types and Examples
2 Memey Resources
- 2.1 secondary
3 Rocketboom Know Your Meme Series

[edit] Meme Types and Examples

Memes are naturally difficult to classify but it's fun to try. It's also hard to distinguish a meme from a fad from a simple funny, catchy, "viral" video. The fundamental distinction probably being its adoption, reuse, and remixing by a much wider audience. Also, watch out for commercialismo! The pros are always out to "plant" contagious media, even though the Internet has an excellent bullshit meter.

This page could really use some help with formatting and extra info. It's a wiki, edit away!

[edit] Natural Parody

...AKA "everyone loves a blonde"

Miss South Carolina Teen USA, Lauren Caitlin Upton
- Wikipedia Entry for Lauren Caitlin Upton, currently deleted, locked and embroiled in controversy (**date??)
- Miss Teen Carolina Tube Map

"Europe is a country and Everyone speaks French there" -- attempted response to a Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader question

[edit] Media Non-Sequiturs

A Question from an Authority on TV + Obscure Answer = Internet Famous

[edit] Piggyback

LEAVE BRITNEY ALONE!, by MySpace/YouTube gay icon Chris Crocker
- Wikipedia: Chris Crocker

[edit] Singing

Chocolate Rain / Tay Zonday -- "**i move away from the mic to breath in"
- see also "i move away from the mic to sell out": Cherry Chocolate Rain; Tay gets paid to do a "viral" Dr. Pepper ad

[edit] Dancing

OK Go!
History of Dance
Prisoners in the Phillipines reenact Michael Jackson's "Thriller"
Mario Bros reenactment

[edit] Southern Crunk dance routines + tunes

UNK - Walk It Out
Soulja Boy - Crank Dat
Lil' Jon - Snap Yo Fingers
Dem Franchize Boys - Lean Wit It, Rock With It

Numa Numa Dance

[edit] Line Rider

Where to start? These videos are so diverse they pop up randomly when you are looking for something completely different. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcu8ZdJ2dQo

[edit] Interruption

Whereby one is hit with a total curveball

WHAT THE F! bomb
Zombie face at the end of that maze game

Alternately, one expects one thing and gets another (a roll)

Rickroll (from duckroll)
- Bubbroll
- Deanroll
Goatse

[edit] Animals

Dramatic Chipmunk/Prairie Dog
ORLY owl
Lolcats
- see I Can Has Cheezburger?
- also Elspeth Jane's blog
Lolrus (actually a seal, R.I.P.)
- for more lols, see also: catchphrase/snowclone, e.g. "I'm in ur ____ ____'ing ur _____", "In Soviet Russia", etc.

[edit] Tasers

Don't Tase Me Bro -- UF student is tasered after asking John Kerry some
- Hot Girls Tazered
- many, many more tasing videos: some drunk frat boys; some cops, including the "didn't get out insurance fast enough" incident; plenty of girls