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Memes and Affinity Spaces: some implications 1

for policy and digital divides in education 2

MICHELE KNOBEL 3

Montclair State University, USA 4

& Central Queensland University, Australia 5

ABSTRACT This article focuses on the social practices of propagating and circulating 6 memes within Internet environments as a significant dimension of cultural production and 7 transmission. Memes (pronounced ‘meems’) are contagious patterns of cultural information 8 that are passed from mind to mind and which directly shape and transmit key actions and 9 mindsets of a social group. Memes include popular tunes, catchphrases, clothing fashions, 10 architectural styles, ways of doing things, and so on. The chief purpose of this article is to 11 contribute to the empirical study of online memes as new literacy practices by examining the 12 key elements of successful memes. The article begins by developing a succinct definition of 13 ‘meme’ and identifies key characteristics of successful memes in general. This set of 14 characteristics is illustrated by way of two examples of successful Internet-mediated memes. 15 The article concludes with a brief discussion of some of the implications memes and meme-16 ing have for contemporary approaches to literacy instruction and new digital technology use 17 in schools. 18

Introduction 19

Memes (pronounced ‘meems’) are contagious patterns of cultural information that are passed from 20 mind to mind and which directly shape and propagate key actions and mindsets of a social group. 21 Memes include popular tunes, catchphrases, clothing fashions, architectural styles, ways of doing 22 things, and so on. This paper focuses on the social practices of propagating and circulating memes 23 within Internet environments as a significant dimension of cultural production and transmission. 24

The concept of the meme was first advanced by geneticist Richard Dawkins (1976, 1999), who 25 proposed an evolutionary model of cultural development and change involving the replication of 26 ideas, knowledge, and other cultural information through imitation and transfer. Subsequently, a 27 range of researchers interested in memetics – the study of memes – have argued that electronic 28 networks along with personal predilections and interests provide ideal conditions for propagating 29 and dispersing memes (e.g. Brodie, 1996; Blackmore 1999 NOT IN REFS; Adar et al, 2004). One 30 useful way of conceptualizing the ways in which memes are shared and transmitted within and 31 across groups of people and activities is to appropriate James Paul Gee’s concept of ‘affinity spaces’. 32 Affinity spaces are those online and/or offline interactive spaces comprising people held together 33 either loosely or tightly by means of shared activities, interests and goals (Gee, 2004). Although 34 meme-ing – the practice of generating and/or passing on memes – has always been a part of 35 human practice (Blackmore, 1999 NOT IN REFS), meme-ing that makes use of relatively well-36 defined affinity spaces and electronic networks has been identified tentatively as an example of a 37 ‘new’ literacy practice that warrants close attention, particularly with respect to literacy education 38 (Lankshear & Knobel, 2003). Moreover, claims concerning the nature and significance of memes 39 beg closer empirical scrutiny than they have received to date. The field of memetics itself is marked 40 by a startling absence of published meme research, with much of the literature given over to 41

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arguing over which particular theoretical conception of memes is most useful (cf. Blackmore, 1999 42 NOT IN REFS; Aunger, 2002). The chief purpose of this article therefore is to contribute to laying 43 a foundation for the empirical study of memes as new literacy practices by examining the key 44 elements of successful memes. The article begins by developing a succinct definition of ‘meme’ and 45 by identifying key characteristics of successful memes in general. This set of characteristics is 46 illustrated by way of two examples of successful Internet-mediated memes. Within this discussion 47 of successful memes, attention is paid to examining some implications memes and meme-ing have 48 for contemporary approaches to literacy instruction and new digital technology use in schools. The 49 paper concludes with a brief discussion of the ways in which meme-ing may usefully challenge 50 conventional conceptions of education policy and ‘digital divides’. 51

Defining a Meme 52

Richard Dawkins, the noted geneticist, is widely credited with coining the term ‘meme’ in his 53 paradigm-changing book, The Selfish Gene (1976). As Dawkins himself recalls (1999), his purpose in 54 invoking a term like ‘meme’ to refer to good ideas, ‘tunes, catch-phrases, clothes fashions, ways of 55 making pots or of building arches’ (Dawkins, 1976, p. 192), and so on, was to argue for the 56 importance of small units of information like genes and memes in biological and cultural evolution 57 (Dawkins, 1999, p. xvi). He emphasised in The Selfish Gene that the ‘real unit of natural selection 58 [whether speaking biologically or culturally] was any kind of replicator, any unit of which copies 59 are made, with occasional errors, and with some influence or power over their own probability of 60 replication’ (ibid. WHICH REF DOES THIS REFER TO—1976 OR 1999? PLS GIVE FULL 61 TEXT CITATION HERE INSTEAD OF IBID.). 62

For Dawkins, memes are not metaphors for the transmission of ideas, but are ‘living structures’ 63 that reside within the brain; that is, they comprise a physical structure in each person’s neural 64 network (1976). However, even Dawkins himself appears to be taken aback by the vigorous 65 debates that emerged subsequent to the publication of The Selfish Gene and which focused on 66 theorizing the definition of a meme more thoroughly than Dawkins had done. These debates have 67 tended to fall into three camps of thought. These camps are characterized by biological, 68 psychological, and what can be loosely called sociological definitions of memes, respectively. 69 Biological definitions tend either to follow an evolutionary gene model of memes (e.g. Dawkins, 70 1976) or argue for an epidemological conception of memes. Biological conceptions of memes tend 71 to focus on the effects memes have on behavior (Brodie, 1996; Aunger, 2002). Epidemological 72 conceptions use disease metaphors to explain what memes are and how they work, and treat 73 memes as pathogens in analyses of meme dynamics (e.g. Goodenough & Dawkins, 1994, NOT IN 74 REFS cited in Wilkins, 1998, p. 2). Psychological and cognitive conceptions of memes tend to pay 75 closer attention to decision-making processes prior to action (Aunger, 2002, p. 37). From this 76 perspective, the brain becomes a selective information processor – unable to process all the 77 information received from moment to moment, and continuously engaged in selecting those units 78 of information deemed worth attention. Interest in selective attention and information processing 79 focuses on the ways in which memes affect decision-making. Memes are defined from this 80 perspective in terms of being ideas spread by ‘vehicles’ that are physical manifestations of the 81 meme (Dennet, 1995, NOT IN REFS cited in Brodie, 1996, p. 30). Sociological definitions of 82 memes downplay any physical neural quality of memes and instead pay attention to the effects of 83 social organization on meme success. For example, from this perspective, memes are ‘those units 84 of transmitted information that are subject to selection biases at a given level of hierarchical 85 organization of a culture’ (Wilkins, 1998, p. 2). That is, social structures such as family, religions, 86 schools and their defining values, mindsets, ways of doing and so on directly impact which memes 87 are most likely to be successfully contagious. 88

