Counter-memes

"Meme, counter meme" is the title of a 1994 Wired article by Mike Godwin. Mike tells the story of how he combatted Nazi comparison memes on usenet by using counter-memes generated using memetic engineering. I don't know if "counter-meme" saw much use before 1994, but Mike Godwin either coined or popularized the phrase.

I think that "counter-memes" is a useful concept. Fighting bad memes with good ones is a common and obvious technique, and "counter-memes" seems like an appropriate name for the concept.

"Counter-memes" are part of the memetic immune system. Some are most effective before exposure to the memes they counter - those are like vaccines. Others are typically used after exposure - those are more like antibiotics.

I think that "counter-memes" is one of the bits of memetics that has the potential to go mainstream and enter the common vocabulary. It's fairly useful and fairly catchy. It could pretty easily happen that people start responding to posted memes with "counter-meme: <blah>". If explicitly saying "counter-meme" when responding to a meme with a corrective meme signals that you are up on the latest internet lingo, it could become quite common. I find this fantasy pleasing and would like to help make it a reality.