> Background sounds of a cafe
CM: Excuse me….
D: Hmm?
CM: You’re Dan, aren’t you?
D: Uhh, yeah…?
CM: I thought so.
D: Sorry, do I know you?
CM: May I? (Sits down)
D: Uhh, okay, I—look, I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be rude, I’m actually just trying to get some work done here…
CM: Uh-huh…and are you? Getting any work done?
D: Well, I guess I was taking a little break…on my phone…
CM: Ah yes, there ya go. I saw that. Scrolling the feeds, enjoying some of the fine offerings of the content ecosystem?
D: That’s…one way of putting it, sure.
CM: And did you find the inspiration you were looking for in there?
D: Can’t say that I… sorry, who are you?
CM: Ahh, don’t worry about who I am. The real question, Danny Boy, is who are youI?
D: Wait, how do you know my name—
CM: Oh, I know more than that, my friend. Tell me something. You’re a…. “podcaster”, correct?
D: Well yeah, and a bit of a writer, I’d like to think—
CM: Good good, great. Multi-talented! And I take it you’re self-promoting? Up on your socials? Got an insta, a Tikky-Tok? All that?
D: I’m working on it, yeah…
CM: There ya go—that’s what I’m all about. Taking initiative. Employing modern promotional strategies. Now, I’ll bet you’d like to know what I’m doing here.
D: Yeah, you could… say that…
CM: Ah, yes—but anyone can say anything, can’t they? Words can be funny that way... Complexity of language and all that.
D: What do you want from me?
CM: You had a podcast, didn’t you? Which you recently quit?
D: I mean, I wouldn’t say I quit. It felt like things had run their course…
CM: Oh sure, sure. What an interesting way to word that. Okay, so tell me what you’re working on now. What you were working on, before you got sucked into your phone—so to speak. (Ahem) Gimme your elevator pitch. Wow me. Go on.
D: Uh, okay, well—I guess I’ve been fascinated lately with the amount of lies out there, the misinformation, just…the mountain of bullshit, you know? I wanna dive into all the ways people lie and get lied to, the scams, con artists, manipulators, just really dissect the whole thing from both sides—
CM: Ding ding ding—that’s my floor! Off to my Netflix executive luncheon! Bye bye once-in-a-lifetime opportunity! (Sighs) Danny Boy, work with me here. You gotta be faster. Keep it light, keep it snappy. You’re not here to teach people, you’re here to entertain people!
D: Well I’d like to believe you can do both.
CM: Come on! Have you even consulted with your podcasting “Thought leaders”?
D: I’ll have you know, I’ve subscribed to a number of newsletters…
CM: Ugh, reading. People don’t wanna read, either. You know what people want—what they’ve always wanted?
D: Ten second adorable cat videos?
CM: W-yeah, actually, funny guy. You’re right. People want the same thing they’ve had 1000 times before. There’s your lesson in “truth”, buddy boy. The world… complicated… and scary. And people… well they want what’s gonna make them feel less scared. There, I just saved you ten episodes of research.
D: (sighs) Look, call me stubborn-
CM: You’re stubborn!
D: I just have to believe that there’s more to it than that. There’s gotta be. I just…I can’t seem to figure out where to start.
CM: Ah, stymied by the creative process. Writer’s block. Classic problem. (Pause, sighs) I can see you’re not gonna let this go… Stubborn of heart and mind… Tell you what. Maybe there’s a way we can… ehhhhh… “help each other out.”
D: Help each other? And how is that going to work?
CM: You need to break through this roadblock of yours. And I’m—well, I’m in the business of…seeing that content gets made. So how about this: you chase your little white rabbit of truth and lies and all that good honorable stuff. And I…I’ll help you sell it. Make it more, ahem, palatable for the masses who gather to listen.
D: So…would I be hiring you, or are you hiring me?
CM: Let’s just say we’re hiring each other. And forget about money, this’ll be one of those labour of love type operations.
D: Look, sorry, but… I don’t know you… you walk in here out of nowhere, and what, we’re just supposed to besties all of a sudden?
CM: Hehe, alright alright. Could I perhaps offer you a little something to…set us off on the right foot? (Hands over folder)
D: What’s this? Paper? No Airdrops? Ever hear of Google Drive?
CM: This. Is your first lead, detective.
D: (reading) Seriously? This is what you want me working on?
CM: Hey, I was as surprised as you are. But I go where the content goes, baby. And this so happens to be the word of the day.
D: And should I submit the episode to you in a JPEG? Or would you prefer a collection of reaction GIFs? I think the ‘Blinking White Guy’ reaction GIF works for me right now…
CM: Ooh-hoo-hoo, look at the funny man. Save it for the studio. Speaking of which, where will we be making all this podcasting magic? You just gonna sit in this cafe day after day, you know it gets pricey buying all these…what is this, anyway? An “Americano” *Takes sip* Mmm, not bad, though.
D: What the f—Wait a minute…what are you talking about, “we”?
CM: Well sure, I need to monitor my little investment. You do the legwork. I’ll be… around, let’s just say, to help with the finer points, and spice it all up, as needed. Oh, and do me a favour would ya? Keep it short, concise, to the point, don’t drone on like you’re accustomed to.
D: I don’t “drone”!
CM: I’ve heard some of your work alright? Keep it to a tight 30 minutes. Otherwise, my attention span, it just…(pause, drifts) Well, you get it. Alright, now, let’s see what you can uncover on your little “Journey for Truth”. Onward ho!
D: (Sigh) Aye aye, captain. (Under breath) What the hell am I getting into…
CM: Ahem…I can hear that.
*Sound of a door opening to the street. Off they go*
—
HARD KNOW. EPISODE ONE. THE MEME MACHINE.
---
D: Alright, where do I begin with all this?? This is… a story about… Memes. (Sighs) Memes… Memes? Ah, what the hell...
CM: That’s right, memes! The pictographic language of the internet infosphere. The ultimate—
D: Hey, am I doing this show or are you?
CM: Sorry, sorry. But hell if you’re gonna do it, do it already. Boil it down. Simplify!
D: Alright, that’s true… But you gotta shut up for a minute…
D: This is…this is… (deep breath)
This is about how people talk to each other. (Typing sounds, which fade as he goes on) Yeah. It’s about how we pass ideas along from one person to the next. I mean, that’s what memes are, right? Passing an idea—a joke, a tweet, a picture, a wildly biased political ideology… anything relatable, that moves from one person to the next. You’re right, it’s…a (Kind of) language.
CM: Boom. Count it. Now you’re cooking!
D: Yeah yeah yeah alright… So in today’s tech-driven world, there are a billion ways to communicate. Memes are just one of those many ways—and given how many we all see on the daily, and how fast they can be created and spread, they are rapidly becoming one of the most popular. Hell, sometimes we’re sending memes we don’t even *realize* are memes.
Consider this, a study done in—
CM: Ooh boy, here come the studies. Hey, hey, check it out— (buzz buzz of phone) POV when my podcaster starts quoting statistics…you can’t see it, but it’s a GIF of an adooooorable kitten drifting of to sleep…
D: I wouldn’t say it if it didn’t matter. So buckle up. As I was saying, a 2018 study by Market Research Firm YPulse showed that 8/10 Millenials and Gen Z’ers use GIFs and Memes to communicate with each other. Over half say they send memes multiple times a week or more. Now, I know why I send memes, and usually I know what someone’s trying to do when they send me one…
*BZZZ BZZ*
D: I’m not looking at that. I’m trying to get this thing going here…
CM: Come onnn, just one more. It’s a good one, I promise!
D: (sighs) Fine… (Open phone, snort air from nose) Alright, another masterpiece…
CM: *Clap clap* alright, back to work!
D: Most times, we send memes to make someone else laugh. We’re all amateur comedians now. But the thing is, every so often, there’s something a little more subtle blended into it all—something we may or may not always be able to see. An ideology, an underlying point to be made. It’s not always there, but you’ll find it pretty often, if you look. Come to think of it, it’s become easy for hidden meaning to, well, hide inside our memes. And why? Because, like so many of the best “idea delivery systems”, on the surface, it’s protected by the shield of “it’s just a joke!” And that can allow you to get away with a lot.
CM: Try not to suck all the fun out of being funny here, people are protective of their internet picutres, I hear people even pretend to “own” them these days!