A tendency across all three perspectives to give too much autonomy to memes has long been 89 criticized within the memetics literature (cf. SEE? Brodie, 1996; Wilkins, 1998). A more 90 metaphorical use of the concept ‘meme’ that draws on elements of all three theoretical orientations 91 towards memes and takes into account human predilections for patterns and decision-making 92 processes, as well as social structures, contexts and practices may prove more useful within the field 93 of education. A more metaphorical use of memes enables the examination of modes and means of 94

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cultural production and transmission that do not confine analysis to discrete units of information, 95 but take into account the ways in which memes themselves are caught up in realizing and 96 propagating social relations. Memes are therefore usefully defined as contagious patterns of 97 cultural information that are passed from mind to mind by means of selection, infection and 98 replication. Particular configurations of memes are informed by, and in turn help to define and 99 propagate, the relations, actions and/or mindsets of any social group. An idea or information 100 pattern is not a meme until someone replicates it by passing it on to someone else, and the 101 probability of a meme being contagious within a group is directly tied to the values, beliefs and 102 practices of that group (cf. SEE? Grant, 1990). The social nature of memes is an important 103 dimension of their definition, not least because replication of ideas and patterns requires social 104 interaction. To poach Wittgenstein’s famous aphorism concerning the thoroughly social nature of 105 language, there can be no such thing as a ‘private meme’ that occurs only inside one’s head and no 106 one else’s. 107

Threaded through the various available definitions of memes is a sense of ‘discreteness’ or 108 ‘boundedness’ where each meme is concerned. Memeticists use terms such as ‘unit’, ‘pattern’, 109 ‘idea’, ‘structure’, ‘set’ and so on in describing memes which suggest ‘edges’ to memes, even if 110 these edges are blurry in practice. This is useful because it justifies the approach taken in this 111 article, that sees memes as recognizable, bounded phenomena that have a material presence in the 112 world and therefore can be subjected to scrutiny. Dawkins’ original examples of memes – tunes, 113 good ideas, catchphrases, clothes fashions, ways of making pots or of building arches – stand as 114 useful guideposts for identifying and analyzing memes. 115

Provisional Meme Typology 116

A great deal of the memetics literature has been dominated by arguments concerning what is and is 117 not a ‘meme’. However, conceptual bickering seems to have been something of a dead end for 118 memetics as a distinct field of inquiry, and has produced few empirical studies of actual memes in 119 action (exceptions include Chattoe, 1998; Gatherer, 2003). The present article is not interested in 120 contributing further to stale debates over what memes are, but rather is interested in focusing on 121 reasonably well-defined, widely dispersed, and wildly successful memes in order to better 122 understand how memes operate in everyday life. This position echoes that of Charles Simonyi, a 123 key figure in software development and an early programmer with Microsoft. Simonyi chided 124 Richard Brodie, now a key figure in memetics, for originally missing the point with respect to 125 useful analyses of memes: 126

‘Come on!’ exclaimed Charles. ‘You are asking the wrong question! Who cares if a yawn is a 127 meme or not! The right question is, “What are the interesting memes?”’ (Brodie, 1996, p. 25) 128

The following provisional typology maps a range of interesting and successful memes that have 129 been propagated via electronic networks in the past ten years. A key index of ‘success’ in the 130 following typology is that each meme and meme type has been reported in mainstream media 131 venues. 132

This typology aims at foregrounding social practices associated with meme generation and 133 dispersion. It differentiates between memes that remain relatively stable and intact, and those 134 memes that undergo a kind of deliberate and selective mutation which simultaneously aims at 135 spreading the meme more widely and at embellishing and improving upon the meme itself in ways 136 that extend or proliferate social practices that make use of this meme. 137

Characteristics of Successful Memes 138

Dawkins (1976) identified three characteristics of successful memes that remain relevant today: 139 fidelity, fecundity and longevity. Fidelity refers to qualities of the meme that enable relatively 140 straightforward ‘copying’ of the meme (e.g. an email containing a contagious idea) that keep it 141 relatively ‘intact’ as it passes from mind to mind. Units of information that make sense or are 142 meaningful to a person and can be successfully imitated or reproduced will more easily become 143 memes than units of information that are not easily copied or understood. As Susan Blackmore 144 explains, memes may well be successful because they are memorable, rather than because they are 145

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important or useful (Blackmore, 1999, p. 57 NOT IN REFS; see also Heylighen, 1998, p. 1). 146 Dawkins provides a useful example of how memory, fidelity and ease of copying may work to 147 promote one meme over another. A little before Dawkins coined the term ‘meme’, an alternative 148 synonym, ‘culturgen’, was proposed (Dawkins, 1999, p. xiv). Dawkins suggests that ‘culturgen’ 149 never really caught on because it was polysyllabic rather than monosyllabic; did not lend itself 150 easily to developing sub-category words (e.g. unlike meme, which has been hived off into 151 ‘memeplex’, ‘memeticist’, ‘metameme’, ‘meme pool’, and so on); and was not similar in sound or 152 spelling to a similar or related concept in the way that ‘meme’ and ‘gene’ can be connected. Once 153 ‘meme’ began to catch on, it automatically acquired more attention than ‘culturgen’, and soon 154 became the dominant concept for explaining the transmission of ideas and cultural information 155 from mind to mind. 156

