Memes In Susan Blackmore's Strange Creatures

Susan Blackmore, the author of Strange Creatures, gives her audience a great opposition to how the majority of the people visualize and interpret memes. Memes have been idolized by pictures and challenges to entertain or empathize people from around the world. However, the meaning of meme is something different than what we, people, comprehend as today. According to Susan Blackmore, the word meme is a descendant of the “suitable Greek root…” “Mimeme” (Blackmore 36). This particular word is defined as an imitation. Thus, any type of action that imitates others’ actions can be labeled as a meme. However, the brilliant view that Blackmore has opened for her audience is the truth behind the purpose of memes. She mentions Richard Dawkins’s The Selfish

However, the true success in its time of activity is when it replicates it at least once. The reason is the goal of a meme is to simply replicate itself, for it to have the next generation, like any other gene. Therefore, if the meme were to be replicated even once, then it has fulfilled its purpose. Indeed, it may not look as if it has been “successful”, but the meme’s sole purpose is to replicate itself indiscriminately. Blackmore states that, “…the memes do not care; they are selfish like genes and will simply spread if they can” (Blackmore 37), in shorthand, its “want” is only to replicate itself. Therefore, even one imitation of the meme can indicate that that particular meme is successful. Success in the memes life is a lot more different than how people would think of success in their lives. Memes will taste their success when “[instead] of thinking of [people’s] ideas as [their] own creations, and as working for [people], [people] have to think of them as autonomous selfish memes, working only to get themselves copied” (Blackmore 37). When the imitation begins, we, people, are letting the memes enjoy their success. Looking back at the Harlem Shake and the Tide Pod Challenges, these two well known memes can be looked upon as one of the most successful memes. There are tons of memes in the world, yet not all of them are successful, such as minor picture memes where it contains catchy, comical, or critical statements. Essentially, if the particular meme is well known around the world or country, it should be considered one of the most successful memes. Due to the fact that, like stated previously, even one replication of such meme is considered