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James Gleick's Essay 'What Defines A Meme?'

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According to James Gleick in his essay “What Defines a Meme?”, a meme is something that is repeated by others. One of the first examples listed by James Gleick is “survival of the fittest” (Mauk 186). The next example and the easiest to explain why it's a meme, is hula hoops. It started off with one person, then more and more started doing it. Memes have rhyme and rhythm. Just like a poem each line is similar, but they are just a little different. They are getting at the same theme, but they are worded differently. He also talks about technology's advancements and how it has changed us. He points out that memes are more popular than they use to be. In today's social media it's easy to create and send memes. In the end he poses the question, “who is master and who is slave”.
In “What It Means to be Connected” by Lucy Marcus, she is trying to write that it doesn't matter how many friends you have, rather it's about the connection you have with them. It's easy to find lots of friends, but …show more content…

There are lots of benefits that come with this way of communication but there are also disadvantages to it as well. In the essay “Hiding Behind the Screen” by Roger Scruton, he elaborates more of the disadvantages to these means of communication. He starts to point out that there is less emotion that goes into these means of communication because it is not seen as meaningful. Communication has lost its meaning because emails and texts are faster than they use to be. Next he points out that the friendship isn't as deep of these social media because it's easy to hide things about yourself. It also takes away the aspect of humiliation and embarrassment of ruining a friendship or relationship. One other thing is that it can take away from the emotional aspect of a relationship, in the way of porn. Porn is easy to find and fulfils the satisfaction of sex without having to be with your

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