D: So what is a meme? Well according to the Oxford English Dictionary, a ‘meme’ is defined as-
CM: *EHHHHHHH* Oh lord no, what are ya doing??? The dictionary??? Nonononon, try again…
D: Alllllright…. Okay, yeah, I got it, hah, right here is a good time to use what might be considered a ‘meme’ of the podcasting world, as we’ll “go back to the beginnings” of the whole idea of “memes”…
(Dreamy background transition)
D: Wha- Is that you doing that?
CM: Yeah! “Dramatic Effect” and all that, you do you and I’ll do me.
D: The term ‘meme’ was originally coined in the 1976 book; “The Selfish Gene”, written by Evolutionary Biologist Richard Dawkins who wanted to have a snappy term that stemmed from the Greek word, “mimeme” which meant “imitated thing”.You know how they say imitation is the greatest form of flattery, well its also one of the most basic ways human beings learn new things, and pass information on: ya know, we pick up social cues from each other, copy trends we see online—hell, even our senses of style are usually just some form of imitation…
CM: Like those curly-topped, zoomer haircuts? Hah I mean, you decided to bring the “perm” back??
D: Anyway, it seems Dawkins ended up settling on the “catchier” term, ‘meme’ so it could relate to the idea of ‘genes’ in the context of evolution. People love a good rhyme… But his argument was that not only do genetics get passed down from generation to generation, but so do cultural ideas and concepts… well, I’ll just get him to speak for himself here in this clip from an interview in 2013…
> Dawkins Clip describing memes> REMIXED BY CM…
CM: Hah! Check it (Mimicks the Remix clip), I making my own memes!!
D: Do you mind?
CM: I do! Playing regular old ‘sound clips’, you’ve almost filled out the podcaster Bingo Card already!
D: Right well when it comes to ‘memes’, it’s not the same kind of ‘vertical inheritance’ you get with ‘gene’s, ya know, parents passing genetics straight down to their offspring. With the cultural ideas of ‘memes’, you also get ‘Horizontal inheritance’, (as in, people of the *same* generation spreading ideas to one another, like when you’re at school or at work, showing each other the latest “hilarious” thing) and even ‘diagonal’ (meaning, when someone of a previous generation—who is *not* a parent—passes ideas along, like a creepy uncle!). Memes propagate in a multitude of ways that genetics can’t emulate. Imagine you could just pass along genes to your buddy.
CM: TWINSIES!
D: Ughhh just… no. But think about it. Us humans are social creatures, right? Deep down we all want to connect with, to share with, and relate to, other people. Hell, part of the reason I’m making this podcast is to spread some ideas of my own (vigorously sourced from other people’s ideas first, of course), to connect with listeners and fellow creators, and like pretty much all creators of things, to try and fill that empty, formless void in my soul…(drifting, dreamy-sounding…)
CM: Pss-pss—(whispers) Hey, keep it light, Danny Boy. Light and snappy. Big smiles. There ya go.
D: Right, so, according to Psychologist and Writer Susan Blackmore, a meme can technically be just about *anything*, as long as it has the ability to be imitated, and copied. We’re talking about ideas, thoughts, concepts, or even our beloved “just a joke”. It can be a fashion trend. A catchy song with a fun dance. Dumping buckets of ice water on your head for charity. Eating laundry pods. Trying to flip a half-full water bottle and getting it to land perfectly upright. All technically memes. Chris Rock’s sideways, pained face beside Will Smith’s open palm a split-second after impact—you guessed it: a meme. (And oh, what a moment in meme-ery that was!)
CM: I loved that! Look at this one—look, look! (Buzz buzz) Ah, the look on his face! Hah! And have you seen this song some TikToker made-
D: YES. I’VE SEEN THEM. *Beat* When it comes to memes, the important factor to remember—the central piece of what makes a meme a meme—is whether it can be copied through imitation.
Dawkins stated that in order for a meme to be successful—that is, to be replicated and spread—it has to meet 3 criteria: First, Fidelity—the ability for something to be copied accurately. Second, Fecundity—
CM: Ugh, that is an ugly word.
D: Right??
CM: Literally, it feels disgusting in my mouth. Fecundity. Blech.
D: Ugly word or not, “Fecundity” is how many copies get made. And third, Longevity: the staying power of the copies being made. In other words: is it long-lasting, will it stand the test of time? (Pause) You know, I think I’m starting to get what memes are all about… You see what I’m saying?
CM: Alright, let’s not get ahead of ourselves here, podcast boy. Stay on track.
D: (sigh) I’m sorry, but I think…if we’re going to understand memes even better, we’re gonna need to…go back once again…
D: What the hell is that?!?
CM: Yeah, sorry, that kicks in when you re-use tropes. Seems you’ve been deemed ‘hackneyed’ by the powers that be.
D: Hackneyed?? Powers that—well how am I supposed to set up my next point? I need to establish some context, I’m just trying to let the listeners know what I’m doing. (Shouting over alarm) I appeal the decision!
CM: (whispers) Object, say you object.
D: I OBJECT!
CM: Sustained. (Alarm stops).
D: Wait—were you controlling that?
CM: You know, I think the details would just confuse you. Keep it moving.
D: Like I said, we’re gonna have to go back—because what we’re really talking about here, is *language*. Memes are about laughs, and, they’re about communication, the purveyance of ideas and concepts, which makes them, in a way, a language of their own. And like any language, they are imperfect. They can be misused. Misconstrued. You ever send someone a text only to find what you meant to say either got misread, misunderstood, maybe the tone didn’t come across just right?
CM: Sure, happens all the time.
D: I wasn’t really asking *you*, I was asking them. See, like you said at the start, words are tricky, especially written words. They don’t always get the job done precisely—not when it comes to letting people know what you think, or *feel*. Now, *talking*, on the other hand, is a good way to get things across, especially in person. That’s where you get all your subtleties, body language, eye contact, the subtle but apparent judgment of the other person’s shoes.
\/
D: As for us, this show, we’re talking, but see, this is a one way street, being a podcast and all. From host, to listener, with no rebuttals, no back and forth. (*Whispers* Except for this apparent ‘producer’ we’ve got) It’s a carefully written and edited collection of words. There are specific ideas I want you to take in, understand, and carry on with you—hell, maybe even share with others. In a sense, I’m out here trying to create ‘audio memes’…
CM: Hmmm, ya know, a thought occurs to me here. A little…er, promotional opportunity, if you will. Meme-able, meta-advertising content for this first episode. Hoo boy, talk about social media engagement! Think of the possibilities!
D: I’m skeptical about the concept, yet intrigued at its…. potential…
CM: Yeah yeah! It’ll be great! We’ll hash out the details over the break.. Hold on (Pod Voice) “Hard Know will be back with more about memes after the break”
(Music starts rising)
D: Break? What break? And that’s my job to read us out for it… (Crossfade to ad)
> AD: Do you dream of changing minds? Drawing people to your ‘groundbreaking’ ideas? Influencing the very foundation of society itself? At Memetics Consulting, we are the industry leader in cognitive behavioural influencing via a cutting edge scientific method that we call Modern Memetic Transmission.
> At Memetics, we understand that the world is… complicated. Every day, people all over the world struggle to navigate the social, political, and technological systems that govern us, all while balancing the mundane challenges of day-to-day life! With so much white noise, how do you reach people with an *important* message?
> That’s where we come in. The modern memetic messaging space requires a delicate touch, combining engaging, stimulating content, with subtle messaging to drive home humorous, overly simplistic views on complex, deathly serious matters.
D: Wait, what—
> Don’t overthink your next advertising campaign by getting bogged down by so-called “ethics”, “accuracy”, or “common sense”. Let one of Memetics Consulting’s highly-trained social media influencers saturate the social media landscape for you, by providing state of the art comedic gifs that are guaranteed to not only not shift public perception by a non-insignificant percentage point, but negate non-usage of a non-invasive space once used not only by non-influencers, but also never before by the non-influenced.
D: I can’t—I don’t… wait, what?!?
> Memetics Consulting. “Mastering the art of suggestion.”
CM: Hah! Now that’s what I call Dynamic Ad Insertion!
D: What the hell did she even just say?
CM: Hey, get with it! We’re back! Keep it going!
