Kal Brass

nem sirok csak 65ezren belementek a szemembe

2. you know, we have fun here, with the word “meme,” but according to meme theory, which is an actual thing pioneered by reptilian human impersonator Richard Dawkins in his 1976 book The Selfish Gene, most of what we call memes are very unsuccessful memes. A meme, in the scientific sense - if one is generously disposed to consider memetics a science on any particular day - is an idea that acts like a gene. That is, it seeks to replicate itself, as many times as possible, and as faithfully as possible.

That second part is important. A gene which is not faithful in its replication mutates, sometimes rapidly, sometimes wildly. The result might be cancer or a virus or (very very very rarely) a viable evolutionary step forward, but whatever the case, it is no longer the original gene. That gene no longer exists. It could not successfully reproduce itself.

The memes we pass around on the internet are, in general, very short lived and rapidly mutating. It’s rare for any meme to survive for more than a year: in almost all cases, they appear, spread rapidly, spawn a thousand short-lived variations, and then are swiftly forgotten. They’re not funny anymore, or interesting anymore. They no longer serve any function, and so they’re left behind, a mental evolutionary dead end.

This rendition of Freddie Mercury’s immortal opera Bohemian Rhapsody is about the most goddamned amazing demonstration of a successful meme I’ve ever seen. This song is 42 years old, as of 2017. FORTY TWO YEARS OLD. And it has spread SO far, and replicated itself across the minds of millions of people SO faithfully, that a gathering of 65,000 more or less random people, with nothing in common except that they all really like it when Billie Joe Armstrong does the thing with the guitar, can reproduce it perfectly. IN PERFECT TIME. THEY KNOW THE EXACT LENGTH OF EVERY BRIDGE. THEY EVEN GET THE NONSENSE WORDS RIGHT. THEY DIVIDE THEMSELVES UP IN ORDER TO SING THE COUNTER-CHORUS. 

“Yeah, Pyrrhic, lots of people know this song.”

Listen, you glassy-eyed ninny: our species’ ability to coherently pass along not just genetic information, but memetic information as well, is the reason we’re the dominant species on this planet. Language is a meme. Civilization is a collection of memes. Lots of animals can learn, but we may be the only animal that latches onto ephemera - information that doesn’t reflect any concrete reality, information with little to no immediate practical application - and then joyfully, willfully, unrelentingly repeats it and teaches it to others. Look at how wild this crowd is, because they’re singing the same song! It doesn’t DO anything. It’s not even why they showed up here today! If you sent out a letter to those same 65,000 people that said, “Please show up in this field on this day in order to sing Bohemian Rhapsody,” very few of them would have showed up. But I would be surprised to meet a single person in that crowd who joined in the singing who doesn’t remember this moment as the most amazing part of a concert they paid hundreds of dollars to see.

And they’re just sharing an idea. It’s stunning and ridiculous. Something about how our brains work make us go, “Hey!! Hey everybody!! I found this idea! It’s good! I like it! I’m going to repeat it! Do you know it too?? Repeat it with me! Let’s get EVERYBODY to know it and repeat it and then we can all have it together at the same time! It’s a good idea! I’m so excited to repeat it exactly the way I heard it, as loudly as I can, as often as possible!!”

This is how culture happens! This is how countries happen! Sometimes a persistent, infectious idea - a meme - can be dangerous or dark. But our human delight at clutching up good memes like magpies and flapping back to our flock to yell about them to everyone we know is why we as a species bothered to start doing things like “telling stories” and “writing stuff down.”

“That’s a lot of spilled ink for a Queen song, Pyrrhic.”

I wonder how much of that was on the back of the industrial revolution. Maybe humanity had a similar "weird" moment in the Fertile Crescent when we figured out farming.

The baby will stop crying if I give it cocaine

My entire face is covered in arsenic

How Wonderful That I Can Buy Guns And Heroin At The Same Store! I Certainly Hope My Lead Poisoning Does Not Lead To Bouts Of Distemper And Irrational Thinking

There Are Bare Electrified Wires Running Through My House And My Technicolor Dress Is Highly Combustible, Which I Do Not Know Yet

My son, Lead Poisoning Georg,, shall someday inherit my gun powder and lead paint empire,,

NEW! Magical Miracle Substance! Asbestos! WILL NOT catch fire! CANNOT catch fire! YOU WILL NOT die! (From fire)

Impress Your Guests And In-Laws With The Tastiest Bright White Bread Chalk And Wood Shavings Can Produce

NEW! Baby feeding bottles! NEW! Glass baby feeding bottles! How do you clean them??? That isn't important stop asking questions. NEW!

And they were both correct

Bodily autonomy (like abortion, anti draft, etc) -> “The government shouldn’t be able to force anything on my body I don’t want.”

Anti surveillance -> “I don’t trust big government/big tech (big brother if you’re feeling frisky) with the ability to spy on me and my family.”

Immigration -> “Next to all of us immigrated at some point, I don’t see why the elites get to decide who’s allowed to be where. What’s to stop them coming for me?”

Climate Change -> “Big oil shouldn’t get to determine whether or not I get to go places. I don’t want to be dependent on some big business to survive.”

State Violence -> “I don’t want the goddamn secret police breathing down my neck! I trust my community a whole hell of a lot more to help me than I do the state!”