In The Language of Internet Memes by Patrick Davison, he brings up the connection, or lack there of, between memes and genes. Davison states that “genes determine an organisms physical characteristics”(121) where as “memes determine the behavior of an organism”(121). He talks about how genes are something that determine attributions such as short legs, long fingers, etc. and he talks about how there are certain genes that enable its host to be successful. The gene though, is unaware why the host is successful, it just knows that it is and will continue to be. The memes on the other hand, have behavior that is either taught to the organism or learned through experience, it is not something that is just innately known. Davison argues that the genes play a factor in whether a host is more successful physically due to genetics however; the true test is whether the host is better or worse depending on their understanding and ability to learn new things.
I thought this concept was interesting because I related it to the success of the Internet as a whole. The genes in this scenario would be the creators of different aspects of the Internet, such as its functions, accessibility, usefulness, etc. The memes however, would be the people in society, those who the Internet was designed for in essence. The success of the Internet is highly reliant on the user feedback and whether or not users feel it is something they would like to “accept” into their society. If society gives it a trial run and does not succeed, it will probably stop trying to use it. Just like in Davison’s example of soccer players, if the player who was genetically inferior to the other person and then was having a very difficult time understanding the game as well as the other soccer player, the genetically inferior player would probably stop playing.
Another point that was brought up was how memes can be separated into components: manifestation, behavior and ideal. I thought it was interesting how these components formed a sort of circle chain of reaction that started with and in a way ended with the manifestation. There could not be the behavioral component without the manifestation and there could not be the ideal without he behavioral that cannot exist without the manifestation. I also thought it was interesting how there were these three components to a meme when often times the meme itself is subject to interpretation. The creator of the meme could have one definition of the ideal of the meme where as someone reading the meme afterwards could have something completely different.
This world of memes I feel is something that is ever changing and developing, becoming a society within the world of the Internet.
Alexandra B. CMN 696.05 