D: Alright, moving on… As I was saying, whether it’s memes, podcasts, or… extremely confusing advertisements…passing ideas and tools from one person to the next, and from one generation to the next—vertically, horizontally, hexagonically, whatever—it’s an essential tool for keeping this whole frozen fireball full of psychotic apes spinning. Again, what we’re really talking about here, is language.
D: At some point in the course of human evolution, we figured out a way to successfully grunt our ideas across from one person to the next. Then, at some point after that, those grunts were written or carved into symbols that could be spread or passed along. And of course, as time went on, those grunts and symbols became more and more complex, all the way to right here, right now, where billions of us now grunt into microphones to sell trucks, and mattresses, and subscription boxes of food for those of us too lazy to buy groceries.
> Of course, other species also have ‘some’ forms of language, although it’s usually to communicate basic, primal ideas. It’s a lot more “Hey look food!”, or “Oh shit, run away!” And a lot less, “Where is this relationship going? I just don’t feel like we’re communicating the way we used to…”
D: So then for people… language at some point had to go from the basics, ya know, communicating simple ideas about the necessities of life and survival, to the more creative, the more abstract. Language had to be used in a different way, a way that took the elements we had and mixed them together to make something… new… Something like…like a…METAPHOR. That’s IT!
CM: Ahhhh using a simple metaphor to explain a more complete idea. PODCAST BINGO! Hahaha. I’m gonna be rich! *Plays a celebratory SFX*
D: Would you quit it! You’re messing up this whole production…
CM: Ah sorry… I’m just a passionate person…
D: Right, we can imagine then that ‘Memes’ are modern day metaphors. Blending language, images and even sound to pass along jokes, ideas, or even more subtle, specific perspectives housed in humour. During wartime, opposing sides would try to drop ‘leaflet propaganda’ to their enemies, to see if they could sow discord and change minds with a piece of paper. Meme warfare. Now, anyone can launch an attack on our thought processes while we're sitting on the toilet, or waiting for the bus. No need to preach, to hand out pamphlets, to wave down people’s attention. The attention is built-in. The assault can be overt or innocuous—in other words, it can come direct from a trusted, ‘verified’ source, or 2nd hand from your pal at the office, hell even your friends and family can be launching a barrage of brain-scrambling ideas at you without even knowing what they’re doing. We can drop a metaphor—a loaded, coded piece of language—directly into someone’s hand. And while they’re smirking, giggling, or just blowing a little air out their nose, they might not even realize they’ve opened their mind to a new idea… Any idea. And if the image, the idea, is catchy enough, it starts to move on its own. Phone to phone, person to person, it spreads…like a…VIRUS. (Pause) OH SHIT. And that’s why MEMES go VIRAL…it’s all making sense now.
CM: The important question now is, how do we get this podcast to go viral? Spreading like wildfire from person to person, infecting thousands, no millions-
D: Infecting??
CM: Ahhhhhhhehhh I mean, bringing in valued listeners hahaaaa.. Then we turn blockbuster mega hit, sell some high-value pre-roll advertising space, and BOOM—we all get rich! Eh??
D: Okayyyy down boy! You know, in a way, this reminds me of going to therapy. Sometimes you need to hear yourself say things out loud, just the right way, for them to really *click*. Like a meme, the right idea at the right time, presented just the right way, can change your mind. You just need to be tuned in, ready to receive. And as our amount of screen time increases, day by day, year by year, so does our exposure to the endless pipeline of memes, just waiting to be seen, shared, imitated. With younger generations leading the way…
CM: Gotta start ‘em young!! Hey hey, look… *Buzz buzz* (sending a meme)
D: Not now, I’m onto something. So that means… Dawkins was on the right track about all this. The modern meme economy fits his idea of the truly ‘effective meme’. Our memes get shared directly from one person to the next, so nothing gets lost in translation. They spread with high fidelity, since we don’t typically change a meme before we forward it on. They have high fecundity too—
CM: Ughh that word…
D: — I know… but because most of the world has a phone and is connected to the internet, meaning the number of copies that can be shared out are potentially endless. But ahh…longevity—here’s where modern memetics (yes that is the actual, technical term) doesn’t meet the Dawkins criteria. Sure, some memes might have more than others—some TikTok trends, certain GIFs, meme templates from a few years back we still see being used, *some* live on for long periods. But for the most part, meme longevity is…well, not actually very *long.* The irony is…when it comes to memes—longevity doesn’t matter so much anymore. In fact, for some of its more insidious forms—that is, its more harmful, less truthful forms—the less longevity, the better. Think about it: this endless firehose of memes blasting our minds 24/7, millions of new attempts being made every day but countless people all around the world…sure, we mostly sift one from the other, have a few laughs, and move on. But is there an angle here we’ve been missing? If memes have become these units of culture, a currency of metaphors and ideas being passed around from one person to another, then… can they be harmful? Can they be *lies*? And what are the consequences of all this careless dispersal?
D: Well obviously. If memes are like language, then memes can be lies too. Language gets used to lie all the time, studies suggest people lie multiple times within minutes of meeting someone new, why would memes be any different in their application?
CM: Hey I’ve been dead-honest since the moment we met I’ll have you know…
D: Surrre… Sometimes the joke reall is “just a joke”—but sometimes it’s something more. To me, memes are a more powerful tool than we give them credit for. And like any powerful tool, it stands to reason someone out there would start using them to manipulate, obfuscate, and outright *lie*. Memes have an inherently broad appeal, they can cross cultural and language boundaries, they often incorporate cultural monoliths like popular TV shows and movies. They’re ubiquitous, and often easy to understand. And the more easily understood they are, the more relatable they are, the more “viral” they can go. A cultural moment that everyone knows about can become a meme goldmine. Then combine that cultural nugget with, say, the subtly planted seed of a political viewpoint, an offhand joke to get people laughing, and combine *that* with widespread internet access, social media, untold numbers of online communities—in other words, an unregulated Wild West web of content—and you have yourself a Golden Age of Misinformation. Jokes can become ideologies, become legislation, become reality itself. Dramatic? Maybe. But maybe it’s because we haven’t really put a lens to this part of modern culture. Hell, I could’ve done a whole podcast series about memes alone.
CM: You had your chance! Now settle down for a moment, we’ve got another Dynamic Ad Insert…
D: Noooooooooo!
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F-MEME 50-HUNDRED AD
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D: Well that was… Motivating? If I may proceed with the episode, let me give you just a bit more context about memes and their spread. Ever heard of “Countryball”?
CM: I have not.
D: Not you—them. The listeners.
CM: Yeah, but they don’t talk back!! I feel like you’re not including me here… That’s alright, I’ll just scroll away over here then…
D: In September 2009, on the German message board site Krautchan—a German version of the well-known ‘cultural cesspool’ that is 4chan—one user, engaging in your standard brand of casual racism, was taking jabs at the broken English of a Polish user. In the process, he began drawing up comic strips with little balls bearing the flags of different countries. Well, before long, ‘Countryball’, as it came to be known, was spreading like crazy. Known for emphasizing the basest cultural and national stereotypes of each country on display, the comics used bastardized English and crude spelling, and most importantly, couched their particular nationalistic flavour of offensiveness in a “just jokes” mentality. The line between joke, stereotype and truth became irrevocably blurred. After all, was it really true that “Poland Could Not Into Space”? Does it matter? Hey, we’re all just here for a laugh.
CM: It’s not that serious dude! Damn, people are SO sensitive these days! Can’t take a joke!
D: 8 years later and Countryball had become widespread across the internet. The PolandBall page alone on Facebook was up to over 400,000 likes, with dozens of other dedicated Countryball pages, from NicheBalls—
CM: Hah! Niche Balls!
D: —to, of course, ChristianityBall.
CM: Ahh, religion. The original ‘meme’.
D: Ohhh “edgy”... but also… true… The Polandball subreddit now has over 630K subscribers on Reddit, nearly double its approximately 350K in 2017. Keep in mind, we’re talking about a bunch of crudely drawn circles with national flags colored on. That’s all it takes. The birth of a meme, which has now spread across hundreds of thousands of human minds. It has Fidelity—a distinct and recognizable style, and apparently, a strict set of design rules with an authoritarian level of enforcement from its moderators. It has Fecundity—it spreads en masse with a momentum all its own. And, most alarmingly, considering the subject matter, this one actually has Longevity—clearly, considering Countryball has been going strong, even growing, for over a decade.
