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120 | 9 The Language of Internet Memes Patrick Davison In The Future of the Internet—and How to Stop It, Jonathan Zittrain describes the features of a generative network. A generative network encourages and enables creative production and, as a system, possesses leverage, adaptability, ease of mastery, accessibility, and transferability.1 Notably absent from this list of characteristics, however, is security. Many of the characteristics that make a system generative are precisely the same ones that leave it vulnerable to exploitation. This zero-sum game between creativity and security implies a divided Internet. Those platforms and communities which value security over creativity can be thought of as the “restricted web,” while those that remain generative in the face of other concerns are the “unrestricted web.” The restricted web has its poster children. Facebook and other social networking sites are growing at incredible speeds. Google and its ever-expanding corral of applications are slowly assimilating solutions to all our computing needs. Amazon and similar search-based commerce sites are creating previously unimagined economies.2 Metaphorically, these sites, and countless others, make up the cities and public works of the restricted web. However , the unrestricted web remains the wilderness all around them, and it is this wilderness that is the native habitat of Internet memes. The purpose of this essay is twofold. The first is to contribute to a framework for discussing so-called Internet memes. Internet memes are popular and recognizable but lack a rigorous descriptive vocabulary. I provide a few terms to aid in their discussion. The second purpose is to consider Foucault’s “author function” relative to Internet memes, many of which are created and spread anonymously. What Is an Internet Meme? In 1979 Richard Dawkins published The Selfish Gene, in which he discredits the idea that living beings are genetically compelled to behave in ways that are “good for the species.” Dawkins accomplishes this by making one point The Language of Internet Memes | 121 clear: the basic units of genetics are not species, families, or even individuals but rather single genes—unique strands of DNA.3 At the end of the book, Dawkins discusses two areas where evolutionary theory might be heading next. It is here that he coins the term “meme.” He acknowledges that much of human behavior comes not from genes but from culture. He proposes that any nongenetic behavior be labeled as a meme and then poses a question: can the application of genetic logic to memes be productive ? To make the differences between genes and memes clear, I offer a short example of each. Genes determine an organism’s physical characteristics. A certain gene causes an organism to have short legs, or long, for instance. Imagine two zebra. The first has the short-leg gene, and the second the long. A lion attacks them. The short-legged zebra runs more slowly and is eaten. The long-legged zebra runs more quickly (because of its legs) and lives. At this point, there are more long-leg genes in the imaginary ecosystem than short-leg genes. If the long-legged zebra breeds and has offspring, those offspring with long legs will continue to survive at a higher rate, and more offspring of those offspring will contain the long-leg gene. The genes themselves are not thinking beings—the long-leg gene does not know it causes long-leggedness, nor does it care, but given that it bestows a property that interacts with the environment to allow more of itself to be produced, it is successful.4 Memes determine the behavior of an organism. They are either taught to an organism (you go to school and learn math) or learned through experience (you stick a finger in an outlet, get shocked, understand that outlets should be avoided). Imagine two soccer players. There are genetic factors which might make them better or worse at playing (long or short legs, for instance); however, their ability is also dependent on their understanding of the game. For this example, let us imagine that the two players are physically identical. However, one of them goes to practice, and the other does not. At practice, the coach teaches the attendant player about passing: you pass the ball to other players and increase the chance that your team will score. During a game, the attendant player is likely to pass and to experience success because of it. The truant player, having not learned the passing meme, will not pass, and that player’s team...

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