Susceptibility is an important part of meme fidelity as well. Susceptibility refers to the ‘timing’ 157 or ‘location’ of a meme with respect to people’s openness to it, the meme’s relevance to current 158 events, its relation to extant successful memes, and the interests and values of the affinity space in 159 which the meme is unleashed. Ideal conditions of susceptibility will let the ‘hooks’ and ‘selection 160 attractors’ built into the design and function of the meme itself take hold more easily and in ways 161 that maximize the possibilities for the meme to ‘catch on’ and be transmitted rapidly from person 162 to person without being hindered or slowed by early warning filters or other forms of cultural 163 immunity (cf. SEE? Bennahum in Lankshear & Knobel, 2003). For example, photos and footage of 164 El Fardos Square in Baghdad that captured the toppling of Saddam Hussein’s statue after Baghdad 165 was taken by US-led troops were beamed around the world by the mainstream media. These 166 images showed a crowded square filled with cheering Iraqis. The meme, ‘the liberation of Baghdad 167 – and all of Iraq – thanks to the US’, was set firmly in place with its hooks embedded in ‘9/11’ 168 events and President Bush’s ‘war on terrorism’. An alternative meme was soon posted on the 169 Internet by Fozzy (his posting name), a keen-eyed amateur news hound. This new meme 170 challenged broadcast versions of what had happened by analysing a wide-angle photograph of the 171 exact same event, which clearly showed the square ringed by US tanks and only a small knot of 172 mostly Iraqi men and boys – with at least one Iraqi male in this group identified as a soldier in the 173 local militia in the employ of the US army – milling around by the statue itself (see Fozzy, 2003). 174 Fozzy’s counter meme concerning US-owned broadcast media reporting of US military ‘success’ in 175 Iraq spread rapidly from mind to mind via the Internet, hooking into anti-war protest memes and 176 ongoing critiques of media representations of war that had emerged much earlier during the 177 Vietnam war and the more recent first Gulf war. 178

Fecundity, Dawkins’ second key characteristic of successful memes, refers to the rate at which 179 an idea or pattern is copied and spread. In other words, the more quickly a meme spreads, the 180 more likely it is that it will capture robust and sustained attention, and will be replicated and 181 distributed (Brodie, 1996, p. 38). A recent example of how the rapid dispersion of a meme can have 182 important material effects in the world is provided by the exposé of fake documentary evidence 183 used on a national news reporting and commentary show – 60 Minutes. This documentary evidence 184 was used in the broadcast report to question President Bush’s National Guard service record. The 185 60 Minutes report drew heavily on a set of military administrative memos from the early 1970s to 186 make its case. Nineteen minutes into the broadcast, TankerKC (his posting name) made a post to 187 the discussion board on the highly conservative website, Freerepublic.com, suggesting that the 188 style and format of the memos did not match those used when he was in the US military during the 189 1970s (Ooi, 2004). Four hours later, Buckhead (his posting name) posted a comment to the same 190 discussion board critiquing the font in which the memos were printed (Ooi, 2004). He pointed out 191 that each of the documents shown on CBS was printed in a proportionally spaced font (e.g. 192 Palatino or Times New Roman, used by computers) rather than in a monospace font (e.g. Courier, 193 letter Gothic) used by typewriters. Typewriters were the principal means for creating official 194 memos in the military in the early 1970s. Buckhead’s criticism of 60 Minutes’ use of fake 195 documentary evidence to discredit Bush just prior to the national elections spread like wildfire 196 throughout the blogosphere (i.e. that space on the Internet occupied by weblogs), where it was 197 copied, refined and transmitted to others right across the political spectrum. Buckhead’s meme 198 concerning anti-Bush bias in the 60 Minutes broadcast was reported in mainstream media, such as 199 the Washington Post, the New York Times, the LA Times, the Australian, the BBC, and on CNN, 200

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among others. The exposure of the fake memos and the fecundity of the meme effectively and 201 deleteriously deflected attention from Bush’s incomplete National Guard service, cost the host of 202 60 Minutes at the time – Dan Rather – his job, and significantly weakened the Democratic run-up to 203 the then yet to be held presidential elections. 204

Drawing on similar examples, an important dimension in the analysis of successful memes is 205 added to Dawkins’ ‘fecundity’ criterion by Brodie. Brodie argues that memes tend to infect minds 206 more quickly when the meme is transmitted by ‘trustworthy others’ (Brodie, 1996, p. 152). The 207 typology of memes developed earlier in this article (see Figure 1) suggests that additional factors 208 may also be at play with respect to meme fecundity and speed of transmission. In short, it appears 209 that Brodie’s ‘trustworthy others’ can include ‘people I’d like to be like,’ as well as ‘people like me’ 210 (as in the case of Buckhead above, and the rapid way in which his meme positively infected 211 conservative minds and online spaces first even though he was up until then simply another 212 member of a conservative online discussion group). Indeed, affinity spaces are ideal conduits for 213 memes. As mentioned earlier, affinity spaces are sets of interactions and activities among people 214 who are linked by shared activities, interests and goals (Gee, 2005 NOT IN REFS). Affinity spaces 215 can be fixed or fleeting and are always thoroughly relational in nature. Fozzy’s meme, also 216 described earlier and which criticized mainstream media reporting of the war on Iraq, proved to be 217 highly contagious within anti-war blog spaces and left-of-centre media analysis groups (e.g. 218 indymedia.org). 219

Certain Internet-mediated affinity spaces also seem to attract people who are ‘cool hunting’. 220 That is, a relatively small number of affinity spaces are associated with trend-spotting, with ‘clearly 221 cool people’, and with reporting on the ‘next big thing’ (e.g. boingboing.net, slashdot.com). These 222 spaces always have a high ‘cool quotient’ and are seen as worth participating in – as a contributor 223 and/or as a reader and comment-maker – by anyone wanting to appear ‘plugged in’ to cutting-edge 224 cultural or subcultural evolution. Online, contributing directly to spreading a new, popular and 225 catchy meme is considered cool, and generating an entirely new successful meme is even cooler. 226 Being among the first to spot a new, popular and catchy online meme is perhaps coolest of all. 227 Examples of popular Internet-distributed memes with high coolness quotients include All Your 228 Base Are Belong To Us (planettribes.com/allyourbase/index.shtml), The Star Wars Kid 229 (jedimaster.net), That Tourist Guy (carcino.gen.nz/ images/index.php/627708f8), Numa Numa 230 Dance (newgrounds.com/portal/view/206373), and Lost Frog (lostfrog.org). In many ways, these 231 kinds of memes are often absurdist in nature and closely akin to shared jokes between friends; 232 outsiders will often have difficulty seeing the humour in or point to many of these memes. Susan 233 Blackmore, a prominent memeticist, is clearly right when she argues that the ‘effective 234 transmission of memes depends critically on human preferences, attention, emotions and desires’ 235 (Blackmore 1999, p. 58 NOT IN REFS). Affinity spaces clearly play an important role in the 236 fecundity of a successful meme, especially when the meme is distributed online. 237