D: Now, is this necessarily nefarious?
CM: Alliteration. I like it. And a potential future podcast title… *Writes* Necessarily Nefarious… Hmmmm.. Stories of people doing bad things for the right reasons… Yeahhhh…
D: Well, it’s worth noting, the initial premise of Countryball was about highlighting the stereotypes of virtually any nation, the good and the bad. Perhaps not problematic in its *intent* you know, that whole “if we can all laugh at each other and ourselves then the world will finally heal” kind of way—moderators of the Polandball subreddit maintain that their primary goal is simply to provide content that is quote “high-quality”, and “funny”, regardless of underlying suggestions in the subject matter—the recent uptick in subscribers and comic contributions does coincide with the boom of politically charged, xenophobic content on the internet as a whole since the infamous 2016 presidential election.
CM: Ah, the Grand Cheeto! Talk about the Golden Age of content…
D: And according to those same moderators, when there is more news, there are more comic submissions. Correlation? Causation?
CM: Or hey, maybe it truly is just a joke?
D: Sure, maybe. But what about the more overt, political content creators, the meme-lords or whatever you wanna call em. The ones with an unapologetic, extremist slant. Like the ones that use memes to dunk on people losing their human rights? There are more and more reports in the past few years of Far-right and Alt-Right internet personalities harnessing the power of memes to spread a broader, more insidious ideology—using those same deeply psychological memetic concepts of Dawkins and Blackmore we touched on earlier. Hell, I remember an example myself. 10 years ago, I was a casual 4chan reader, another kid laughing my ass off at a slew of classic memes and jokes—most in very poor taste— like when the communal power of 4chan managed to push through a winning submission called “Hitler Did Nothing Wrong” as Mountain Dew’s new flavour of 2012. It didn’t make it to store shelves—but that’s what you get for putting naming power in the hands of the internet—and that was 10 years ago. Before the online boom that has given us the behemoth we have now.
CM: Just a joke, Danny Boy. C’mon, where’s that winning sense of humour?
D: And yet, a decade later, with White Supremacy and Nazi ideologies inexplicably growing in popularity once more (particularily amongst the meme-loving younger generation)…well, I guess I’m feeling a slight sense of worry.
D: I’d like to sit here and think that truth will prevail, but history shows that it often doesn’t. Numerous studies have shown that a fake story gets shared more, and spreads further, than a correction to that same story. Sensational content does better, builds more engagement, reality be damned. More and more, it seems we *want* to be lied to. But this isn’t really anything new. It’s fundamentally… human. In the 1920s, a researcher named Margaret Mead traveled to Samoa, studied the local culture, and published her findings in a book detailing the sexual habits of young Samoan girls. This book became the consensus in the Western World on that culture’s habits for decades…that is, until an anthropologist named Derek Freeman discovered that the information Mead had been given, was in fact just the locals screwing with an outsider who had come to observe them. The lie had become truth, better yet, the jokes became the facts to who-knows-how-many people? When you’re being bombarded with information and memes all day, in endless amounts, it’s not like people have the time or energy to fact check while they’re just trying to get through the day.
D: But why do certain pieces of information spread better than others? Why do some memes win out, while others fizzle into obscurity? Again, emotional appeal matters. A political meme that boils your blood, that hits on a nerve, is going to motivate you to share, respond, engage. In his Book titled “Virus of the Mind” Programmer (and one of the original creators of Microsoft Word) Richard Brodie stated; “Memes that deal with food, sex, and power are the most successful”, since they touch on the deepest aspects of our evolutionary behaviours.
D: Emotional appeals, political biases, belief systems, even common cultural interests, form the basis of meme creation and spread. I watch the latest episode of a show, and a minute later I can take in hundreds of tweets. “Zandaya was such a MOOD in this episode of Euphoria”. As a sports fan, nearly every story, every highlight is accompanied by the same bland snippets of replies, comments and meme-able hot takes. “LeBron is trash! Steph Curry better! Lakers SZN!! Let’s goooo!” And so on… and on… and on… for eternity, a firehose of unstoppable media washing over us every minute of every day until the very essence of our being has been diluted down to- (Ominous Tone builds then *Snaps*)
CM; Hey whoa… Getting carried away here. Uhhhh, let’s hear a quick message from another sponsor…
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>>MEME IT AD!
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CM: Okay now, regroup, this is good stuff Danny Boy. A little macabre, but good. And ehhh… Tick-Tock here Champ… we’re almost there
D: Yeah… Yeah. Where was I….Common interests create online communities. We follow the people who think like us, who vote the same way, who like the same teams and the same shows, who view the world the same way we do. When those people share memes that appeal to our politics, our biases, our cultural tastes, we feel compelled to share them out, further relating to others in our bubble. Memes foster a sense of social engagement, of belonging. They feed the echo chamber. They feed on our very human need to feel heard, validated, understood. And when they provide us with that feeling, the memes essentially create a loop. They feed on *themselves*.
D: Just one last thing, an idea Blackmore called ‘Memetic altruism’. Basically, if you’re a leader, or someone who is idolized, idealized, or even just ‘followed’ online, people want to be like you. Pretty obvious, right? We’re all a little hypnotized by fame. But how does this relate to memes? Well, like it or not, we live in the age of celebrity: the influencer, the content creator, the cult of personality. It’s everywhere we look. Verified on Twitter with a widespread media career? Perfect conditions to gain followers, spread memes, influence the cultural mindset of mass groups of people. Relate with others, be liked, spread ideas.
CM: Sounds like a good way to operate as a podcaster! Heheh! Am I right?
D: And whether you even notice it happening, time passes and then, you simply cannot stand “some other group of people”. That other team. That other political party. The people who are from a different City, State, Country, have different beliefs, of different skin tones, maybe you never noticed all these “issues” with them all before, but now… You’ve “learned” so much… And your newfound communities help you feel vindicated. You’re not wrong! Look how many people agree with you!
D: Slowly…it starts to make sense. (Sigh) We live in the most dense informational period in history. Let’s face it, unless you make a concerted effort to unplug, live outside the common culture of this world, and accept the potential detachment from other people that comes with that—you, me, all of us, will have to learn to navigate this memetic overload. On one hand, they’re “just jokes”, sure, but I think what we’re discovering is, they’re *not*... not really. The very concept of ‘memes’ were being studied long before the internet was anywhere near as commonly used, and decades before social media came along. Susan Blackmore’s ‘The Meme Machine’ was published in 1999. Richard Dawkins coined the term and hypothesized all its frightening potential in the 1970s. We are bombarded, endlessly, by memes—in the form of news, gifs, ads, Tiktoks and Instagram Reels, opinion pieces, tweets and comics and content, content, and more content—
CM: Hoo boy—you better slow down, I’m getting a little turned on over here.
D: (light laugh) Yeah, we all love a joke. Lord knows I do. And memes are just that. Jokes. But like most jokes, they can be a vehicle for truth—or for lies. They can be—and, as seems more and more likely, *have* been—weaponized, to sway hearts and minds, in the guise of entertainment. In between the laughs, memes are reshaping our culture, our conscience. They are slowly, surely, altering who we are, and the world we’re building. And we’re playing ball. We’re all the culprits, and we’re all the victims.
D: It’s worth asking—what have we done here? What kind of informational landscape are we creating all around us? What terrible density is filling our lives and our minds? Is there any going back?
D: Blackmore suggested that who we are is essentially a mashup of all we know—the collection of memes we carry with us, the ones that have the most appeal to us, that have the highest fidelity and fecundity. What you allow yourself to take in, becomes part of how you see the world, how you navigate it. Our parents or guardians raise us, our teachers educate us, and our culture sends a barrage of ideas and concepts at us with at an unrelenting volume. I’m just a mashup of everything I’ve been taught and that’s passed through my brain. And so are you, and your parents, and your kids, your friends, your coworkers.
D: Our ideas of "self", our beliefs, our worldview, it’s all made up of what we think we know—what we believe, and what other people can *influence* us to believe. The ‘memes’ we take in may be simple pictures, simple words—symbolic grunts we carve into the wall—but under the surface, they are filled with meaningful cultural ideas, concepts, beliefs. Over time, they make up who we are, what we stand for. In the end, they become us.
(Long pause)
CM: I’m starting to think we should’ve just made this episode into a GIF after all.
