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02/27/2003 Archived Entry: "Gimle: Memes Considered Harmful"

I've read this piece several times but I'm not sure I understand it: Gimlé on Death of the Blogger, or (my phrasing) Memes Considered Harmful. "Weblogs are prime territory for this kind of simplistic mental ooze. Memes -- thought infections -- which crawl, burrow, drill and scratch their way from weblog to weblog, the prime infection vectors being the so-called 'A-list' webloggers. Topics are covered and then dismissed with a short paragraph and a link. Debate consists of short volleys of 80 word meme brain-boils where the thought-virus biomass simmers under the thin skin of comments and trackbacks. Everything can be categorised. The meme-plague is the only thing which can destroy the weblogging revolution, murder it in its tracks."

Medley points to a discussion about this (and Jeremey Zawodny's 10 habits of annoying bloggers) on Burningbird. There are actually reactions from Gimle author Baldur Bjarnason there!

Posted by Anita @ 03/06/2003 06:26 AM PST

Actually I agree 100%. That is why i stopped mention the things on Metafilter, Fark, Daypop, Blogdex, and Slashdot. Meme infection turns weblogs into filters for other filters with out adding significant content. "57 Channels and nothing on " Syndrome

Posted by 8bitjoystick.com @ 02/27/2003 01:06 PM PST

All these careful, thoughtful analyses of what Gimlé was trying to say...

My take is that he was simply ranting without having thought it through first. "Typing out loud."

Posted by Jack William Bell @ 02/27/2003 09:49 AM PST

Well, maybe his thoughts are more directed on what he thinks he should be doing himself. I've seen many posts from him that are "topic of the day" type.

Posted by Anita @ 02/27/2003 07:53 AM PST

It's important to note that the vast majority of "bloggers" blog nothing but shite. The "weblogging explosion" was not one overflowing with thousands of high-quality weblogs that embraced the "meme virus" and subsequently went south. Rather, it was one where tens of thousands of people suddenly began posting that they bought a new hat on Tuesday and had a slice of cantaloupe with brunch.

The propagation of memes are merely an extension of the already meritless masses. It's easier to post your results to a "Which _ Are You?" quiz than it is to produce actual content, and the masses are lazy. (I quietly wept when Neil Gaiman did that exact thing on his weblog.) Meme propagation is merely a secondary infection following Apathy.

Much like Anita, I purposely avoid posting content "popular" among webloggers. The vast majority of my links are obscure gems found while searching for something else entirely (e.g. I've gotten three or four solid links out of a single Google Image search for 'chewbacca'.) It could be argued that Google's relevance algorithm actually helps perpetuate memes — the most popular links are the ones people find most frequently — but I doubt that theory holds up beyond the first two or three pages of search results.

Posted by Dan @ 02/27/2003 07:48 AM PST

I always like it that there are people out there willing to tell you how you should be doing what you're doing for fun. What next? A Department of Homeland Weblogging?

Posted by dargie @ 02/27/2003 07:46 AM PST

I think part of my puzzlement comes from not having read Barthes.

I do try to avoid what's already commonly or widely linked -- that's my main reason for scanning daypop and blogdex daily!

Posted by Anita @ 02/27/2003 06:38 AM PST

I think his point is that the vast majority of bloggers are just seizing on to whatever the hot topic of the day is (the "meme infection") and linking, rather than adding anything to the discussion, or, better yet, writing about what interests *them* rather than what interests the great masses of blogging sheeple.

I think he misuses the term "meme", which may be leading to some of your confusion. If he had just complained about the lack of originality on "most blogs", the point would probably have come across more clearly.

Posted by ralph @ 02/27/2003 06:26 AM PST