Exercises: Memetics

Exercise 1: The Portal

Read Patricia Lockwood’s essay “The Communal Mind”. Then make a list of the kinds of things you ask Google. This might look like:

Leg workouts
Cleanest Parks in NYC
Riddles
Can dogs eat blackberries?
Best thai restaurant near me
Britney Spears lyrics

Aim for 15 search terms. Look at your actual search history if you like. Once you’re done, make three observations about the kinds of things you search for. Is it information? Guidance? Recipes? Locations?

Exercise 2: Meme Death

Read Lauren Michele Jackson’s essay “A Unified Theory of Meme Death” then answer the following questions in a standard prose paragraphs. You can answer more than one question in each paragraph.

1. How are memes like genes?
2. How are memes not like genes (according to Jackson)?
3. How did we trade “memes” - in the Dawkins sense of the term – before the internet or modern technology?
4. What makes memes attractive?
5. How do memes survive?
6. What kills memes?
7. What is the parallel between jokes and memes in theories of how they die?
8. If memes are reflective of specific aspects of our culture, what does it mean about our culture when they die?

Exercise 3: Black Box

Read Jennifer Egan’s “Black Box”. Answer the following questions in 140 character “tweets”. You can use more than one tweet per question.

1. Name the primary characters.
2. Why tweets? Explain in terms of the story and the style.
3. What is the grammatical structure of the tweets? Why are so many framed as directives/commands?
4. What kind of story Is Black Box? What are its main themes and ideas?
5. What is the Black Box in the story? What is its role?