We’re all familiar with memes. For the most part, we ascribe them with stills or short animated gifs from popular media with bits of text slightly altering their meaning, but that’s not all a meme is. In fact, memes can be weaponized and likely have already been used in such a way. It’s incredibly probable that, on a weekly basis, the average person will encounter hundreds of targeted memetic attacks designed to spread an idea, encourage behaviors, and overall maintain a balance between public order and individualism.
What is a ‘memetic attack’? The word ‘meme’ comes from the Greek mimēma meaning ‘that which is imitated’. A memetic attack is, as you might expect, anything that is designed to cause the subject to be compelled to imitate a behavior or to adopt a belief. It’s different from simple persuasion in the sense that the effect is more subtle. One could liken it to a form of hypnosis that preys upon the human instinct to imitate sympathetic figures in their lives. It’s a bit like when you see someone yawn. Human instinct will cause many people to yawn as well if they feel sympathetic toward that person and it’s that instinct that lays the groundwork for memetic attacks in media.
Let me provide a hypothetical example. Consider, if you will, that there is a single media platform that is almost unanimously viewed around the world. This medium features several popular figures, all joining together in a public dialogue. The ideas discussed emerge as notable events, providing fodder for the masses who join in their own discussions about who they believe they are correct or not. Now consider the possibility that, unbeknownst to the public, certain concerned groups use their power and influence to make these talking heads say what they want them to say. They advertise and decorate the held talks using easy-to-remember and familiar tunes and sights either taken or planted in popular culture so that they are intrinsically associated in memory with the ideas in the discussions. They ensure that anywhere one looks or goes, there is a reminder of the talks and the values these popular figures argue for. Little by little, public opinion comes to match the thoughts of these public figures and what dissent remains is either censored or looked on with condemnation.
This is the true power of a meme. To spread an idea like a virus. Attacks come in the form of songs you can’t get out of your head and heartfelt monologues delivered by your favorite heroes right before they strike down the villain. It’s all an impetus to yawn, to hearken back to my previous comparison. Every time you think back to something you’ve seen in a movie or on television by some experience in your everyday life and you ‘yawn’ with quiet justification of your imitation of the morals of those stories. When we hear a certain sequence of notes, many of us may recall a popular song and ‘yawn’ in response, repeating the lyrics without even knowing why. When our heroes say they are fighting for truth and justice, we sympathetically yawn, similarly compelled to believe in that truth and their justice. These memes stay with us because they come from people we believe we know — believe we should know — and whom we love for one reason or another.
It’s a sad truth that few use agency in their consumption of culture and this allows powerful people to subtly shape them without their knowing. Life begins to reflect art as people slowly begin to associate the various aspects of their lives with things from popular culture, even going as far as to vilify those that are different or think differently from this prescribed normalcy. We see memetic attacks in the virtue-signaling of modern movies and television. Remake after remake. Popular stories from comics and literature brought into the mainstream with new messages to deliver. All of it perpetrated by heavily corporate studios that restrict the use of popular music and film so that they can only be associated with the things they deem appropriate. It’s all clearly designed to better influence the masses. To make us see the world the way they want it to be seen.
It’s for these reasons that media has to be diversified. So much of what the average person consumes is created by one of very few groups that control the vast majority of media. That share is only getting smaller as time passes. There’s no harm in enjoying a popular movie or piece of music, but know that there’s a high probability that there is an ulterior motive in its presentation. Support independent media while you still can or this generation may very well be the last free-thinking humans to exist.
Sour Revelry 