What is a meme?
Memes are chain letters. They are just being called by a supposedly cooler term to make them seem somehow less obnoxious than the email forwards of the late 1900s. But they are exactly the same. Only the medium differs. In this case, it's the blogosphere. Instead of circulating via email, they circulate through social networks and blogs by what's known as "tagging" friends. Not just any tag, a meme is viral, not a personal tagging of someone.
It's fine to write your own note or blog entry, mention someone in your entry and then tag them.
It's quite another to obey the "rules" of some meme that tells you what to write and how many people to tag.
One place that is admittedly an unabashed offender, actually originates these chain letters. It's known as The Daily Meme
The most common memes are shortened versions of those insanely long survey things that have never-ending random, pointless questions about oneself. The meme just strips it down to several, the most common number being 7 or 8 on places such as Blogger..
It then tells you to fill out 8 or sometimes a different number of things about yourself, or list 8 or other number of things from favorite sites to things you dislike. You're always told to list a specific number of something, or you are told to add a certain number of links or whatever content the meme is about, to the ones that are already there, passed on to you. Then you are told to tag 8/10/12 people and instruct them to do the same.
In late 2008 and early 2009, the 25 Random Things About Me meme chain note became one of the worst plagues to hit Facebook.
Some bloggers say it feels, seems, sounds like, or is sort of a chain letter.
Whatever hunch is telling them this, is right. a meme doesn't just "seem" "sound/feel like" "resemble", it IS, in fact, a chain letter.
It's packed with obligations that make it a chain letter.
1. You've been tagged. Put this and that in your blog.
2. Pass it on/tag your friends.
3. Tell them to tag their friends with this meme and all of its instructions.
Some bloggers don't like feeling obligated to tag so many people, especially if they only have one or two people in their friends list on a social network or blog site. But they still follow the other instructions and post the meme to their own blog.
If a friend just told someone to blog about a subject out of the blue, or told them to answer questions and post certain links into their blog, is it very likely the blogger would do it?
probably not. What nerve for their friend to tell them what to blog about. Right?
So why is it that people are so willing to be pushed around by chain letters that just seem to zip out of nowhere and hit our friends' blogs, and then use our friends by obligating them to tell us what to write in the form of a meme? Why do our friends let memes dictate what they put in their blogs and then use them to get us participating as well?
Many people are just too afraid of hurting their friends' feelings, and some of them must literally be afraid something bad will happen if they don't pass on a chain letter and/or tag anyone. It's hard to figure out why so many people give into the demands of something that didn't actually originate with their personal friends.
When looked at this way, it should be much easier to simply say "NO!" to any and all memes in the future.