{"id":2601,"date":"2005-01-28T10:56:32","date_gmt":"2005-01-28T15:56:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kith.org\/journals\/vardibidian\/2005\/01\/28\/2601.html"},"modified":"2018-03-12T16:47:32","modified_gmt":"2018-03-12T21:47:32","slug":"meme-ranty-rant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/2005\/01\/28\/meme-ranty-rant\/","title":{"rendered":"Meme, ranty, rant"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Ruthling’s Rant-O-Matic is propagating a Ranty meme<\/a>, and although it might well go without saying, I pass it along to my Gentle Readers, suitably modified for the outside-LJ ’sphere.\n

  • Comment or email<\/I> with any subject about which you would like to see me rant about<\/I>.<\/li>\n
  • Watch my journal<\/strike> Tohu Bohu<\/I> for your rant.<\/li>\n
  • Post this in your own journal if you have one<\/I>, so that you may rant for others. Or, you know, don’t. This step is optional.<\/I><\/li>\n

    In other words, it is standing policy of this Tohu Bohu to accept requests. The comments in this thread is a good place to put them. Similar to Dr. Science<\/a>, Your Humble Blogger has an auxiliary brain in his vocal cords that allows him to begin answering a question before the brain kicks in. This doesn’t help so much with typing, sadly.\n

    As lagniappe, here’s a quick mini-rant about the word meme<\/I>. The word meme<\/I> doesn’t, by any stretch of the imagination, mean either a set of instructions passed from person to person or a time-wasting internet quiz. The whole idea of the meme<\/I> is that, like a gene, it becomes a permanent part of the individual. Kashrut<\/I> is a meme. The reason I know (some of) the rules of Kashrut<\/I> is because they were handed down from generation to generation; just as I am genetically related to (some) other Jews, I am memetically related to them. Democracy is a meme (or, rather a meme complex, but I think the use of meme<\/I> as Schenectady<\/a> for meme complex<\/I> makes a good deal of sense to me). English is a meme. The ranty meme is not a meme, unless it becomes a tradition passed down to the next generation.\n

    On the other hand, there is clearly a need for a term for the thing for which meme<\/I> has been appropriated. The rapid spread of quizzes, blog topics or little multicolored horizontal bars not only is sufficiently common to require a word (and some study), but it in itself, in its post-modern referential post-Ecovian way) requires a name to exist. I can’t correctly engage in the ranty activity without saying where I saw it and how I modified it. And, of course, as an activity it is mimetic, and also has some aspects of an actual meme. And, finally, the word actually used to describe the activity is meme<\/I>, so it wouldn’t do to ignore that fact.\n

    So I use it. But every time I use it—every time—it makes me cranky.\nThank you,
    -Vardibidian.\n<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Ruthling\u2019s Rant-O-Matic is propagating a Ranty meme, and although it might well go without saying, I pass it along to my Gentle Readers, suitably modified for the outside-LJ \u2019sphere. Comment or email with any subject about which you would like…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[201],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2601","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-navel-gazing"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2601","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2601"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2601\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17283,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2601\/revisions\/17283"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}