![]() ![]() The common argument is that people came to recognise their many gods as expressions of the same divine unity. Religious stories first spread slowly and scatteringly mouth-to-mouth, then scaled uniformly through books that established rituals, values, traditions and institutions.Īt the same time, religions evolved from worshipping many Gods to just one. To thrive in the cultural environment, memes mutate across media chasing maximum reproducibility. K₋₁ = number of infected minds on the day prior.probability of share leading to infection I = average number of minds an infected mind shares with per day.K = number of minds infected with the meme today.The viral equation written in memetic terms: K = I * R * K₋₁ Resonating memes thus come to dominate internet culture in no-time - especially when passing through super-spreaders like Elon. Instant connectivity allow internet memes to spread across multiple millions of minds with minimal energy. Like some viruses jump across bodies quicker because of biological features, some memes jump across memes quicker because faster-to-read, faster-to-copy, longer shelf life and higher streaming bandwidth. Exposure reflects the meme's technological features to reach maximum minds in minimum time.The more resonance, the higher the probability of cultural infection per exposed mind. Infectiousness reflects the meme's intersubjective resonance.Memes too go pandemic when high infection rates capitalise on high exposure. Like viruses biologically multiply through bodies, memes culturally multiply through minds. Nevertheless, the scale remains planetary. Humans will also work together on policy (lockdowns bring down exposure) and technology (vaccines bring down infection). In reality, spread slows over time because patients either die or recover to become immune. On paper, this virus infects the entire world population in less than a month's time. Actual reach is determined by meme resonance, itself conditioned by reputation: the same meme will resonate (and thus be retweeted) more if tweeted by Elon Musk than by me.īecause moving forward x days is the same as multiplying by the constant x times, these equations can be written shorter using exponents, e.g. Of course, my tweets never remotely reached 20 million minds, because only a few followers actually retweet. If each of those 200,000 followers has an average 100 followers, the meme's theoretical reach becomes 200,000*100 = 20 million minds in the second replication cycle. ![]() If each of my followers has an average 100 followers, the meme would theoretically reach 2,000*100 = 200,000 minds in its first replication cycle.When I tweet a meme, my 2,000 followers might retweet it to their followers.That means the meme claims exponentially more attention with every replication. Mimetic replication scales as a power law. Culture grows ever-more fluid and fertile as a result. To infect as many minds as quickly as possible, unlocking wide-scale replication.īetter technology unlocks faster meme replication and underlying self-expression - mimesis between mes. Online, they mostly compete for maximum resonance in the lowest time-to-read possible. Printing press technology subverted Church memetic monopoly by slashing time-to-copy, making meme replication more affordable.ĭigital memes have overcome historic replication limits: near-zero time-to-copy, near-infinite shelf life, 100% fidelity and near-unlimited streaming bandwidth. As such, the copy function's various inputs upgraded throughout history. New technology compounds from existing technology to, in turn, become an improved foundation for yet more efficient future technology. Technology always advances to achieve less with more. Once in place, reputation guides resonance and sets the pace for replication: Examples abound in this age of cancel culture: Woody Allen, Kevin Spacey, Michael Jackson, Bill Cosby, Joe Rogan - to name a few. Inversely, negative reputation builds resistance to the artist's work. Today, every track he drops gets millions of listens and shares in the first hours. When The Weeknd was unknown in 2011, music aficionados took years to vibe with his YouTube mixtapes. Reputation compounds through proof-of-work. The more resonating memes you create, the more attention every new creation commands. It takes days to copy an article by hand, minutes by press and seconds by internet. Replication - How fast the medium enables the concept to be shared from one mind to many.GIFs that strike chords with many, go viral. The more it resonates, the more you'll replicate in various ways, the more mimesis it drives. Resonance - The extent to which meme impresses minds to re-share.
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