Thursday 20 June 2013

Memeophiles vs memeophobes

Memes seem to polarise people. Some people like them - others hate them.

The meme lovers are memeophiles - the meme haters are memeophobes.

Memeophiles

The average memeophile is probably around 20-years old, and interested in internet culture. They use memes to express themselves, to enjoy shared experiences with friends, and to show off their interests.

Memeophobes

Memeophobes are rarer - and not so easy to profile. The most vocal ones appear to be mostly philosophers, anthropologists and scientists. Memes seem to rub each of them up the wrong way for a different set of reasons.

I'm with the memeophiles. I generally try to be polite about the memeophobes - saying that they failed to find a sympathetic understanding of memes. However, I basically think they are mistaken, didn't have good teachers, and don't have good arguments. I also think they are going to be swamped - either when the next generation that were brought up with memes and the internet grow up - or maybe before then.

Having the term "meme" refer to something daft and wrong is just stupid - it shows that you didn't understand the idea properly in the first place. These days, the memeophobes thinks that this shows they are smart. However, it doesn't. If you don't understand memes, you need to learn about them, is all.

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