Cthulhu and other memes

“Stroke the cat” — a picture of a fluffy animal with plaintive eyes fell on the work mail in the morning. And yesterday, a colleague, telling that a tempting apartment for rent near the metro, honestly warned: «The moped is not mine.» What does all of this mean? The answer to this question itself will require clarification. These are memes.

More specifically, internet memes. In general, memes (units of inheritance of cultural information) and the science of memetics that studies them is a serious matter. This is a kind of cultural genetics. But we will limit ourselves to what happens on the Web. An Internet meme is more often a word or a phrase, but it can be a picture (like a manul cat), an audio recording, videos on social networks. Memes spread spontaneously from user to user (in blogs, forums, and e-mail), are firmly embedded in memory and evoke an emotional response.

Sometimes it seems that memes have grown into a global virus: do you remember the speed with which the “preved, bear” took over the Internet space in 2006? The meaning of using memes is to show your belonging to the current community, knowledge of the realities of today. They allow us to play with cultural codes, as they are a kind of informational iceberg — it is not without reason that memes are used in marketing and advertising. At the same time, it is not at all necessary to read the exact meaning — memes are so figurative, bright and concise that they still attract our attention.

But they are also short-lived: they are quickly born and quickly become obsolete. And rather than using an outdated Internet meme, it’s better not to go beyond the traditional cultural code at all. Quote, say, Shakespeare or Griboyedov.