...but they meme well

Social scientists coined the phrase meme (no, not the first-person babbling of a split-personality) to describe the phenomena of ideas and concepts which quickly spread and propogate with no apparent trigger, and often die just as quickly.

This is Wikipedia's take on it:

A meme is a unit of information that replicates from brains or retention systems, such as books, to other brains or retention systems. In more specific terms, a meme is a self-propagating unit of cultural evolution, analogous to the gene (the unit of genetics). Memes can represent parts of ideas, languages, tunes, designs, skills, moral and aesthetic values and anything else that is commonly learned and passed on to others as a unit.


The Melbourne University blog craze is a meme in its natural habitat. Without entering into the detail of who-said-what-to-whom-and-who's-got-the-photo, it's worth noting that since the start of October, the following people have entered the blogosphere: Nick Demiris, Jayde Lovell, Sarah Meredith, Joel Parsons, Miranda Airey-Branson, Alex Lew, Rohan D'Souza and Miranda again (a dormant blog revived in recent weeks). So is there good cause to celebrate the embracing of reflection and contemplation? Or is it in the same category as yo-yos and devotion to Yahoo Serious?

UPDATE 19/11 12:33am: It looks like the hunch hinted at in the above post has been proven correct. Of the blogs mentioned, Nick Demiris is no longer online, nor is the famous Miranda Airey Branson, or Alex, Rohan and Miranda's joint effort. Jade, Sarah and Joel have been sitting idle, with just a single post each in more than a week. Yoyos, blogs and the music of Frente, all shortlived, slick and headache-inducing (except for the blogs and yoyos).

Comments

JP said…
Ari,

The Bench is my personal blog that has been up and running since early 2003 now. It is full of fairly geeky political, economic and religious opinion.

I chose to start Proud To Be Right as a particularly Melbourne Uni Right focused blog, as the readership at The Bench is slightly more global and really couldn't care less about Melbourne Uni.
3 November 2004 at 23:31
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