Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Did you know there was a word for it?

Me neither....what am I talking about? Someone sends you an email with an URL or hyperlink in it, basically a web page. You click it, think it's cool and then forward that email to 500 of your closest friends. They click it, think it's cool and so on and so on.... This is a phenomenum created by the proliferation of the Internet itself. It has a name....Internet meme (pronounced /miːm/) Internet memes are spread organically, voluntarily, and peer to peer, rather than by compulsion, predetermined path, or completely automated means.

Say what? What the hell is a meme? Glad you asked. A meme is (according to the Princeton Online dictionary); a cultural unit (an idea or value or pattern of behavior) that is passed from one person to another by non-genetic means (as by imitation); "memes ...

There are many kinds of Internet Memes, standard joke emails, hoaxes, altered images (think Sarah Palin), false news stories and the list goes on and on. Some of these memes have created their own businesses, like Snopes for example, whose sole business purpose is refuting Internet Memes and their validity. I could be creating my own Internet meme by putting hyper links into my blog. There's your new word for the day.

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