Memes

I have learnt something new. Something besides how to get a toddler to come when you call (much harder than teaching a dog to come, believe me), or how to exist (not function, just exist) on nowhere near enough sleep. This something is a meme.

Bon's recent discussions on blogs, blogging and all related content has intrigued me. I have ventured to a few blogs via hers and have been so caught up I've been afraid to do it again. See I am something of a computer addict. It takes up a lot of my time and I have on occasion found myself putting Euey in front of the tv so I can have some Internet time. This worries me. An hour here or there won't hurt him, but blogs suck me in. I can browse a single blog for hours, and there are at least 20 links just on Bon's site. Each link has that many links and so on until I feel like the man coming from St Ives.

However, this meme word kept popping up so I decided to do a bit of research. It turns out I am not just blog ignorant, but generally ignorant. Meme is not the blog term I imagined. Adopted by the blogging world I'm sure, but originally the subject of a scientific work by Richard Dawkins. A name I've heard (as have I heard the title of that work, 'The Selfish Gene') but know nothing about. A meme (according to the ever-accurate Wikipedia) is 'a unit of cultural information'. A memeplex is a group of memes. As Internet-happy as I am this is the point I resort to real knowledge and take a trip to the library. As much as I support the idea of knowledge-sharing (like Wikipeida) I just don't trust that everyone knows what they're talking about. I'd rather go to the source. So I will leave this meme post with a 'to be continued' once I've located and read The Selfish Gene (or at least part of it or I'll never be back).

Before I go I'll leave my 7 songs, which is the meme that inspired this post in the first place. I have no iPod. Will has an mP3 player but I don't use it. I have a Korean mP3 player the software to which I have lost which means it's useless. My music is mostly in the archaic format of cds would you believe? So here are the top 7 songs that shaped me* (in random order, it seemed the only fair way considering the difficulty I will have limiting my list to 7 - which, btw, is a very random number).

1. The man who shot Liberty Valance - Gene Pitney.
2. Crying - Roy Orbison.
3. Papa don't preach - Madonna.
4. Coat of many colours - Dolly Parton.
5. Man of colours - Icehouse.
6. The walls came down - Travelling Wilburys.
7. We are the world - Michael Jackson & Friends.

* I think, although will get back to you after reading the book, that this is an example of a meme mutating.