“Meme” is a word that you hear all
over the internet these days. It comes from the Greek words Mimos,
Mimema, and Mimeisthai which all have to do with imitation or mime.
Wikipedia says that the term meme, “ was coined by the British
evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins in The Selfish Gene ... as a
concept for discussion of evolutionary principles in explaining the
spread of ideas and cultural phenomena. Examples of memes given in
the book included melodies, catch-phrases, fashion, and the
technology of building arches.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme)
The term as it relates to the internet
carries a similar meaning. Memes are essentially images that carry a
significance in popular culture. For this article let me talk about
one of my favorite memes, Philosoraptor. The image associated with
Philosoraptor is a thoughtful looking bust of a Velociraptor with
words appearing above and below him. The words above his head are of
a logical “what if” styled statement and the words below him are
usually a drawn conclusion in the form of a question. Some examples
are: What is Pinocchio said … “My nose will now grow”? If kids
refuse to go to sleep at nap time … are they resisting a rest? If
actions are stronger than words … why is the pen mightier than the
sword?
He was created and gained popularity
some time in 2007-2008 and according to KnowYourMeme
(http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/philosoraptor), the compendium of meme
research, the image associated with him first appeared on a T-shirt
produced by a company called Lonely Dinosaur T-shirts. Like all memes
he can be found today all over sharing sites like 4chan
(http://4chan.org), Reddit (http://www.reddit.com/), etc. I would
warn you, however, that these sites are notorious for being the
closest thing to the seedy underbelly of the internet. They are
praise-worthy for being mediums of exchange that can distribute
information very quickly but what people do with the information can
many times be harmful or even incomprehensible.
Now, back to Philosoraptor. He is still
incredibly viral outside of those online communities as an image
search will quickly tell you. I like the meme because it is thought
provoking and comical at the same time. I don't think these examples
will provoke a belly laugh but they are nice for a quick chuckle. As
with everything that is freely floating to be shared around the
internet there are versions of Philosoraptor that are, let's say, no
very philosophical and more adult oriented. These produce a heartier
laugh from those who, like myself, enjoy that sort of tongue-in-cheek
childishness but certainly aren't going to be “work computer
friendly”. However, I will say that these irreverent versions of
Philosoraptor are not representative of what he is at his core. A
thinking individual with a healthy sarcasm and wit to point out the
inconsistency in certain assumptions and conventions that we make in
modern society. The statement he makes is this: “Philosophy, so
easy a velociraptor can do it”.