A meme spreads rapidly like a virus,knowing the qualities of those interested in pursuing this spread. Typically a hyper, detail surfer, who will be on to the next new thing before the digital clock on their phone moves onto the next minute. You might have already guessed “memes” are not my thing.
Richard Dawkins an evolutionary biologist coined the phrase in his book “The Selfish Gene” way back in 1976. He describes it as “a unit of cultural transmission”. Perhaps culture is a mite too fancy for the average meme. Which tries to reduce the human pscyche to it’s most basic building blocks.
Observational Comics must either love or hate them. The hyper comics need to be in with the “crowd” know the latest meme that is trending among the demographics they are trying to please. Yes, I can see it being a love or hate relationship, reducing a three minute , carefully thought out monologue into a cartoon or gif which says the same thing visually and very often for free.
Does this explain the demise of the fondess for observational comedy? Discuss in your own time, I haven’t finished my rant on memes.
AI generated image
The really trendy memes are more concise than my AI generated image, I cannot see the above generating lots of likes and re-blogs and shares.
No the real diamond memes are light-hearted and sum up an element of common culture which in it’s own time ( most likely the late ninteties) was ground breakingly popular.
Enter Rick Astley, his song “Never Gonna Give You Up” is the hook to arguably the most popular meme in the history of the Internet. The meme itself tricks users into watching the music video for the song. Clever eh? Harmless I suppose. Fun yes. And rightly so , for the generations who remember Rick, possibly even those who take an interest in Rick because they were introduced to him by the Meme, it introduces them to a wonderful musician and his music.
The dark side of Memes exists too, if you can be tricked into listening to Rick, what else can you be tricked into doing or believing. The problem is not being on trend and wanting to be. I’ve just googled “harmful memes” and it is a thing.
Bless google and bless AI it suggests the following to avoid harmful memes.
Is this meme making fun of someone’s looks , race or beliefs?
Does this make me feel angry or upset about a group of people?
Is this joke based on an unfair, sweeping rule?
The word “joke” is interesting, so memes are meant to be funny, Comics must hate them. In an audience maybe of up to five hundred people will many of them walk out of the theatre seriously damaged by what they have just heard? The audience can complain or give feedback.
Ramp that up to Internet access to the World of Social Media and I- pad parenting , is it possible that a meme can turn into a dangerous trope with no comeback whatsoever. I think so.
Which is why , the word meme is a word and “thing” I will always be wary of and I wish more people could see through it’s instant gratification.
An illustrated comic showing various everyday struggles like morning rush, work-life balance, and social media impact.
Siesta a tradition in rural Spain and other warm Mediterranean Countries, I mean why not. Does it matter if it’s cold outside , surely some warm soup and a sleep in the middle of the afternoon or indeed the morning would do us all good. We could stagger our work day so that there is no such thing as the five O’clock rush. It would be more natural and perhaps work sharing would become an attractive prospect.
Apply it to schools too, if AI is going to take over, then at least make everyone’s life enjoyable.
A woman rests inside a recharge pod while colleagues work and chat in a modern office
I wouldn’t have the heart to tell a tourist that they have made a mistake in their choice of itinerary when visiting my Country ( or any other for that matter). Surely it is up to them and after all they are on holiday.
All the other possible visitors well there are just too many comobulations to make this a serious prompt. Too many variables.
The businessman on a “presentation” tour who doesn’t understand that everyone is tired of listening to “pep” talks from senior executives who don’t know how anything works. To rock bands who expect people to pay £300 a head to see them play , even though they long ago gave their best and finally people who visit Parliament for the day to learn how “democracy ” works and if they are lucky get to see Black Rod banging on the door of some building which is long past it’s best and needs a multi million pound budget just to keep it from falling apart on a daily basis.
There may be one instance in a million billion that one stitch will save nine. More likely it will require more stitches and the anticipatory fix will be more or less than nine faults. So perhaps in a random way the proverb will be right but there are much more times it will be wrong. That is if we are talking haberdashery.
In general terms, the proverb may help to prevent irritation or indeed catastrophe. Human behaviour, however does not always act rationally and probably there are more people who believe in never doing today ,what you can put off until tomorrow or even next week. There are some people who are just lazy and there are others who think that the whole process is tedious and that it’s someone else’s responsibility.
In all walks of life there are people totally ignoring ” A Stich in Time, Saves Nine”.
It would be nice to believe in them as being real, soulmates. Reality is that it depends on so many other factors. Probably environment and time.
Are they necessary? To those involved yes and to those outside the loop, they can be cringeworthy or admirable dependent again on many factors.
To deny their existence would be unfair, at the same time to deny that some people are not suited to the role for very good reasons is also a fact that shouldn’t be ignored. I mean President Trump could never be a soulmate, even though he probably would like to think he has the capacity. At critical moments his interest would wane.
And I’m very interested to see what AI generates as an image for Trump’s soulmate ability.
A couple shares a tender moment on a garden bench at sunset, surrounded by flowers and fairy lights. ( AI Generated Image)
thenotsomightyom 