UPDATE 7-26-2014: Just to update this a bit, since it's been a year and a half since I wrote this... In the last year or so, I have gone a bit insane with the memes. I decided that, since I wasn't going to win this war, to give up and embrace the thing I most dreaded, the meme. But I can't say I ever learned to love them, ever though I have written nearly two hundred original thoughts and posted theme as memes, as well as over a thousand (I have no idea how many, really, but over a thousand) quotes from various people, everyone from Che to Hitler.
Obviously, I don't feel the same about the things as did when I wrote this article. My complaints about them are still the same, I just deal with them differently. Take my comment about memes being "...low on the creativity scale." I dealt with this by starting to write my own from scratch. If I have a political (or funny) thought these days, I am more likely to do a meme of it rather than a blog post. This has the benefit of forcing me to be concise, and not to type continually in a pathetic effort to preserve my own brand of drivel for something like posterity, foisting my excessive verbiage upon an unsuspecting world. (See what I did there?)
I have not done so out of narcissism; a narcissist would have made more (or even some) effort to promote himself and I have gone out of my way to keep this low-key. But even that may change; I am currently contemplating posting some of my memes, the original ones anyway, on a web page. I may not...but then again, I might.
The point I am trying to make is that my attitude toward memes has changed. Radically, even. Even so, my criticisms of memes still stand; they tend to be far too long on rhetoric and far too short on verifiable facts, ills that could be prevented by a bit of fact-checking on that Internet thing you love so well.
I'm going to repeat my last paragraph from the article:
"Look, use Google to search the web before you start spreading false information. At the very least, use Wikipedia (it's not perfect, but it's there and it's free and it's pretty factual). Or you can try the fact-checking at Snopes (a fact-checking site) if you've a mind. You've got so many resources on the Internet it's a shame if you just use them to rerererererererepost shit that someone else just made up because it sounded like something a lot of people would agree with."
And now that I've said all that, here's the original article from December of 2012. Please read it as an historical snapshot of the way I felt then, and feel no longer.
Just doing a bit of fact-checking...
A meme, according to Webster's, is "an idea, behavior or style that spreads from person to person within a culture." They're also those picture-and-caption graphics everybody reposts, rereposts and rerereposts to Facebook instead of coming up with something original to say. This from the mentality that gave us a "like" button because typing "I like that!" takes so damned much time.
As you may have already guessed, I hate memes.
Well, I don't hate all memes. Not even most of them. Most of them, in fact, are funny and I don't even mind hitting that annoying "like" thingy every time I come across one. But they're not all funny. A lot of them are political, and there appear to be a bunch of people on both sides of the fence staying up late thinking up new memes for you to rerererepost.
The problem is that the people who write (or should I say create, even when they're low on any creativity scale) these things often don't bother to take the time to fact-check them.
I complain about this a lot. (I am entitled to complain; I've had my Curmudgeon's license since I was fifty) I don't expect my complaining to accomplish anything, however, even though it makes me feel a bit better about being so powerless. Sometimes, though, it's good to be a curmudgeon.
Like now, for example. Let me explain:
Tonight I received a couple of memes from a Conservative friend who continually rerererereposts such stuff for my edification. Well, that's OK, I really don't mind reading the Conservative memes from him any more that I mind the Progressive memes from another friend, and of course neither of them is alone in this rererererereposting. I get a lot of this stuff.
But these were noteworthy because the obviously hadn't been fact-checked; perhaps the "writer" didn't think his readership was up to the challenge.
Do not throw down a challenge to me if you don't want me to pick it up.
1. Meme the First
I don't post these things, but I'm going to post these for illustrative purposes. Since the "author" obviously intended them to be rerererererereposted, I feel I am on solid legal ground in doing so.
Interesting point...but something rang false about it. So I spent all of two minutes looking up the Oklahoma City bombing on Wikipedia, and a couple of more minutes reading that article, then I posted this:
"Current fertilizers are made with ammonium sulphate rather than pure ammonium nitrate, to make them far less explosive. And anyone now buying large amounts of fertilizer (he bought a hell of a lot of it, more than a farmer was likely to need) would send up red flags that are unlikely to be ignored. But you can still buy fertilizer...it's just harder to make a bomb of it and if you buy enough to make a bomb expect the feds to take a good look at you."
I also posted a link to the Wikipedia page in question. Just call me Mr. Helpful. (It's at the bottom of this article, if you want to read it.)
2. Meme the Second
This one wasn't any better in the factuality department.
Once again, this sounded flawed to me. I remembered that story, and I remembered it differently. Ever in pursuit of truth, I aimed my trusty browser at Google and once again the hunt was on. For two minutes. A couple of minutes to read, and I posted this:
"Interestingly, this guy had shot two students dead and left seven others injured (and had stabbed his mother, dead), and was leaving when Joel Myrick stopped him. Incidentally, I heard this story in the mainstream media. But you can read it on Wikipedia."
And, of course, I posted a link. (It's also at the bottom of this article.)
(I'll elaborate further. The killer's name was Luke Woodham and he had finished killing everyone he was going to kill at Pearl River school, and was in the process of going away when Joel Myrick fetched his gun and halted the killer. Myrick's having a gun saved no lives at Pearl River; indeed, if a gunfight had broken out the body count could have been much higher. You could argue that Myrick's actions prevented Woodham from going somewhere else and killing again, but without any evidence that Woodham was going to go elsewhere to kill again your argument would be entirely speculative. Anyway, Myrick could always have tried being a little less confrontational and whipping out his cell phone and calling 911. But what if he didn't have a cell phone, you ask? Well, a loud voice yelling "I NEED A CELL PHONE! IT'S AN EMERGENCY!" would have worked nearly as well; everyone has them these days, apparently.)
Conclusion
I did not invent fact-checking; I have no copyright on the process. Anyone can do it. It takes very little time. Far less time, in fact than it toke to compost the two replies I've cited above. It's so simple that I can't think why no one bothers.
Look, use Google to search the web before you start spreading false information. At the very least, use Wikipedia (it's not perfect, but it's there and it's free and it's pretty factual). Or you can try the fact-checking at Snopes (a fact-checking site) if you've a mind. You've got so many resources on the Internet it's a shame if you just use them to rerererererererepost shit that someone else just made up because it sounded like something a lot of people would agree with.
Do you agree? Like and Share if you do! (I am laughing my evil laugh evilly...)
The Blues Viking
The opinions here expressed are mine and if you don’t like them you can get your own damn blog.
Meme in Wikipedia
Oklahoma City bombing in Wikipedia
Pearl High School shooting in Wikipedia
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