Longevity is also a key characteristic of a successful meme. The longer a meme survives, the 238 more it can be copied and passed on to new minds, exponentially ensuring its ongoing 239 transmission. Longevity assumes that optimal conditions for a meme’s replication and innovation 240 are in place. A classic example of a long-lived meme that has made its way into cyberspace where it 241 has become a fecund meme indeed is what has come to be known as the ‘Nigerian letter scam’. 242 The email versions of this letter can vary in terms of contextual details, but the gist of the email 243 remains constant: a relative of or ex-government official for a deposed dictator of an African 244 country needs to launder an enormous amount of misappropriated funds through a mediating 245 bank account and offers the reader a generous proportion of the total sum for providing a 246 temporary holding account for the money. Victims provide bank account numbers and soon find 247 their accounts are emptied and the ‘relative’ or ‘dignitary’ is nowhere to be found (Glasner, 2002; 248 Wired, 2002). The longevity of this particular ‘get rich quick’ meme must be due in large part to 249 people falling for the scam, otherwise the meme would not be as long-lived as it has been. Indeed, 250 some reports claim that the Nigerian letter scam actually generates higher median losses per victim 251 per year in the United States than does identity theft, although the identity theft meme is given 252 much more airplay in media venues (see di Justo & Stein, 2002). 253

254 255

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257 Figure 1. A provisional typology of Internet-mediated memes. 258

Two Successful Memes 259

Nike Sweatshop Shoes: a high fidelity, high fecundity meme 260

(i) Background. Early in 2001 the Nike sportswear company began running a campaign called ‘Build 261 Your Own Nike iD Products’ that enabled buyers to customise and personalise their Nike gear (see 262 nikeid.nike.com). Jonah Peretti, a graduate student at MIT at the time, was struck by 263 incongruencies between Nike’s advertising slogans that featured freedom, personal choice and 264 agency, and reports of Nike’s exploitation of workers in Asian and South American countries 265

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(Peretti, 2001). Peretti decided to order a pair of running shoes with the word ‘sweatshop’ 266 embroidered on them. Nike rejected his order and sparked the following email correspondence 267 between Peretti and the company: 268

From: ‘Personalize, NIKE iD’ 269 To: ‘Jonah H. Peretti’ 270 Subject: RE: Your NIKE iD order o16468000 271

Your NIKE iD order was cancelled for one or more of the following reasons. 272

1) Your Personal iD contains another party’s trademark or other intellectual property. 273 2) Your Personal iD contains the name of an athlete or team we do not have the legal right 274 to use. 275 3) Your Personal iD was left blank. Did you not want any personalization? 276 4) Your Personal iD contains profanity or inappropriate slang, and besides, your mother 277 would slap us. 278

If you wish to reorder your NIKE iD product with a new personalization please visit us again 279 at www.nike.com 280

Thank you, 281

NIKE iD 282

283

From: ‘Jonah H. Peretti’ 284 To: ‘Personalize, NIKE iD’ 285 Subject: RE: Your NIKE iD order o16468000 286

Greetings, 287

My order was canceled but my personal NIKE iD does not violate any of the criteria 288 outlined in your message. The Personal iD on my custom ZOOM XC USA running shoes 289 was the word ‘sweatshop.’ Sweatshop is not: 1) another party’s trademark, 2) the name of an 290 athlete, 3) blank, or 4) profanity. I choose CHOSE? the iD because I wanted to remember 291 the toil and labor of the children that made my shoes. Could you please ship them to me 292 immediately. 293

Thanks and Happy New Year, 294

Jonah Peretti 295

296

From: ‘Personalize, NIKE iD’ 297 To: ‘Jonah H. Peretti’ 298 Subject: RE: Your NIKE iD order o16468000 299

Dear NIKE iD Customer, 300

Your NIKE iD order was cancelled because the iD you have chosen contains, as stated in the 301 previous e-mail correspondence, ‘inappropriate slang’. If you wish to reorder your NIKE iD 302 product with a new personalization please visit us again at www.nike.com 303

Thank you, 304

NIKE iD 305

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From: ‘Jonah H. Peretti’ 307 To: ‘Personalize, NIKE iD’ 308 Subject: RE: Your NIKE iD order o16468000 309

Dear NIKE iD, 310

Thank you for your quick response to my inquiry about my custom ZOOM XC USA 311 running shoes. Although I commend you for your prompt customer service, I disagree with 312 the claim that my personal iD was inappropriate slang. After consulting Webster’s 313 Dictionary, I discovered that ‘sweatshop’ is in fact part of standard English, and not slang. 314 The word means: ‘a shop or factory in which workers are employed for long hours at low 315 wages and under unhealthy conditions’ and its origin dates from 1892. So my personal iD 316 does meet the criteria detailed in your first email. 317

Your web site advertises that the NIKE iD program is ‘about freedom to choose and 318 freedom to express who you are.’ I share Nike’s love of freedom and personal expression. 319 The site also says that ‘If you want it done right ... build it yourself.’ I was thrilled to be able 320 to build my own shoes, and my personal iD was offered as a small token of appreciation for 321 the sweatshop workers poised to help me realize my vision. I hope that you will value my 322 freedom of expression and reconsider your decision to reject my order. 323

Thank you, 324

Jonah Peretti 325

326

From: ‘Personalize, NIKE iD’ 327 To: ‘Jonah H. Peretti’ 328 Subject: RE: Your NIKE iD order o16468000 329

Dear NIKE iD Customer, 330

Regarding the rules for personalization it also states on the NIKE iD web site that ‘Nike 331 reserves the right to cancel any Personal iD up to 24 hours after it has been submitted’. In 332 addition it further explains: ‘While we honor most personal iDs, we cannot honor every one. 333 Some may be (or contain) others’ trademarks, or the names of certain professional sports 334 teams, athletes or celebrities that Nike does not have the right to use. Others may contain 335 material that we consider inappropriate or simply do not want to place on our products. 336 Unfortunately, at times this obliges us to decline personal iDs that may otherwise seem 337 unobjectionable. In any event, we will let you know if we decline your personal iD, and we 338 will offer you the chance to submit another.’ With these rules in mind we cannot accept 339 your order as submitted. If you wish to reorder your NIKE iD product with a new 340 personalization please visit us again at www.nike.com 341

