This post ties directly to the very first post in this series (side note, if you want to catch up on any of my series, the Index is the place to go). I ended that article with only a brief mention of memetic engineering — the act of deliberately crafting memes and releasing them into a culture. Since then I’ve learned more and believe that in our current climate understanding how memes are crafted is of even greater importance than ever before.
I’m of the opinion that memes exist naturally as a function of society and communication. These natural memes are the common ideas, beliefs, and assumptions that a society has. A meme is transferable (can be shared with others), has a certain lifespan, and has some kind of effect on the thinking and/or behavior of the parties sharing the meme.
Memes can clump up into more complex forms. These are known as meme-complexes (or memeplexes among those who study this topic and who seem to really like catchy terminology). So how we act, what we think is right, and what we do not tolerate can become a unit — a morality. If it then attaches to “what we believe” you have a religion. Note that these memes are value neutral. They can strengthen or weaken society or help or harm its members. And the clumping mechanism is also organic to the society. So ideas about children or marriage or death are shared individually and then connect to one another in the mind and begin to be shared together.
But not all memes evolve naturally. Some are specifically engineered with a goal in mind and created for a target audience. Advertising/marketing and propaganda are the most common sources. In fact, these two enterprises have been tightly intertwined since WWII. The primary difference is that marketing has a financial goal while propaganda has a political one. Public service communications are a more benign source (I dare you do watch this wonderful little thing and not have it stuck in your brain forever). Originally, marketing and propaganda created memes by accident, as part of their larger work (mis)informing and persuading. But it was only a matter of time before memetics itself would be weaponized (oh please, don’t act so surprised).
So organizations of possibly questionable intent are creating memes and memeplexes with the goal of impacting the way that YOU think and act. In order to deal with these, you need to understand them. So lets do some reverse-memengineering (yes, I’m a memeticist! catchy terminology confers credibility).
Memetic Reverse-Engineering<
The following is an amalgamation from these sources plus some of my own ideas:
- Ely Asher — Disinfect Your Mind: Defend Yourself with Memetics Against Mass Media, Politicians, Corporate Management, Your Aunt’s Advice, and Other Mind Viruses (which is terribly written but useful nonetheless)
- Tim Tyler’s site and his discussion of Douglas R. Hofstadter’s work (which I need to own)
Asher describes the parts of a meme as: anchor, carrier, payload. Hofstadter used the terms hook and bait. Tyler adds the concepts of threat and vacime (told you, catchy terminology). There are other, even more complex, classification systems as well (this is clearly a THING). My focus is on how you can pull the meme apart to find its component parts so I wanted to keep it simple and useful, rather than overly academic and I wanted to particularly highlight the overt message rather than the hidden one (which is a common feature of weaponized memes) which I call the package and the payload.
- Bait / Anchor: This is what gets you onboard with the meme. It’s the entrance point into your brain. This is often the most surface element of the meme (the image, headline, the catchphrase, the jingle). When you see a link to “25 celebrities who ruined their looks” or “this one strange trick can cure cancer” — that’s the bait (hence click bait).This is also what gets the meme to stick over time. It anchors the message into your thoughts and allows the meme to infect you long term so you can keep sharing it. Common anchors include common sense (everyone knows that), the ever-popular confirmation bias, logic/faulty logic (A seems like B and A is true, therefore B is true), and “lies, damned lies, and statistics.” These baits and anchors can be accurate or inaccurate and are often specifically targeted to a certain demographic.
- Hook / Carrier / Threat: This what keeps the meme moving. It’s the incentive to share and mechanism for sharing. It can be overt (forward this 10 times and you will receive blessings) or subtle (check out this funny video so you will think I’m cool). It can be a carrot — ostensibly helping others (this information could save your child’s life) or making you feel good (virtue signaling). It can also be a stick (share now before it’s too late). The Internet comes with built in carrier mechanisms (like, share, repost). Catchphrases or jingles — which literally have a hook (“dumb ways to di-i-i…”) also encourage sharing.
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| For the love of God, shaaaaaareeeee meeeeee! |
- Package / Payload: This is the core of the meme — the idea meant to change how you think and act or what you believe. The distinction of a package versus payload may be my contribution to memetic engineering (since I’ve not yet found another source that references this). While organic memes will often have a straightforward payload (we don’t discuss controversial issues at a funeral because it’s disrespectful both to the dead and their family), engineered memes will frequently have both an overt message (the package) and a hidden one (the payload). An obvious example of this is advertising. In the ad below, the package is “you want a new expensive car.” However the payload, which is part of the globe’s most widespread memeplex is “buying things will make you happy and fulfilled.”
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| Huh huh, they said piece… |
An Exercise in Memetic Reverse-Engineering (play along at home)
Exhibit A:
Overt message — Trump is bad, Hillary is good
Overt message — Hillary is bad, her supporters are bad
Overt message — I am not a racist
The examples above are the simple image memes that run rampant on the Internet. This next one is much more complex and professional. I received the following in email (text in blue) and it’s an excellent example of the nuanced, weaponized memeplex. See if you can reverse engineer the component parts:
Subject: The incredible law that can still stop Trump
Avaaz is an organization that helps make positive changes around the globe. Please help by in signing this petition and sending it to your contacts.
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This is a masterpiece of memetic engineering and, while I know it’s long, I think it’s worth dissecting in full. Here are a couple of hints to help you on your way:
Package / Payload:
Overt message — The overt message is as obvious and in your face as any online sales letter. Defeat Trump, change the law.
Subtle message — Here’s where things get interesting. The more blunt the overt message, the more hidden the subtle one often is. Does it help to know that Avaaz was cofounded by MoveOn.org (our friend Mr. Soros is a major funder) and Res Publica (John Podesta sits on its board)?
Is this about getting the candidate you want when you want it? Or is this about teaching the lesson that democracy — itself a well-crafted meme with sacred status in our country — is whatever you can twist the law to make it mean? Is it asking us to question our founding fathers (heresy akin to arguing abortion rights at a funeral) and for what end?
The Point to All of This
