meme Myself and I

guy turned me onto this vid.


Its a fascinating subject to me. Granted im sure i got different things from it than the speaker wanted, but my take on memes is forever changed. To be honest i didn't even know what a meme was until rami once told me that my saying " I blame obama®" was a meme. i had to look it up. the definition i got was:

"A meme is a unit of cultural ideas, symbols or practices, which can be transmitted from one mind to another through writing, speech, gestures, rituals or other imitable phenomena. for "something imitated".)"

ahh says me to myself. its the wheres the beef and yo queiro taco bell. its the copy machine guy on snl.

Then i saw the above video. this cat is saying that religion is nothing but a meme. A belief that has become real. im a huge fan of terry Pratchett. his theory of gods is one I like. that all gods are real, but need belief to live. they thrive on it. new gods are created every day. he can explain it far better than i can. read "small gods".

but lets consider that he may be onto something. belief is a powerful thing. we believe in justice, we believe in liberty we believe in Santa. we believe. and by doing so a mere word becomes more than a mere word. But can a person become a meme? was Jesus a meme? or Obama or Glenn Beck? did they become more real due to belief?

America has become just such a meme religion. more people believe in the idea of America than a mere piece of land would justify. if you doubt me think back to 9/12/2001. that patriotism we all believed in with all our might, was no different that prayers to a god. and by getting those prayers. the idea of America become stronger than the country itself. On that day more people believed in America than Jesus. on that day America become stronger than Jesus. all due to belief.

so how do we harness belief? how do we make a meme work for us? religions start and end every day. a few followers make for a very small god indeed. could 1000 people posting the same meme on 100 different blogs a day create a new and powerful god? a god named peace?