Thank you, 342

NIKE iD 343

344

From: ‘Jonah H. Peretti’ 345 To: ‘Personalize, NIKE iD’ 346 Subject: RE: Your NIKE iD order o16468000 347

Dear NIKE iD, 348

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Thank you for the time and energy you have spent on my request. I have decided to order 349 the shoes with a different iD, but I would like to make one small request. Could you please 350 send me a color snapshot of the ten-year-old Vietnamese girl who makes my shoes? 351

Thanks, 352

Jonah Peretti 353

(Source: Snopes. http://www.snopes.com/business/consumer/nike.asp#add) 354

(ii) Fidelity, fecundity and longevity. Peretti forwarded the set of email exchanges to a dozen friends, 355 who forwarded it on to their friends, and so on. Peretti’s email correspondence soon reached 356 millions of people via email networks, and captured mainstream broadcast attention. Peretti’s 357 meme was the subject of a range of news and magazine reports, including Time magazine, and 358 Peretti himself was interviewed on the Today Show, a popular news events talk show in the United 359 States. 360

Peretti had never expected his email exchange to attract so much attention and to be forwarded 361 intact to so many people around the world. Clearly his insistence on making explicit in his emails 362 Nike’s involvement in exploiting workers in developing countries and the contradictions between 363 Nike’s ‘public face’ and marketing slogans and its actual production practices hooked into a sizable 364 and widespread discontent with the production practices of large clothing corporations. Peretti’s 365 meme has proved to be long-lived, as well. A quick Google search using the terms ‘nike’, 366 ‘sweatshop’ and ‘shoes’ brings up page after page of links to websites that have faithfully 367 reproduced Peretti’s meme, with many adding their own analyses or suggestions for resisting 368 corporate exploitation of low-wage workers and corporate domination of everyday life. From a 369 memetics perspective, Peretti’s meme was especially infectious because of the absurdist humour 370 contained in the email exchange in the form of Peretti’s seemingly innocent openness about Nike’s 371 sweatshop production practices and the Nike corporation’s refusal to state why they would not 372 allow ‘sweatshop’ to be embroidered on their shoes. The humour of the exchange does not hide 373 the fact that the email exchange is nonetheless a serious reminder of corporate double-speak. 374

375 (iii) Networks and affinity spaces. Peretti directly credits online networks and like-minded citizens 376 with the success of his ‘culture jamming’ exchange with Nike. He explains, 377

Although the press has presented my battle with Nike as a David versus Goliath parable, the 378 real story is the battle between a company like Nike, with access to the mass media, and a 379 network of citizens on the Internet who have only micromedia at their disposal. (Peretti, 380 2001, p. 1) 381

Peretti’s ‘Nike sweatshop shoe’ meme demonstrates the power of affinity groups with respect to 382 spreading and reinforcing a successful meme. This example also demonstrates some of the material 383 effects online memes can have on life offline; Peretti’s meme contributed directly to a series of 384 grassroots responses to corporate production methods and values (cf.SEE? accounts on 385 Adbusters.org). 386

Him Name is Hopkin Green Frog: a mutating visual meme 387

(i) Background. The ‘lost frog’ meme was sparked by a child’s hand-produced flier announcing a lost 388 pet that was posted in streets around Seattle (USA) (see Figure 2). During September 2004, a 389 scanned image of this flier was posted to an online image-sharing community, and members of this 390 group quickly picked up on the pathos and determination in the child’s language and hand-drawn 391 images. Members of this group used image-editing software, such as Adobe’s Photoshop, to 392 manipulate or photoshop the original image. The resulting meme mutations produced by this 393 group, and later, by others around the world, are always humorous, yet often touching. 394 Collectively they narrate massive, albeit fictional, citizen mobilization in the ongoing search for 395 Hopkin Green Frog. 396 397 398

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399 400

401 Figure 2. Terry’s lost frog flier (Source: lostfrog.org). 402 403 These meme mutations were gathered together by Harold Ikes and archived on lostfrog.org. The 404 archive captured widespread attention and quickly became a popular hyperlink in blog posts and 405 discussion forums. Late in September 2004, Mike Whybark, a resident of Seattle, began researching 406 the background story to the original flier and reported his findings in The Nation (see Whybark, 407 2004). The flier was produced by Terry, a 16-year-old autistic boy who had lost a toy frog that had 408 been very special to him. Despite the ‘mystery’ of Terry and his lost pet being to all intents and 409 purposes ‘solved’, photoshoppers continue to contribute to the archive, and lostfrog.org currently 410 hosts over 100 mutations of the original flier. The meme has spilled over into meatspace as well; 411 many of its hosts did their own independent background research and purchased replacement frogs 412 on eBay to send to Terry. Businesses are cashing in on the meme as well, with a ‘lost frog’ T-shirt 413 (store.northshoreshirts.com/ilomyfrhisna.html) and a postcard (cafepress.com/hopkin.15679312) 414 available for purchase online. 415 416 (ii) Fidelity, fecundity and longevity. The photoshopped images archived on lostfrog.org remain 417 highly faithful to the ‘searching for lost pet’ meme generated by Terry with his original flier. 418 However, photoshoppers have liberally reinterpreted his flier in over 100 different ways, using it 419 more as a ‘jumping off point’ (Doctorow, 2004, p. 1 NOT IN REFS) than as a static text to pass on 420 to others. In general, key features from the original flier remain and, in particular, include the 421 image of the frog drawn by Terry and some of the language he used on the flier (especially ‘him 422 name is hopkin green frog’ and ‘p.s. I’ll find my frog’). Each photoshopped image is humorous in its 423 own right, and across the archive the images variously make use of typical ‘missing persons’ 424 announcement vehicles (e.g. broadcast media news reports, milk cartons, road signs), crowd scenes 425 seemingly devoted to spreading the news about the lost frog (e.g. a ‘lost frog’ banner at a crowded 426 soccer match), attention-grabbing announcement vehicles (e.g. an aeroplane pulling a banner 427 announcement, Prime Minister Tony Blair carrying lost frog fliers and wearing a lost frog badge), 428 and a host of other ‘remember hopkin’ scenarios (e.g. lost frog video games, lost frog scratch-it 429 lottery tickets, Hopkin’s ID on someone’s instant message buddy list, Hopkin as a ‘not found’ 430

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Internet file image). Some of the mutated images offer explanations as to what happened to 431 Hopkin, including being caught up in one of the Raiders of the Lost Ark movies, joining Osama bin 432 Laden, and/or being abducted by aliens. 433