CM: Excuse me….
D: Hmm?
CM: You’re Dan, aren’t you?
D: Uhh, yeah…?
CM: I thought so.
D: Sorry, do I know you?
CM: May I? (Sits down)
D: Uhh, okay, I—look, I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be rude, I’m actually just trying to get some work done here…
CM: Uh-huh…and are you? Getting any work done?
D: Well, I guess I was taking a little break…on my phone…
CM: Ah yes, there ya go. I saw that. Scrolling the feeds, enjoying some of the fine offerings of the content ecosystem?
D: That’s…one way of putting it, sure.
CM: And did you find the inspiration you were looking for in there?
D: Can’t say that I… sorry, who are you?
CM: Ahh, don’t worry about who I am. The real question, Danny Boy, is who are youI?
D: Wait, how do you know my name—
CM: Oh, I know more than that, my friend. Tell me something. You’re a…. “podcaster”, correct?
D: Well yeah, and a bit of a writer, I’d like to think—
CM: Good good, great. Multi-talented! And I take it you’re self-promoting? Up on your socials? Got an insta, a Tikky-Tok? All that?
D: I’m working on it, yeah…
CM: There ya go—that’s what I’m all about. Taking initiative. Employing modern promotional strategies. Now, I’ll bet you’d like to know what I’m doing here.
D: Yeah, you could… say that…
CM: Ah, yes—but anyone can say anything, can’t they? Words can be funny that way... Complexity of language and all that.
D: What do you want from me?
CM: You had a podcast, didn’t you? Which you recently quit?
D: I mean, I wouldn’t say I quit. It felt like things had run their course…
CM: Oh sure, sure. What an interesting way to word that. Okay, so tell me what you’re working on now. What you were working on, before you got sucked into your phone—so to speak. (Ahem) Gimme your elevator pitch. Wow me. Go on.
D: Uh, okay, well—I guess I’ve been fascinated lately with the amount of lies out there, the misinformation, just…the mountain of bullshit, you know? I wanna dive into all the ways people lie and get lied to, the scams, con artists, manipulators, just really dissect the whole thing from both sides—
CM: Ding ding ding—that’s my floor! Off to my Netflix executive luncheon! Bye bye once-in-a-lifetime opportunity! (Sighs) Danny Boy, work with me here. You gotta be faster. Keep it light, keep it snappy. You’re not here to teach people, you’re here to entertain people!
D: Well I’d like to believe you can do both.
CM: Come on! Have you even consulted with your podcasting “Thought leaders”?
D: I’ll have you know, I’ve subscribed to a number of newsletters…
CM: Ugh, reading. People don’t wanna read, either. You know what people want—what they’ve always wanted?
D: Ten second adorable cat videos?
CM: W-yeah, actually, funny guy. You’re right. People want the same thing they’ve had 1000 times before. There’s your lesson in “truth”, buddy boy. The world… complicated… and scary. And people… well they want what’s gonna make them feel less scared. There, I just saved you ten episodes of research.
D: (sighs) Look, call me stubborn-
CM: You’re stubborn!
D: I just have to believe that there’s more to it than that. There’s gotta be. I just…I can’t seem to figure out where to start.
CM: Ah, stymied by the creative process. Writer’s block. Classic problem. (Pause, sighs) I can see you’re not gonna let this go… Stubborn of heart and mind… Tell you what. Maybe there’s a way we can… ehhhhh… “help each other out.”
D: Help each other? And how is that going to work?
CM: You need to break through this roadblock of yours. And I’m—well, I’m in the business of…seeing that content gets made. So how about this: you chase your little white rabbit of truth and lies and all that good honorable stuff. And I…I’ll help you sell it. Make it more, ahem, palatable for the masses who gather to listen.
D: So…would I be hiring you, or are you hiring me?
CM: Let’s just say we’re hiring each other. And forget about money, this’ll be one of those labour of love type operations.
D: Look, sorry, but… I don’t know you… you walk in here out of nowhere, and what, we’re just supposed to besties all of a sudden?
CM: Hehe, alright alright. Could I perhaps offer you a little something to…set us off on the right foot? (Hands over folder)
D: What’s this? Paper? No Airdrops? Ever hear of Google Drive?
CM: This. Is your first lead, detective.
D: (reading) Seriously? This is what you want me working on?
CM: Hey, I was as surprised as you are. But I go where the content goes, baby. And this so happens to be the word of the day.
D: And should I submit the episode to you in a JPEG? Or would you prefer a collection of reaction GIFs? I think the ‘Blinking White Guy’ reaction GIF works for me right now…
CM: Ooh-hoo-hoo, look at the funny man. Save it for the studio. Speaking of which, where will we be making all this podcasting magic? You just gonna sit in this cafe day after day, you know it gets pricey buying all these…what is this, anyway? An “Americano” *Takes sip* Mmm, not bad, though.
D: What the f—Wait a minute…what are you talking about, “we”?
CM: Well sure, I need to monitor my little investment. You do the legwork. I’ll be… around, let’s just say, to help with the finer points, and spice it all up, as needed. Oh, and do me a favour would ya? Keep it short, concise, to the point, don’t drone on like you’re accustomed to.
D: I don’t “drone”!
CM: I’ve heard some of your work alright? Keep it to a tight 30 minutes. Otherwise, my attention span, it just…(pause, drifts) Well, you get it. Alright, now, let’s see what you can uncover on your little “Journey for Truth”. Onward ho!
D: (Sigh) Aye aye, captain. (Under breath) What the hell am I getting into…
CM: Ahem…I can hear that.
*Sound of a door opening to the street. Off they go*
—
HARD KNOW. EPISODE ONE. THE MEME MACHINE.
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D: Alright, where do I begin with all this?? This is… a story about… Memes. (Sighs) Memes… Memes? Ah, what the hell...
CM: That’s right, memes! The pictographic language of the internet infosphere. The ultimate—
D: Hey, am I doing this show or are you?
CM: Sorry, sorry. But hell if you’re gonna do it, do it already. Boil it down. Simplify!
D: Alright, that’s true… But you gotta shut up for a minute…
D: This is…this is… (deep breath)
This is about how people talk to each other. (Typing sounds, which fade as he goes on) Yeah. It’s about how we pass ideas along from one person to the next. I mean, that’s what memes are, right? Passing an idea—a joke, a tweet, a picture, a wildly biased political ideology… anything relatable, that moves from one person to the next. You’re right, it’s…a (Kind of) language.
CM: Boom. Count it. Now you’re cooking!
D: Yeah yeah yeah alright… So in today’s tech-driven world, there are a billion ways to communicate. Memes are just one of those many ways—and given how many we all see on the daily, and how fast they can be created and spread, they are rapidly becoming one of the most popular. Hell, sometimes we’re sending memes we don’t even *realize* are memes.
Consider this, a study done in—
CM: Ooh boy, here come the studies. Hey, hey, check it out— (buzz buzz of phone) POV when my podcaster starts quoting statistics…you can’t see it, but it’s a GIF of an adooooorable kitten drifting of to sleep…
D: I wouldn’t say it if it didn’t matter. So buckle up. As I was saying, a 2018 study by Market Research Firm YPulse showed that 8/10 Millenials and Gen Z’ers use GIFs and Memes to communicate with each other. Over half say they send memes multiple times a week or more. Now, I know why I send memes, and usually I know what someone’s trying to do when they send me one…
*BZZZ BZZ*
D: I’m not looking at that. I’m trying to get this thing going here…
CM: Come onnn, just one more. It’s a good one, I promise!
D: (sighs) Fine… (Open phone, snort air from nose) Alright, another masterpiece…
CM: *Clap clap* alright, back to work!
D: Most times, we send memes to make someone else laugh. We’re all amateur comedians now. But the thing is, every so often, there’s something a little more subtle blended into it all—something we may or may not always be able to see. An ideology, an underlying point to be made. It’s not always there, but you’ll find it pretty often, if you look. Come to think of it, it’s become easy for hidden meaning to, well, hide inside our memes. And why? Because, like so many of the best “idea delivery systems”, on the surface, it’s protected by the shield of “it’s just a joke!” And that can allow you to get away with a lot.
CM: Try not to suck all the fun out of being funny here, people are protective of their internet picutres, I hear people even pretend to “own” them these days!
