Blog #2: The Meme Economy

According to an in-class lecture, the history the creation of the internet was a direct response to Cold War fears – specifically the untenable nature of the telephone system. ARPA’s decentralized computer network (and its replacement, NSFNET) would be improved upon for the next several decades. Common rules for data exchange, identification tools for devices and GUI improvements have made the internet accessible to consumers all over the world, at any time. Personal computers and smartphones alike have advanced to the point where internet access is constant and accomplished with the press of a button. This evolution in communication technology is unprecedented, with the massive increase in the flow of information comparable only to the printing press. The entire body of human knowledge can be accessed with ease, and (relatively) recently my personal favorite method of communication has been created. Most people who browse the internet are familiar with the concept of a “meme.” The basic concept of a meme predates the internet – a meme is any cultural information spread by imitation. It carries information, is replicated and moves from one person to another, and can evolve at random. Much like the plague and unhygienic, dense populations, memes can really only take off with the advent of something like the internet. The internet provides countless vectors for transmission and enables the rapid spread and mutation of ideas. The memes most successful in being copied become the most important within culture. Additionally, some scholars have posited that memes are essentially viruses of the mind, since after entering one’s psyche, their only purpose is self-replication. The propensity of a meme to gain a foothold in the mind and rise to cultural significance is the subject of some interest, with Reddit’s Meme Economy page having approximately 1 million users. This community focuses on the valuation of memes and uses stock market terminology to do so. An examination of this subculture aims to find the drivers of meme value and virality. A 7-month analysis yielded several findings regarding the community, in particular 4 key determinants of value. The most significant principal mirrors the investment advice of “buy low, sell high.” This refers to the position of the meme in relation to mainstream culture. A meme has value when it is popular enough to gain traction, but not so popular that the meme has become trite and fallen from cultural favor. The second factor is versatility and expansion potential – the potential for the meme to be diversified. The third factor is cultural relevance. Topical memes will always have relevance but can just as quickly become irrelevant. The final factor is quality. High-effort memes that are free from grammatical errors are seen as more attractive. The common thread through each factor is the influence of meme virality. High quality, topical memes with potential for diversification are much more likely to gain a foothold in the human mind and rise to cultural relevance. 

Literat I. & van den Berg, S. (2017). Buy memes low, sell memes high: vernacular criticism and collective negotiations of value on Reddit’s MemeEconomy,