This ‘lost frog’ meme has not (yet) been widely reported in mainstream broadcast media, 434 although it has appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle and Seattle’s The Nation. It has been spread 435 rapidly and widely via the blogosphere, however. A Google search for ‘lost frog’ generates well 436 over 600 direct blog post hyperlinks to the lostfrog.org website, and a similar search using the 437 terms ‘whybark’ and ‘lost frog’ generate over 100 blog post hyperlinks to Mike Whybark’s 438 background story that he posted on his own blog (this figure does not include counts of comments 439 readers made in response to each ‘lost frog’ blog post). It seems that the pathos of a child’s pet 440 being lost and the child’s determination to find him proved highly memorable and contagious. 441 Photoshoppers took up Terry’s cause – for better or for worse. Many online comments attached to 442 blog posts about lostfrog.org, such as on Metafilter, a premier online discussion forum (see 443 metafilter.com/mefi/36801), described how different forum commentators find the original flier 444 ‘heartbreaking’, and that it ‘tears [them] up inside’. Comments also reveal that many people find 445 the subsequent mutations of this image ‘touching’, and some even admitted to crying while they 446 viewed the archive. Judging from weblog posts and comments, Terry’s lost frog meme seems to 447 have tapped into shared childhood experiences of lost or dead pets. Not everyone infected with this 448 meme finds the mutated images to be sufficiently empathetic or respectful; nonetheless, even 449 detractors – those who do not understand the meme or its popularity, or those who feel it is a cruel 450 joke at the expense of an autistic young man – have become efficient hosts for and transmitters of 451 what has become a highly successful meme. The longevity of this mutating meme is assured while 452 the website archive remains online. 453

454 (iii) Networks and affinity spaces. The lost frog flier adapted by a distributed group of photoshoppers 455 was not the first flier Terry had posted around Seattle streets. Jeff Sharman (2003) NOT IN REFS is 456 credited with being the first to report on this original flier in his weblog. His blog post was text-457 based only, and focuses on adult reactions to Terry’s lost-pet announcement. 458

A poster next to the bus stop describes a lost pet, a frog named Hopkin. ‘Please call me at 459 (206) ... or call 911. My name is Terry Chen. My frog hopkin. I can’t find my frog! Who 460 stolen she or he.’ There are hand drawn pictures of both the profile and a front view. 461

A short security guard in a crisp police-style uniform walks straight up to the sign and studies 462 it. She speaks into her CB radio, ‘It’s dated August 20.’ 463

A voice crackles back at her, ‘ ... and it says something about a lost frog?’ 464

‘Yes.’ 465

‘Okay, there are three more of them around the side of the building. Take them down.’ 466

The security guard picks at the tape carefully, like she’s unfamiliar with the material that it’s 467 made from and doesn’t want to damage it or damage herself. (Source: 468 struat.com/here/002343.php [posted 31 May 2004]) 469

However, Terry’s meme did not capture widespread attention until a scanned image of the second 470 flier he posted around the city was uploaded to a photoshopping affinity space mediated by the 471 Internet. It also appears that this meme’s infection rate gained momentum after it was reported on 472 highly popular blogs like BoingBoing.net and discussion forums like Metafilter. 473

This lost-pet meme seems to have attracted a fairly high coolness quotient as well, with 474 contributors to the image bank described in a number of venues as ‘hipsters’ (cf. Doctorow, 2004 475 NOT IN REFS). Even knowing about the meme during its early stages is regarded by some as cool, 476 as the following comment in response to a blog post about lostfrog.org suggests: ‘Slow poke, this 477 originated on FipiLele about two weeks back. Posted by: riffola at November 7, 2004 04:23 PM’ (on 478 blog.filmgoerjuan.com/archives/2004 /11/07/000256.php). Needless to say, the spread of 479 mutating visual memes like ‘lost frog’ are assisted greatly by Internet-mediated networks and ‘cool 480 hunters’. 481

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Memes, Digital Divides, and Literacy Education 482

Why Study Memes? 483

There are any number of reasons for taking memes seriously, but chief among these is to arrive at a 484 better understanding of cultural evolution, where ‘evolution’ is understood in multidirectional 485 growth and change terms, rather than in linear progression terms. In addition, memeticists identify 486 three other significant purposes for studying memes. These are: (a) to develop and refine 487 increasingly effective marketing strategies (cf. Aunger, 2002); (b) to develop strategies for guarding 488 against damaging memes; and (c) to better understand how the Internet or particular uses of the 489 Internet – such as blogging – ‘work’ by tracing meme development and distribution (cf. Adar et al, 490 2004). 491

(a) The advertising industry is built on the pursuit of successful memes: those that are catchy 492 and easily remembered, that replicate at a fast rate, and that are long-lived. For example, the 493 dominance of the cola soft-drink market by Coca-Cola has meant that the instantly recognizable 494 white swirl on a red background that has always represented the drink has grown progressively 495 larger and larger over the years so that today, drink dispensing machines are often simply marked 496 in red with a giant white swirl to indicate the product inside (Brodie, 1996). Studying and 497 generating such ‘designer’ memes to manipulate consumption patterns is regarded in many circles 498 as a valid practice, but the analysis of memes as marketing tools does not add significantly to what 499 is already known about marketing techniques, product ‘attractors’ and patterns of consumption. 500

(b) Memes are not necessarily socially beneficial phenomena, and Brodie (1996) urges caution 501 with respect to memes that become ‘mind viruses’ which limit opportunities or that do harm to 502 people. ‘Mind viruses’ are memes that infect a mind without the mind being conscious of the 503 infection. According to Brodie, mind viruses that remain unexamined in any metalevel or 504 metacognitive way can limit a person’s or a group’s social and economic opportunities. Examples 505 of harmful mind viruses can include profit mind viruses (such as those driving the Nigerian letter 506 scam), thinness is beauty mind viruses (promoted on television and in fashion magazines and the 507 like), and power and control mind viruses (such as those found in cults). Brodie is not all doom and 508 gloom, however, and he challenges people to turn the power of memes and mind viruses to 509 socially positive ends by consciously spreading potentially beneficial mind viruses to as many 510 people as possible. His examples include the Hunger Project (thp.org), a non-profit organization 511 committed to ending world hunger, which is based on networks of committed people and 512 relatively small-scale grassroots projects and not on more traditional centralized funding models 513 and aid distribution strategies. 514

