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Why you do the things you do- the study of ideas and trends that catch on rapidlyDid you know that every time you hum a catchy tune, or buy a movie ticket,or switch from white to brown bread, you could be creating a meme?We’ve all heard of the gene pool. Now, welcome to the meme pool.Memes are essentially the cultural equivalent of a gene. They are contagious behavioural patterns, which are learned from family, community and societyat large and, like genes, they can be inherited. They can be an idea or a trend.They multiply by leaping from mind to mind, and some would suggest thatthe evolution of culture comes from a sort of Darwinian competition amongmemes. So, some memes are more powerful in the meme pool than others— which is why a particular song or trend lasts longer than another.Santosh Desai, a commentator on popular culture, explains: “A meme issomething that is imitative, almost in a reflexive way rather than a cognitiveway. Like a catchy tune which gets into your head and refuses to leave. It is possible to infect other people with it. It bypasses the intellect. So any thingthat is catchy is seen to be a meme.” He gives the examples of viralmarketing, hotmail, friendship bands and religion. For instance, the way inwhich a particular Buddhist cult has caught on, where suddenly every onearound you is in it. Not surprisingly, the study of memes, or memetics, has become the new buzzword among any one trying to understand the consumer, the shopper, or even the voter. In his book It Happened in India retail king Kishore Biyani,an avid follower of memes, writes: They replicate cultural information thatis transmitted from person to person, much like genes transmit hereditaryinformation from a person to his or her progeny. They (memes) help explainwhy the son of a traditional staple riceeater from Kerala changes his eatinghabits to a more diverse pallate. Or why certain individuals are opting towear shoes with adjustable soles that can increase or decrease their height.As a retailer, he wants to know “Essentially, what will be the change in thenext generation of (say) riceeaters and how do we need to evolve before thecustomer does.”Although the retail and marketing community has adopted the study of memetics to understand and predict trends, the term ‘meme’ was first coined by an evolutionary biologist and Oxford don, Richard Dawkins.
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02 / 19 / 2011This doucment made it onto the Rising List!
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