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A little something from the third drawer of the filing cabinet....

    
"Chimpanzees and orangutans may be capable of very limited forms of imitation, but only humans are capable of the kind of widespread and general imitation that...leads to memetic evolution." --Dr. Susan Blackmore in The Evolution of Meme Machines

"Bad artists copy. Good artists steal." --Picasso

"Imitation is the sincerest flattery" -- C.C. Colton

"Stealing from one source is plagiarism.  Stealing from many sources is research."
             --Wilson Mizner....or Joseph Cummings Chase...or Steven Wright or....?

As humans, we are drawn to create. 

It also seems to be an innately human behavior to take someone's creation and do whatever we can to make it our own.  

In this way, we form our culture.  In this way, we spread our memes. 

Memes are born

They spread through simple contagion.  We blog about them.  Repeatedly

 We write news stories about them.



Free Angry Birds Plush Pattern by Obsessively StitchingWe transform them
into art (or craft).



We create other versions because, hey, it worked for those guys.


       

In this 21st Century, true meme Nirvana is found in one special location:
The You Tube viral video!




Is there anything better than Nirvana? 
Inclusion in cultural staples like Saturday Night Live, The Simpsons, or Sesame Street.


That's when you know you've made it.
Angry Birds, here's what you're shooting for:



Eventually, most memes are quarantined.  Some drift into remission.  There are occasional flareups or recurrences (Ebenezer Scrooge, anyone?  He never seems to go away.)

Isn't pop culture fun?

 

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