D: So what is a meme? Well according to the Oxford English Dictionary, a ‘meme’ is defined as-
CM: *EHHHHHHH* Oh lord no, what are ya doing??? The dictionary??? Nonononon, try again…
D: Alllllright…. Okay, yeah, I got it, hah, right here is a good time to use what might be considered a ‘meme’ of the podcasting world, as we’ll “go back to the beginnings” of the whole idea of “memes”…
(Dreamy background transition)
D: Wha- Is that you doing that?
CM: Yeah! “Dramatic Effect” and all that, you do you and I’ll do me.
D: The term ‘meme’ was originally coined in the 1976 book; “The Selfish Gene”, written by Evolutionary Biologist Richard Dawkins who wanted to have a snappy term that stemmed from the Greek word, “mimeme” which meant “imitated thing”.You know how they say imitation is the greatest form of flattery, well its also one of the most basic ways human beings learn new things, and pass information on: ya know, we pick up social cues from each other, copy trends we see online—hell, even our senses of style are usually just some form of imitation…
CM: Like those curly-topped, zoomer haircuts? Hah I mean, you decided to bring the “perm” back??
D: Anyway, it seems Dawkins ended up settling on the “catchier” term, ‘meme’ so it could relate to the idea of ‘genes’ in the context of evolution. People love a good rhyme… But his argument was that not only do genetics get passed down from generation to generation, but so do cultural ideas and concepts… well, I’ll just get him to speak for himself here in this clip from an interview in 2013…
> Dawkins Clip describing memes> REMIXED BY CM…
CM: Hah! Check it (Mimicks the Remix clip), I making my own memes!!
D: Do you mind?
CM: I do! Playing regular old ‘sound clips’, you’ve almost filled out the podcaster Bingo Card already!
D: Right well when it comes to ‘memes’, it’s not the same kind of ‘vertical inheritance’ you get with ‘gene’s, ya know, parents passing genetics straight down to their offspring. With the cultural ideas of ‘memes’, you also get ‘Horizontal inheritance’, (as in, people of the *same* generation spreading ideas to one another, like when you’re at school or at work, showing each other the latest “hilarious” thing) and even ‘diagonal’ (meaning, when someone of a previous generation—who is *not* a parent—passes ideas along, like a creepy uncle!). Memes propagate in a multitude of ways that genetics can’t emulate. Imagine you could just pass along genes to your buddy.
CM: TWINSIES!
D: Ughhh just… no. But think about it. Us humans are social creatures, right? Deep down we all want to connect with, to share with, and relate to, other people. Hell, part of the reason I’m making this podcast is to spread some ideas of my own (vigorously sourced from other people’s ideas first, of course), to connect with listeners and fellow creators, and like pretty much all creators of things, to try and fill that empty, formless void in my soul…(drifting, dreamy-sounding…)
CM: Pss-pss—(whispers) Hey, keep it light, Danny Boy. Light and snappy. Big smiles. There ya go.
D: Right, so, according to Psychologist and Writer Susan Blackmore, a meme can technically be just about *anything*, as long as it has the ability to be imitated, and copied. We’re talking about ideas, thoughts, concepts, or even our beloved “just a joke”. It can be a fashion trend. A catchy song with a fun dance. Dumping buckets of ice water on your head for charity. Eating laundry pods. Trying to flip a half-full water bottle and getting it to land perfectly upright. All technically memes. Chris Rock’s sideways, pained face beside Will Smith’s open palm a split-second after impact—you guessed it: a meme. (And oh, what a moment in meme-ery that was!)
CM: I loved that! Look at this one—look, look! (Buzz buzz) Ah, the look on his face! Hah! And have you seen this song some TikToker made-
D: YES. I’VE SEEN THEM. *Beat* When it comes to memes, the important factor to remember—the central piece of what makes a meme a meme—is whether it can be copied through imitation.
Dawkins stated that in order for a meme to be successful—that is, to be replicated and spread—it has to meet 3 criteria: First, Fidelity—the ability for something to be copied accurately. Second, Fecundity—
CM: Ugh, that is an ugly word.
D: Right??
CM: Literally, it feels disgusting in my mouth. Fecundity. Blech.
D: Ugly word or not, “Fecundity” is how many copies get made. And third, Longevity: the staying power of the copies being made. In other words: is it long-lasting, will it stand the test of time? (Pause) You know, I think I’m starting to get what memes are all about… You see what I’m saying?
CM: Alright, let’s not get ahead of ourselves here, podcast boy. Stay on track.
D: (sigh) I’m sorry, but I think…if we’re going to understand memes even better, we’re gonna need to…go back once again…
D: What the hell is that?!?
CM: Yeah, sorry, that kicks in when you re-use tropes. Seems you’ve been deemed ‘hackneyed’ by the powers that be.
D: Hackneyed?? Powers that—well how am I supposed to set up my next point? I need to establish some context, I’m just trying to let the listeners know what I’m doing. (Shouting over alarm) I appeal the decision!
CM: (whispers) Object, say you object.
D: I OBJECT!
CM: Sustained. (Alarm stops).
D: Wait—were you controlling that?
CM: You know, I think the details would just confuse you. Keep it moving.
D: Like I said, we’re gonna have to go back—because what we’re really talking about here, is *language*. Memes are about laughs, and, they’re about communication, the purveyance of ideas and concepts, which makes them, in a way, a language of their own. And like any language, they are imperfect. They can be misused. Misconstrued. You ever send someone a text only to find what you meant to say either got misread, misunderstood, maybe the tone didn’t come across just right?
CM: Sure, happens all the time.
D: I wasn’t really asking *you*, I was asking them. See, like you said at the start, words are tricky, especially written words. They don’t always get the job done precisely—not when it comes to letting people know what you think, or *feel*. Now, *talking*, on the other hand, is a good way to get things across, especially in person. That’s where you get all your subtleties, body language, eye contact, the subtle but apparent judgment of the other person’s shoes.
\/
D: As for us, this show, we’re talking, but see, this is a one way street, being a podcast and all. From host, to listener, with no rebuttals, no back and forth. (*Whispers* Except for this apparent ‘producer’ we’ve got) It’s a carefully written and edited collection of words. There are specific ideas I want you to take in, understand, and carry on with you—hell, maybe even share with others. In a sense, I’m out here trying to create ‘audio memes’…
CM: Hmmm, ya know, a thought occurs to me here. A little…er, promotional opportunity, if you will. Meme-able, meta-advertising content for this first episode. Hoo boy, talk about social media engagement! Think of the possibilities!
D: I’m skeptical about the concept, yet intrigued at its…. potential…
CM: Yeah yeah! It’ll be great! We’ll hash out the details over the break.. Hold on (Pod Voice) “Hard Know will be back with more about memes after the break”
(Music starts rising)
D: Break? What break? And that’s my job to read us out for it… (Crossfade to ad)
> AD: Do you dream of changing minds? Drawing people to your ‘groundbreaking’ ideas? Influencing the very foundation of society itself? At Memetics Consulting, we are the industry leader in cognitive behavioural influencing via a cutting edge scientific method that we call Modern Memetic Transmission.
> At Memetics, we understand that the world is… complicated. Every day, people all over the world struggle to navigate the social, political, and technological systems that govern us, all while balancing the mundane challenges of day-to-day life! With so much white noise, how do you reach people with an *important* message?
> That’s where we come in. The modern memetic messaging space requires a delicate touch, combining engaging, stimulating content, with subtle messaging to drive home humorous, overly simplistic views on complex, deathly serious matters.
D: Wait, what—
> Don’t overthink your next advertising campaign by getting bogged down by so-called “ethics”, “accuracy”, or “common sense”. Let one of Memetics Consulting’s highly-trained social media influencers saturate the social media landscape for you, by providing state of the art comedic gifs that are guaranteed to not only not shift public perception by a non-insignificant percentage point, but negate non-usage of a non-invasive space once used not only by non-influencers, but also never before by the non-influenced.
D: I can’t—I don’t… wait, what?!?
> Memetics Consulting. “Mastering the art of suggestion.”
CM: Hah! Now that’s what I call Dynamic Ad Insertion!
D: What the hell did she even just say?
CM: Hey, get with it! We’re back! Keep it going!
