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Cultural units that got out of control?

Richard Dawkins developed the original conception of what we presently call a meme by applying genetic theories to culture. He argued that culture, like genetic material, could be measured in discrete units each of which’s sole purpose was to propagate itself to ensure survival of its kind. Memes—meant to sounds like genes—therefore evolved in a similar fashion as Darwin argues our traits do, albeit possibly with a quicker time line. With the rise of digital culture, where bits and packets of information can be copied exactly with no corruption of the data, we have seen an up tick in the spread of viral pieces of culture (e.g. youtube video). When we kick cultural evolution into over drive and create perfectly copied pieces of culture accessible to such disparate communities, are we creating a mass culture? Or are we in fact experiencing a new renaissance? Are people being more creative or just turned into Photostats? Seeing how the theories of a mass audience developed around mainstream media (MSM) may help to understand the audience for these digital memes. Also, examining how MSM have reacted to these changes in culture as well as their influence on the popularity of memes may provide some further understanding.

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