In the 1970s, Richard Dawkins coined the term "meme" in his book The Selfish Gene to refer to aspects of human culture and how they evolve in a way that's analogous to how genes evolve. Since then, the study of memes has become an evolving meme itself.
A meme is an idea or thing that is passed from person to person and is either adopted for its usefulness or other purpose -- in some cases becoming a wildly popular idea that can't be stopped -- or abandoned to die a quick and ignoble death. A meme can be a song or snippet of a song, a dance, an urban legend, an expression or behavior, a product brand or even a religion.
British scholar Susan Blackmore, who delivered a presentation on memes at the TED conference Thursday morning, says that human beings are being overrun by memes that want to use us for their own advancement. Wired.com spoke with her at TED.
Read full story at Wired.
Too extreme a view? Maybe not.
I think the idea that culture would reach a level of complexity so vast that it's constituent parts, ie people, would be something you could just average over is not all that new. I know Asimov wrote about such things in his Foundation universe.
When I read this article all I could think was "Obama." The Obama meme is running rampant through much of the US right now and it is really rather interesting to watch. Each small component of the Obama meme is mutated into many different traits. The "change" thing went from meaning let's get a Dem in the white house to such things as let's end the Clinton-Bush era or in the eyes of some, Let's vote for a guy who even though his policy is 90% the same as all other Dem candidates, represents a drastic change in how this country is run. Most of it is delusional, but the Obama meme is attractive for many. There is a large internet component to it as well. Obviously there are a lot of people that genuinely support the man, but at the same time there is a lot of fanaticism out there. Overall I just really hope someone is taking data on all this, because it deserves to be studied.