Memes. They are ubiquitous. We’ve all seen
them. This is a meme from early 2012, the breadcat:

Once safely contained within the confines of the
interwebz, memes filter into the mainstream faster and faster every day. But
they have a history unto themselves. In the spirit of greater meme awareness, allow me to take you on cursory stroll through basic memetics 101.

‘Meme’ is shorthand for a catchy idea. A
thing that people copy or repeat over and over. The term is a play on the word
‘gene’ and can be traced to Richard Dawkins’ classic bit of thinking about
evolution, The Selfish Gene (1976).

His spin on it is quite fun. People copy
what they think is awesome or useful. If we repeat the idea then it survives.
If we don’t repeat it then it dies off, like the Dodo. Simple, really.

This would make human culture actually
something like an ecosystem inhabited by a wholly different kind of life-form –
ideas – that are replicated like genes are replicated in cells.

People repeat small ideas or actions, like shaking hands or calling a friend 'mate'. These join
up into clusters of ideas and behaviours (a ‘memeplex’). Some memeplexes eat other ones and absorb them into their structure. They might even join
up into grander and more complex things, like religion or classical music or Welshness.

In short: evolution but with bits of culture
instead of dinosaurs and monkeys.  So
what does that tell us? Only that we might be vessels for a whole
other world of creatures. And that they use us to replicate themselves. And we don't even know it.

Well, maybe. Whether or not memes qualify as 'life', it's certainly something to think about as thousands plan how to pull off the Harlem Shake without getting fired.

—–

(Thoughts courtesy of Planning Placement newbie James.)

Update from Neil: See below for an example of what happens when memes collide. Is this a 'memeplex'?

Laughing babies, photobombing squirrels and cat videos – just some of the seemingly frivolous content we like to post on Facebook, share on Twitter or email to family and friends. Just to make them smile. Or cry (with laughter, of course). And when you think about it like that, this stuff isn’t silly at all. Because it’s sharing this silly stuff with each other on a daily basis that connects us to one another. Wieden + Kennedy has embraced this trend in our latest work for our clients, mobile network Three. Because when it comes to silly stuff, they know it matters. That's why they do everything they can to help you live up to their brand line, ‘Keep on internetting’.

But rather than just play back the crazy things online that we all like to share, we wanted actually to contribute to it. We wanted to celebrate the seemingly silly stuff and also provide the means for people to mess with it and create their own little pieces of joy that they can share.

Shot against the dramatic backdrop of the Shetland Islands, the 60” spot follows the story of a stocky little pony. But this is no ordinary Shetland pony. With the scrape of a hoof, and a flick of his Tina Turner-esque mane, he effortlessly moonwalks along to the sound of ‘Everywhere’ by Fleetwood Mac.

And what could be more silly than a moonwalking Shetland pony? Only the ability to customise him, make him your own, and then share him.

So we created The Pony Mixer, a dancing-pony-remixing tool where you can make our pony shake it to anything from Boyband to Bollywood. Unleash your creation on the world via Facebook or Twitter and you might be hailed an internetting hero in one of many 30” TV spots.

Try it out here, or watch the clip below for a snippet of what you can do.

The TV was directed by the wonderful Dougal Wilson from Blink Productions. MPC burned the candle from both ends to bring the little fella to life, and Wave added the finishing touch of brilliance. The mixer films were down to the hilarious Tom Kingsley and a band of dedicated heroes at Munky.

(Update: see below for initial response.)