Brodie urges people to become more consciously aware of the memes they are infected with, 515 why they in turn distribute certain memes and not others, and how the memes they do distribute 516 play out in very concrete ways with respect to their sense of self-efficacy, their decision-making, the 517 opportunities that become available to them (and to others), their interactions with others, and so 518 on. Analysing mind viruses and meme processes and effects can help educationists, for example, 519 understand more fully some of the complexities currently facing education with respect to policies 520 and classroom practices involving new digital technologies. 521

(c) Eytan Adar and his colleagues at the Hewlett Packard Dynamics Lab have been studying 522 what they call ‘information epidemics’ spread via weblogs in order to better understand the 523 ‘pattern and dynamics of information spreading in blogspace’ (Adar et al, 2004, p. 1). Part of the 524 susceptibility of blogs to memes lies in a widely shared goal among bloggers to be the first or 525 among the first to post or comment on ‘the latest or the newest’ (Adar et al, 2004). Being ‘the first’ 526 tends to increase readership and status or general ‘coolness’ as measured within the blogosphere. 527 Adar and colleagues’ research focuses on developing a ranking algorithm and visualization tool 528 (iRank) for mapping the spread of information. That is, they identified which weblogs ‘serve as 529 sources of information that later becomes widely linked to’ (Adar et al, 2004). To date, blog indices 530 have relied only on hyperlink counts to judge the ‘popularity’ or ‘authoritativeness’ of a website, 531 which gives little indication of the origins of a meme epidemic, or of how quickly or widely a 532 meme epidemic has spread. The Hewlett Packard research team is most interested in tracing how 533 meme epidemics begin, and their findings suggest that the most significant or influential people 534 within the blogosphere are not those whose blogs are linked to most often, but rather, are ‘the 535

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people who cause epidemics in blog networks’ and who are rarely popular bloggers themselves 536 (Adar in conversation with Asaravala [Asaravala, 2004, p. 1; emphases added]). 537

Adar and his colleagues’ work confirms that in addition to the characteristics of successful 538 memes first identified by Dawkins – i.e., fidelity/‘copyability’, fecundity and longevity – an 539 important dimension of effective memes online is ‘coolness’. Thus, the fidelity, fecundity and 540 longevity of a meme is heightened when the meme itself is associated with being ‘plugged in’ to 541 the circuitry of new trends, developments, and analyses that mark one as an ‘insider’ of a valued 542 (sub)cultural group or affinity space (cf. Snyder’s development of William Gibson’s ‘cool hunting’ 543 meme, Snyder, 2004). Participating actively in the dispersion of Internet-mediated memes can 544 confer coolness on a host, especially when the meme that is passed on by this host is refined and 545 embellished in some skillful way (cf. the lost frog meme discussed earlier). 546

Ways and Memes in Education 547

Little, if any, of the meme literature discusses schooling; nevertheless, studying memes has much 548 to offer researchers and educators with respect to better understanding ways in which units of 549 cultural information concerning schools and pedagogy are propagated, why certain ideas 550 connected to schooling are more easily replicated and have greater fecundity than others do, and 551 how and why certain ideas are valued more (or less) than other ideas. 552

Perhaps the most obvious contribution the study of memes can make to schooling in general, 553 and to literacy education in particular, is in helping students to develop metalevel understanding of 554 the memes they are each infected with. At a very pragmatic level, studying memes can help 555 students become less susceptible to hoax and scam memes delivered via email. Studying memes at 556 school can also alert students to some of the personal costs associated with generating a very 557 personal, original and highly successful meme. Costs can include heavy media attention, sustained 558 invasion of privacy and loss of anonymity, hate email and fan email deluges, unkind spoofs, and so 559 on, as Ghyslain (The Star Wars Kid), Gary (Numa Numa Dance star) and Jay (The Tron Guy), 560 among many others, can attest. 561

Meme analysis can also include tracing where or how certain memes (or mind viruses) were 562 most likely acquired; what effects these memes have on decision-making, mindsets and actions; the 563 effects these memes may have on other people; and what ethical decisions need to made with 564 respect to passing on, or not passing on, certain memes to other minds. It would be easy to argue 565 that critical literacy approaches already do all this. However, analysing memes helps to concretize 566 students’ own active role in hosting and spreading memes and underscores the importance of being 567 consciously aware of which ‘good’ and ‘not so good’ memes they themselves are hosting and 568 passing on. Critical literacy in classrooms often stops at the analysis of power relations in texts 569 (Knobel, 1998) and rarely examines the dynamics of the selection and spread of particular ideas and 570 pieces of cultural information over others. 571

Research suggests young people’s literacy practices, technology use and social participation 572 online are considerably more sophisticated and pedagogically valuable than what is often available 573 to them at school (cf. Alvermann, 2002; Lankshear & Knobel, 2003; Gee, 2004; Knobel & 574 Lankshear, 2004; Lankshear & Leander, 2004; Suoranta & Lehtimäki, 2004; Thomas, 2004). New 575 literacy practices like mutating multimedia memes – among others – serve as an important 576 reminder that ‘coolness’ is an increasingly significant part of what it now means to be 577 technologically proficient and ‘savvy’ within a range of online spaces and practices. This has 578 important implications for curriculum design and calls for a more nuanced approach to new 579 technologies in schools that does not assume all students will find all school uses of new 580 technologies valuable, intrinsically motivating, or even interesting. 581

Meme analysis can equip students with ways of critiquing damaging mind viruses. The Nike 582 sweatshop shoe meme and Fozzy’s exposé of CNN’s reporting on the toppling of Hussein’s statue 583 in Baghdad are effective models of using memes to help effect social and media critique. The kinds 584 of memes propagated by the non-profit anti-consumerist group Adbusters (adbusters.org) provide 585 excellent additional models of the kinds of memes students can participate actively in as part of 586 dynamic and distributed affinity spaces organized around socially aware critiques of and responses 587 to mainstream media, marketing, and consumption memes. Adbusters’ ongoing corporate flag 588

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campaign was begun in 2001 and turned US national pride memes on their head by replacing the 589 stars on the US flag with corporate logos and placing a billboard-sized version of this revised flag in 590 Times Square in New York. The billboard attracted international media attention and spawned a 591 meme that generated a range of mutated flags that replaced, for example, the stripes of the flag 592 with a corporate performance graph, or included Disney motifs in place of the stars, and so on (see 593 Lankshear & Knobel, 2003; and for more recent mutations, see unbrandamerica.org). 594