D: Alright, moving on… As I was saying, whether it’s memes, podcasts, or… extremely confusing advertisements…passing ideas and tools from one person to the next, and from one generation to the next—vertically, horizontally, hexagonically, whatever—it’s an essential tool for keeping this whole frozen fireball full of psychotic apes spinning. Again, what we’re really talking about here, is language.
D: At some point in the course of human evolution, we figured out a way to successfully grunt our ideas across from one person to the next. Then, at some point after that, those grunts were written or carved into symbols that could be spread or passed along. And of course, as time went on, those grunts and symbols became more and more complex, all the way to right here, right now, where billions of us now grunt into microphones to sell trucks, and mattresses, and subscription boxes of food for those of us too lazy to buy groceries.
> Of course, other species also have ‘some’ forms of language, although it’s usually to communicate basic, primal ideas. It’s a lot more “Hey look food!”, or “Oh shit, run away!” And a lot less, “Where is this relationship going? I just don’t feel like we’re communicating the way we used to…”
D: So then for people… language at some point had to go from the basics, ya know, communicating simple ideas about the necessities of life and survival, to the more creative, the more abstract. Language had to be used in a different way, a way that took the elements we had and mixed them together to make something… new… Something like…like a…METAPHOR. That’s IT!
CM: Ahhhh using a simple metaphor to explain a more complete idea. PODCAST BINGO! Hahaha. I’m gonna be rich! *Plays a celebratory SFX*
D: Would you quit it! You’re messing up this whole production…
CM: Ah sorry… I’m just a passionate person…
D: Right, we can imagine then that ‘Memes’ are modern day metaphors. Blending language, images and even sound to pass along jokes, ideas, or even more subtle, specific perspectives housed in humour. During wartime, opposing sides would try to drop ‘leaflet propaganda’ to their enemies, to see if they could sow discord and change minds with a piece of paper. Meme warfare. Now, anyone can launch an attack on our thought processes while we're sitting on the toilet, or waiting for the bus. No need to preach, to hand out pamphlets, to wave down people’s attention. The attention is built-in. The assault can be overt or innocuous—in other words, it can come direct from a trusted, ‘verified’ source, or 2nd hand from your pal at the office, hell even your friends and family can be launching a barrage of brain-scrambling ideas at you without even knowing what they’re doing. We can drop a metaphor—a loaded, coded piece of language—directly into someone’s hand. And while they’re smirking, giggling, or just blowing a little air out their nose, they might not even realize they’ve opened their mind to a new idea… Any idea. And if the image, the idea, is catchy enough, it starts to move on its own. Phone to phone, person to person, it spreads…like a…VIRUS. (Pause) OH SHIT. And that’s why MEMES go VIRAL…it’s all making sense now.
CM: The important question now is, how do we get this podcast to go viral? Spreading like wildfire from person to person, infecting thousands, no millions-
D: Infecting??
CM: Ahhhhhhhehhh I mean, bringing in valued listeners hahaaaa.. Then we turn blockbuster mega hit, sell some high-value pre-roll advertising space, and BOOM—we all get rich! Eh??
D: Okayyyy down boy! You know, in a way, this reminds me of going to therapy. Sometimes you need to hear yourself say things out loud, just the right way, for them to really *click*. Like a meme, the right idea at the right time, presented just the right way, can change your mind. You just need to be tuned in, ready to receive. And as our amount of screen time increases, day by day, year by year, so does our exposure to the endless pipeline of memes, just waiting to be seen, shared, imitated. With younger generations leading the way…
CM: Gotta start ‘em young!! Hey hey, look… *Buzz buzz* (sending a meme)
D: Not now, I’m onto something. So that means… Dawkins was on the right track about all this. The modern meme economy fits his idea of the truly ‘effective meme’. Our memes get shared directly from one person to the next, so nothing gets lost in translation. They spread with high fidelity, since we don’t typically change a meme before we forward it on. They have high fecundity too—
CM: Ughh that word…
D: — I know… but because most of the world has a phone and is connected to the internet, meaning the number of copies that can be shared out are potentially endless. But ahh…longevity—here’s where modern memetics (yes that is the actual, technical term) doesn’t meet the Dawkins criteria. Sure, some memes might have more than others—some TikTok trends, certain GIFs, meme templates from a few years back we still see being used, *some* live on for long periods. But for the most part, meme longevity is…well, not actually very *long.* The irony is…when it comes to memes—longevity doesn’t matter so much anymore. In fact, for some of its more insidious forms—that is, its more harmful, less truthful forms—the less longevity, the better. Think about it: this endless firehose of memes blasting our minds 24/7, millions of new attempts being made every day but countless people all around the world…sure, we mostly sift one from the other, have a few laughs, and move on. But is there an angle here we’ve been missing? If memes have become these units of culture, a currency of metaphors and ideas being passed around from one person to another, then… can they be harmful? Can they be *lies*? And what are the consequences of all this careless dispersal?
D: Well obviously. If memes are like language, then memes can be lies too. Language gets used to lie all the time, studies suggest people lie multiple times within minutes of meeting someone new, why would memes be any different in their application?
CM: Hey I’ve been dead-honest since the moment we met I’ll have you know…
D: Surrre… Sometimes the joke reall is “just a joke”—but sometimes it’s something more. To me, memes are a more powerful tool than we give them credit for. And like any powerful tool, it stands to reason someone out there would start using them to manipulate, obfuscate, and outright *lie*. Memes have an inherently broad appeal, they can cross cultural and language boundaries, they often incorporate cultural monoliths like popular TV shows and movies. They’re ubiquitous, and often easy to understand. And the more easily understood they are, the more relatable they are, the more “viral” they can go. A cultural moment that everyone knows about can become a meme goldmine. Then combine that cultural nugget with, say, the subtly planted seed of a political viewpoint, an offhand joke to get people laughing, and combine *that* with widespread internet access, social media, untold numbers of online communities—in other words, an unregulated Wild West web of content—and you have yourself a Golden Age of Misinformation. Jokes can become ideologies, become legislation, become reality itself. Dramatic? Maybe. But maybe it’s because we haven’t really put a lens to this part of modern culture. Hell, I could’ve done a whole podcast series about memes alone.
CM: You had your chance! Now settle down for a moment, we’ve got another Dynamic Ad Insert…
D: Noooooooooo!
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F-MEME 50-HUNDRED AD
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D: Well that was… Motivating? If I may proceed with the episode, let me give you just a bit more context about memes and their spread. Ever heard of “Countryball”?
CM: I have not.
D: Not you—them. The listeners.
CM: Yeah, but they don’t talk back!! I feel like you’re not including me here… That’s alright, I’ll just scroll away over here then…
D: In September 2009, on the German message board site Krautchan—a German version of the well-known ‘cultural cesspool’ that is 4chan—one user, engaging in your standard brand of casual racism, was taking jabs at the broken English of a Polish user. In the process, he began drawing up comic strips with little balls bearing the flags of different countries. Well, before long, ‘Countryball’, as it came to be known, was spreading like crazy. Known for emphasizing the basest cultural and national stereotypes of each country on display, the comics used bastardized English and crude spelling, and most importantly, couched their particular nationalistic flavour of offensiveness in a “just jokes” mentality. The line between joke, stereotype and truth became irrevocably blurred. After all, was it really true that “Poland Could Not Into Space”? Does it matter? Hey, we’re all just here for a laugh.
CM: It’s not that serious dude! Damn, people are SO sensitive these days! Can’t take a joke!
D: 8 years later and Countryball had become widespread across the internet. The PolandBall page alone on Facebook was up to over 400,000 likes, with dozens of other dedicated Countryball pages, from NicheBalls—
CM: Hah! Niche Balls!
D: —to, of course, ChristianityBall.
CM: Ahh, religion. The original ‘meme’.
D: Ohhh “edgy”... but also… true… The Polandball subreddit now has over 630K subscribers on Reddit, nearly double its approximately 350K in 2017. Keep in mind, we’re talking about a bunch of crudely drawn circles with national flags colored on. That’s all it takes. The birth of a meme, which has now spread across hundreds of thousands of human minds. It has Fidelity—a distinct and recognizable style, and apparently, a strict set of design rules with an authoritarian level of enforcement from its moderators. It has Fecundity—it spreads en masse with a momentum all its own. And, most alarmingly, considering the subject matter, this one actually has Longevity—clearly, considering Countryball has been going strong, even growing, for over a decade.
