It's interesting to watch how quickly memes can spread through the internet, cropping up everywhere you look. Just look at the eight things meme I did Wednesday. This weekend, when I was looking for interesting link's via Mojoey's atheist blogroll, I found that damn near everyone on his list had been doing it. It was honestly a pretty stupid meme all in all--no specific questions, just eight random facts. Yet the Amused Muse did it twice because she had been tagged twice. Many others got tagged twice and just did it once. Slut, among other bloggers, decided not to tag further because everyone she knew had already been hit I had tried to tag Vjack, only later to realize that he was in the chain that had led to me getting hit: it went Vjack -> BigDumbChimp -> Butch Bailey -> me. And if you trace it even farther back, you eventually realize it entered the atheist blogosphere with PZ on Thursday the 20th. What does this tell us?
At this point in the post, I think I'm supposed to draw some profound conclusion about the nature of modern electronic society. But nothing profound is coming right now, so I'll draw a less profound observation: "If PZ is hit by a meme, it will spread to the entire atheist blogosphere in about a week." Think I could get people to start calling that "Hallquist's Law," maybe get it on Wikipedia? Anybody?
Sunday, July 01, 2007
When memes attack!
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2 comments:
I suppose I could post about it and call it "PZ's Law" and steal it away from you...
Many memes have a negative context, this one was positive and fun. I suppose that's why many atheists followed suit. The mere idea of the game (to write down 8 random facts about you) can be a good thing. We all want to relate to one another on another level. If it were in any other context, most of us atheists would be like "screw that, whatever". That was my first reaction but when I finally got tagged I felt like one of the group. So not me! And really silly, I know. But, as atheists, we need group support. Just like the gay pride movement needed it to feel connected. It made the movement stronger.
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