Adbusters is very explicit about encouraging people to use memes as tools of social critique and 595 as tactical responses to resisting stultifying corporate and political memes. For example, a recent 596 Adbusters’ email newsletter invites readers to use online discussion forums to make suggestions 597 about how to boycott or revise the ‘coolness’ meme attached to designer brands: 598

The New Boycott: Imagine a new lifestyle game – we play by spreading uncooling memes 599 among our friends, getting them to ditch or switch brands. Can we get a few million people 600 to live lives of playful resistance? Share your thoughts at the forum: http://adbusters.org. 601 (Adbusters, 2005) 602

Mutating memes are especially interesting when viewed in relation to education. At a time when a 603 body of literacy research and the mainstream media is bemoaning decreasing time spent by young 604 people on reading and writing outside school settings (e.g. Pew, 2001a,b), innovations on 605 multimedia memes that require hours of careful idea development and photoshopping, audio 606 mixing and/or video remastering appear to be increasing. Literacy educators would be served well 607 by analyzing mutating multimedia memes in order to identify why young people are willing to 608 spend hours of their time participating in these memes. Indeed, a number of academic centers are 609 taking mutating multimedia memes very seriously. Researchers with the Meme Media Laboratory 610 at Hokudi University in Japan, for example, have spent the past decade exploring ways of blurring 611 ideas, writing and software applications to produce mutating multimedia memes as vehicles for 612 collaboratively generating new knowledge among academics.[1] Non-profit community groups are 613 beginning to look to the grassroots mobilization that occurs around mutating multimedia memes 614 as a viable model for mobilizing commitment to social causes (e.g. Surman & Reilly, 2003). 615

Examining meme processes and effects can shed important light on education rhetoric, 616 curriculum policy mandates, and classroom practices involving new digital technologies. Policy can 617 be understood as a powerful meme vehicle for shoring up particular mind viruses within a 618 population. For example, policies that tap into current contexts and moral panics concerning 619 education tend to be more successful at establishing themselves than other policies. President 620 Bush’s No Child Left Behind and Reading First policies in the United States are extremely 621 influential mind viruses that have been widely propagated in the media and linked to powerful 622 ‘illiteracy is dangerous to the national economy’ and ‘illiteracy makes people jobless’ memes, even 623 though such memes have been debunked repeatedly over the past 25 years (cf. Graff, 1979; 624 Lankshear, 1987 NOT IN REFS; Gee, 1991; Freebody & Welch, 1993; Coles, 2003). The No Child 625 Left Behind and the Reading First policy memes and the messages they carry concerning declining 626 education and literacy standards within the United States have contributed to high-stakes testing 627 practices by making educators and parents more susceptible to illiteracy panic memes. Analysing 628 policy in terms of memes can help educators and others to understand more efficaciously the 629 effects policy memes can have on teacher decision-making, classroom practice, resource selection, 630 and conceptions of what it means, for example, to be a ‘successful’ reader and writer at school. 631

Within the context of education and new digital technologies, examining the concept of ‘digital 632 divide’ as a meme is also a useful exercise for educators. It can open up alternative ways of 633 interpreting ‘digital divides’ by focusing attention on what the meme itself enables educators to 634 ‘see’ and ‘do’ with respect to working towards ensuring access to equitable digital technological 635 savviness and adeptness for all their students. Examining ‘digital divide’ as a meme also requires 636 attention to be paid to what ideas and pieces of cultural information are being replicated and passed 637 on via this meme and how these in turn may actually contribute to shoring up a digital divide. For 638 example, a recent study conducted in southern California compared students’ access to new 639 technologies in schools located in low-income communities with students’ access to new 640 technologies in schools located in wealthy communities (Knobel et al, 2002; Warschauer et al, 641 2004). Findings suggest that all schools in the study were reasonably well-equipped with 642 computers, Internet access and other digital technologies. However, many teachers in the schools 643

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in low-income areas significantly underestimated the access students had to computers outside 644 school. These teachers tended to use students’ ‘lack’ of access to new technologies at home as an 645 argument for focusing on basic technical skills during computer lab time, or for not using 646 computers at all because these teachers felt they could not rely on students using time at home to 647 complete computer-based tasks begun at school. A memetic analysis suggests that the digital divide 648 meme within these schools was strong and may well have interfered with students’ access to high-649 order uses of new technologies during class time. Mobilizing efforts to address education inequities 650 is without question a laudable goal; however, attention also needs to be paid to the effects memes 651 generated in the course of addressing inequity may have on target populations. 652

Conclusion 653

Analyzing memes in terms of information and social relationships helps us to understand diverse 654 types of memes that are mediated by the Internet and how networked affinity spaces can help to 655 spread different memes very effectively. Meme analysis can provide alternative perspectives on 656 (and can lead to important grassroots responses to) policies, concepts and practices that propagate 657 potentially damaging mind viruses or that restrict learning and development in some way. 658 Engaging in the serious study of memes can help educators to equip students with important 659 strategies for identifying the memes that infect their minds, and for evaluating the effects these 660 memes have on their (ethical) decision-making, actions and relations with others. A new digital 661 divide in education may well concern an over-emphasis on the technical uses of new technologies 662 at the expense of paying attention to the ways in which policies and the concept ‘digital divide’ are 663 themselves memes that shape what can and cannot be ‘seen’ and ‘done’ with respect to literacy 664 learning and new technology uses within classroom contexts. 665

Note 666

[1] km.meme.hokudai.ac.jp/people/aran/ip/docs/aran/brochure.html 667

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746

747 MICHELE KNOBEL is Professor at Montclair State University, New Jersey, USA. Her research 748 interests include school students’ in-school and out-of-school literacy practices, new literacies and 749 digital technologies. Her recent books include Handbook for Teacher Research (with Colin Lankshear; 750 Open University Press, 2004) and Cyberspaces/Social Spaces: culture clash in computerized classrooms 751 (with Ivor Goodson, Marshall Mangan & Colin Lankshear; Palgrave, 2002). Correspondence: Michele 752 Knobel, College of Education & Human Services, 3173 University Hall, Montclair State University, 753 Montclair, NJ 07043, USA (knobelm@mail.montclair.edu). 754