D: Now, is this necessarily nefarious?
CM: Alliteration. I like it. And a potential future podcast title… *Writes* Necessarily Nefarious… Hmmmm.. Stories of people doing bad things for the right reasons… Yeahhhh…
D: Well, it’s worth noting, the initial premise of Countryball was about highlighting the stereotypes of virtually any nation, the good and the bad. Perhaps not problematic in its *intent* you know, that whole “if we can all laugh at each other and ourselves then the world will finally heal” kind of way—moderators of the Polandball subreddit maintain that their primary goal is simply to provide content that is quote “high-quality”, and “funny”, regardless of underlying suggestions in the subject matter—the recent uptick in subscribers and comic contributions does coincide with the boom of politically charged, xenophobic content on the internet as a whole since the infamous 2016 presidential election.
CM: Ah, the Grand Cheeto! Talk about the Golden Age of content…
D: And according to those same moderators, when there is more news, there are more comic submissions. Correlation? Causation?
CM: Or hey, maybe it truly is just a joke?
D: Sure, maybe. But what about the more overt, political content creators, the meme-lords or whatever you wanna call em. The ones with an unapologetic, extremist slant. Like the ones that use memes to dunk on people losing their human rights? There are more and more reports in the past few years of Far-right and Alt-Right internet personalities harnessing the power of memes to spread a broader, more insidious ideology—using those same deeply psychological memetic concepts of Dawkins and Blackmore we touched on earlier. Hell, I remember an example myself. 10 years ago, I was a casual 4chan reader, another kid laughing my ass off at a slew of classic memes and jokes—most in very poor taste— like when the communal power of 4chan managed to push through a winning submission called “Hitler Did Nothing Wrong” as Mountain Dew’s new flavour of 2012. It didn’t make it to store shelves—but that’s what you get for putting naming power in the hands of the internet—and that was 10 years ago. Before the online boom that has given us the behemoth we have now.
CM: Just a joke, Danny Boy. C’mon, where’s that winning sense of humour?
D: And yet, a decade later, with White Supremacy and Nazi ideologies inexplicably growing in popularity once more (particularily amongst the meme-loving younger generation)…well, I guess I’m feeling a slight sense of worry.
D: I’d like to sit here and think that truth will prevail, but history shows that it often doesn’t. Numerous studies have shown that a fake story gets shared more, and spreads further, than a correction to that same story. Sensational content does better, builds more engagement, reality be damned. More and more, it seems we *want* to be lied to. But this isn’t really anything new. It’s fundamentally… human. In the 1920s, a researcher named Margaret Mead traveled to Samoa, studied the local culture, and published her findings in a book detailing the sexual habits of young Samoan girls. This book became the consensus in the Western World on that culture’s habits for decades…that is, until an anthropologist named Derek Freeman discovered that the information Mead had been given, was in fact just the locals screwing with an outsider who had come to observe them. The lie had become truth, better yet, the jokes became the facts to who-knows-how-many people? When you’re being bombarded with information and memes all day, in endless amounts, it’s not like people have the time or energy to fact check while they’re just trying to get through the day.
D: But why do certain pieces of information spread better than others? Why do some memes win out, while others fizzle into obscurity? Again, emotional appeal matters. A political meme that boils your blood, that hits on a nerve, is going to motivate you to share, respond, engage. In his Book titled “Virus of the Mind” Programmer (and one of the original creators of Microsoft Word) Richard Brodie stated; “Memes that deal with food, sex, and power are the most successful”, since they touch on the deepest aspects of our evolutionary behaviours.
D: Emotional appeals, political biases, belief systems, even common cultural interests, form the basis of meme creation and spread. I watch the latest episode of a show, and a minute later I can take in hundreds of tweets. “Zandaya was such a MOOD in this episode of Euphoria”. As a sports fan, nearly every story, every highlight is accompanied by the same bland snippets of replies, comments and meme-able hot takes. “LeBron is trash! Steph Curry better! Lakers SZN!! Let’s goooo!” And so on… and on… and on… for eternity, a firehose of unstoppable media washing over us every minute of every day until the very essence of our being has been diluted down to- (Ominous Tone builds then *Snaps*)
CM; Hey whoa… Getting carried away here. Uhhhh, let’s hear a quick message from another sponsor…
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>>MEME IT AD!
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CM: Okay now, regroup, this is good stuff Danny Boy. A little macabre, but good. And ehhh… Tick-Tock here Champ… we’re almost there
D: Yeah… Yeah. Where was I….Common interests create online communities. We follow the people who think like us, who vote the same way, who like the same teams and the same shows, who view the world the same way we do. When those people share memes that appeal to our politics, our biases, our cultural tastes, we feel compelled to share them out, further relating to others in our bubble. Memes foster a sense of social engagement, of belonging. They feed the echo chamber. They feed on our very human need to feel heard, validated, understood. And when they provide us with that feeling, the memes essentially create a loop. They feed on *themselves*.
D: Just one last thing, an idea Blackmore called ‘Memetic altruism’. Basically, if you’re a leader, or someone who is idolized, idealized, or even just ‘followed’ online, people want to be like you. Pretty obvious, right? We’re all a little hypnotized by fame. But how does this relate to memes? Well, like it or not, we live in the age of celebrity: the influencer, the content creator, the cult of personality. It’s everywhere we look. Verified on Twitter with a widespread media career? Perfect conditions to gain followers, spread memes, influence the cultural mindset of mass groups of people. Relate with others, be liked, spread ideas.
CM: Sounds like a good way to operate as a podcaster! Heheh! Am I right?
D: And whether you even notice it happening, time passes and then, you simply cannot stand “some other group of people”. That other team. That other political party. The people who are from a different City, State, Country, have different beliefs, of different skin tones, maybe you never noticed all these “issues” with them all before, but now… You’ve “learned” so much… And your newfound communities help you feel vindicated. You’re not wrong! Look how many people agree with you!
D: Slowly…it starts to make sense. (Sigh) We live in the most dense informational period in history. Let’s face it, unless you make a concerted effort to unplug, live outside the common culture of this world, and accept the potential detachment from other people that comes with that—you, me, all of us, will have to learn to navigate this memetic overload. On one hand, they’re “just jokes”, sure, but I think what we’re discovering is, they’re *not*... not really. The very concept of ‘memes’ were being studied long before the internet was anywhere near as commonly used, and decades before social media came along. Susan Blackmore’s ‘The Meme Machine’ was published in 1999. Richard Dawkins coined the term and hypothesized all its frightening potential in the 1970s. We are bombarded, endlessly, by memes—in the form of news, gifs, ads, Tiktoks and Instagram Reels, opinion pieces, tweets and comics and content, content, and more content—
CM: Hoo boy—you better slow down, I’m getting a little turned on over here.
D: (light laugh) Yeah, we all love a joke. Lord knows I do. And memes are just that. Jokes. But like most jokes, they can be a vehicle for truth—or for lies. They can be—and, as seems more and more likely, *have* been—weaponized, to sway hearts and minds, in the guise of entertainment. In between the laughs, memes are reshaping our culture, our conscience. They are slowly, surely, altering who we are, and the world we’re building. And we’re playing ball. We’re all the culprits, and we’re all the victims.
D: It’s worth asking—what have we done here? What kind of informational landscape are we creating all around us? What terrible density is filling our lives and our minds? Is there any going back?
D: Blackmore suggested that who we are is essentially a mashup of all we know—the collection of memes we carry with us, the ones that have the most appeal to us, that have the highest fidelity and fecundity. What you allow yourself to take in, becomes part of how you see the world, how you navigate it. Our parents or guardians raise us, our teachers educate us, and our culture sends a barrage of ideas and concepts at us with at an unrelenting volume. I’m just a mashup of everything I’ve been taught and that’s passed through my brain. And so are you, and your parents, and your kids, your friends, your coworkers.
D: Our ideas of "self", our beliefs, our worldview, it’s all made up of what we think we know—what we believe, and what other people can *influence* us to believe. The ‘memes’ we take in may be simple pictures, simple words—symbolic grunts we carve into the wall—but under the surface, they are filled with meaningful cultural ideas, concepts, beliefs. Over time, they make up who we are, what we stand for. In the end, they become us.
(Long pause)
CM: I’m starting to think we should’ve just made this episode into a GIF after all.
