From: Scott Chase (ecphoric@hotmail.com)
Date: Sun 02 Mar 2003 - 06:50:56 GMT
>From: Hernan Silberman <hernan@well.com>
>Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
>To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
>Subject: Re: memetics-digest V1 #1294
>Date: Fri, 28 Feb 2003 13:02:33 -0800 (PST)
>
>
> > Ughhhh! Did you have to use THAT song as an example? I only live a short
> > distance from the "Mouse Ears" and I've been there too many times. I
>haven't
> > been there in years, yet I've probably been on the Small World ride at
> > Disneyworld more times than a good portion of the individuals on this
>list.
> > You would have to have had the context of a Floridian with often
>visiting
> > relatives to grok the desparation behind my kneejerk dislike of "that
>song".
> > Thus that "meme" isn't the same in my head as it would be in the head of
> > somebody who just "experienced" it once during a "lovely" vacation in
> > February when the temperature at Disney wouldn't peel paint or skin,
>like it
> > would in August.
> >
> > The "Small World" song may be in both our heads, but it means something
> > probably much different to me than you. I don't know how much can be
> > abstracted out between us.
>
>Meaning is irrelevant.
>
No. Meaning is important. We can't go chopping context out while trying to
shoehorn an annoying song into a artificial cubbyhole like the "meme". That
horrible song probably means different things to different people. To some
folks it might evoke a memory of "Grad Nite" when they and their high school
went to Disney World or maybe it might be associated with memories of a
vacation to warmer Florida during a very cold winter elsewhere.
>
>Regardless of what this meme means to us, we will
>likely find ourselves humming it and passing it along into other brains.
>To you it may be the signature of an evil corporation hellbent on world
>domination,
>
Actually, I've no problems with the Disney corporation. I'm just burned out
on their theme park and especially THAT SONG. I hate that song and I'm more
or less a dead end for it getting passed on to anybody else, because it
annoys me. In some ways that song is no different than the Backstreet Boys
or Nync. I've heard their songs multiple times (not of my own volition) and
I manage not to become a vector. The one song that rivals "Small World"
would be the song by "Hanson", those three little kids who sang Ooombah or
some such ditty.
>
>to me it may mean G-D-G-G7-C-D-G, and some people will find
>themselves humming (and spreading) it before they're actually aware of
>it, a very interesting feature of this meme. The other memes already in
>your brain might affect the chances of this particular meme's success
>there, but I think meaning is irrelevant unless you interpret meaning as
>the collective influence of the other memes already squatting in your
>brain.
>
>
I try not to shoehorn everything into terms of memetics. There's more to
human behavior than the simplistic passing of Darwinized cultural units from
brain to brain.
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