But what does it meme? Part 2

Memes are hot these days. Dictionaries say, basically, that a meme is a unit of cultural information that can be transmitted from one mind to another. Wikipedia quotes the term's coiner, zoologist and evolutionary scientist Richard Dawkins, as saying that examples of memes are tunes, catch-phrases, beliefs, clothes fashions, ways of making pots or building arches.

I thought I understood: a meme is like a metaphor. You don't have to explain the whole thing in words because the person you use it with will, if you're lucky, understand the backstory and layers of meaning. Or it's like a universally known movie or TV line: "I love the smell of napalm in the morning." "You talkin' to me?" "Where's the beef?" If you "get" these pieces of shorthand, you get them. It you don't, you don't.

Several summers ago I read Malcolm Gladwell's Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking and learned his take on the phenomenon he calls "thin-slicing"--"the ability of our unconscious to find patterns in situations and people based on very narrow 'slices' of experience." Thin-slicing means sizing up a person or situation quickly based on available evidence. All humans do it, and most of us do it amazingly well.

The term "thin-slicing" is a meme. It's "a unit of cultural information" because it's about something important that we all do. Gladwell's two little words convey many encyclopedias' worth of meaning and intent.

So far, so good. Then Mike Wagner started a "thin-slicing meme" on his blog, OwnYourBrand.com: "The 5 Thin-slicing Observations Meme." He was inviting readers to describe five things they look for when they want to size up a person or situation quickly. I also started noticing other "memes" floating around. One that caught my eye in particular was the "five things you didn't know about me" meme.

What gives? If "thin-slicing" is a meme, what's a "thin-slicing meme"? A meme of a meme? And how are "five things you didn't kow about me" a "unit of cultural information"? Some days I gots culture, and some days I ain't.

In my next post, I'll try to lay this issue to rest for a while.