Monday 28 November 2011

Retromemes

Retroviruses are viruses which copy themselves into working cells, hijack the transcription machinery and use it to generate many copies of the virus.

Some memes behave in a similar way. They are sometimes called "retromemes". The idea of a retromeme is an old concept in memetics.

Image macros will be used to illustrate the effect here. Some image macro text behaves in a similar way to a retrovirus.

For example, here's "OH NOES!":

...and here's "O RLY?":

Does a "retromeme" necessarily need to be deleterious to its host? I would say "no". It is true that the deleterious connotations of virus are there, but there are some beneficial viruses. The concept doesn't just apply to deleterious symbionts, but - as often heppens - epidemiology has the best terminology - so it makes reasonable sense to use it.

What is the difference between retromemes and memetic hitchhiking? Certainly retromemes illustrate memetic hitchhiking. A retromeme is very similar to the payload in memetic hitchhiking. However, there do seem to be a few differences. Sometimes the payload and the delivery mechanism used in memetic hitchhiking have a strong association with each other. Since the payload is typically a deleterious meme, it sometimes remains attached to the delivery mechanism - and is not found elsewhere. With a retromeme, it seems reasonable to expect that the payload will have attached itself to multiple different hosts - otherwise it is not behaving in a virus-like manner - and spreading horizontally between hosts.

Of course 'retromeme' is also sometimes used to refer to certain kinds of "steampunk" memes - but this post is not about that usage.

The examples above are of words, but there are other kinds of retromemes. For example, “Miley Cyrus twerks” has become a visual retromeme:

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