Shock + Iconography

From: anon1fd0@nyx10.cs.du.edu (Name withheld by request)
Newsgroups: alt.memetics
Subject: Shock + Iconography = Effective Memetic Transmission?
Date: 23 Sep 1994 21:24:18 -0600


    How does shock value impact the transmission of memes?  Like
the striking symbols (iconographically speaking) of the white, 
black, and red of the Swastika, or the (Israeli?) symbol on a 
flag with a raised fist, and the words, "Never Again!"?

    There are some things that are so twisted, so painful, so
fascinatingly macabre, that we can't keep looking at it, but 
we can't look away, either--like the tenants in New York who 
watched that woman get stabbed many times, and yet they didn't
do anything, just watched; or snuff flicks: are such things,
due to their ambivalent properties, highly memetic?  

    Now, the image itself of death isn't necessarily transmitted,
but photocopies of pictures of people getting killed can be, and  
once seen for a second, the idea is entrenched.      

   But perhaps curiousity has more force?  For example, what if 
one day, you looked out your office window, and saw a tiny flying
saucer with an antenna on top just floating there, hovering--then
it quickly flys away, and you never see it again.

   If you told people about it, most would probably think you were
working too hard, but some would believe, and then the "miniature
flying saucer" story would become an urban legend; the story would
mutate and eventually "slender, grey creatures with large, a
almond-shaped eyes" would become part of the story, and it would
have a life of it's own.  

      What do you think?  What effects do curiousity and emotional shock
have on the transmission of memes?  


         Thanks for your feedback,

          
             Jon.

From: nv91-asa@black08.nada.kth.se (Anders Sandberg)
Subject: Re: Shock + Iconography = Effective Memetic Transmission?
Date: 29 Sep 1994 16:46:42 GMT


Jon wrote:

>    How does shock value impact the transmission of memes?  Like
>the striking symbols (iconographically speaking) of the white, 
>black, and red of the Swastika, or the (Israeli?) symbol on a 
>flag with a raised fist, and the words, "Never Again!"?

I have just been at a neurobiology lecture, and noticed something
interesting: symbols bypass most of the language centrums of the
brain. This is hardly an original though by any means, and is 
mostly common sense. But note the applications to memetics:
many memes are verbal in character, and thus use the verbal
pathways of the brain. New memes have to outwit them to get
to the "juicy parts". But a meme encoded in symbolic form is
much "smaller", its just a reference to a meme. It will enter
through the visual pathways, pass through various centrums but
cannot really be stopped (ever tried not to understand a simple
symbol?). When it gets into the conscious or subconscious mind
it will activate association centrums regarding itself ("What 
is that odd sign again?"), and give its real memetic code a
chance to bypass normal low-level filters ("O dear, now he 
starts rambling about his commie politics again... better not
listen, its so boring....").


>    There are some things that are so twisted, so painful, so
>fascinatingly macabre, that we can't keep looking at it, but 
>we can't look away, either--like the tenants in New York who 
>watched that woman get stabbed many times, and yet they didn't
>do anything, just watched; or snuff flicks: are such things,
>due to their ambivalent properties, highly memetic?  

A thing must be able to replicate itself in the minds of people
to be a meme, so a snuff movie is not a meme but the memories
and images it induces in the viewers can be memes and spread
("Did you see that film yesterday? Eugh, it was so gory! They had
this lady..."). A film is really a package of memes (intrigue,
themes, mood, images) which is spread. 

Also note that the more emotional response a symbol or event
produces in people, the bigger chance that they react to it. This
is used by some memes to slink through the defences, and by
other memes to harden them against competitors. 
--
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Anders Sandberg                                      Towards Ascension!
nv91-asa@hemul.nada.kth.se   http://www.nada.kth.se/~nv91-asa/main.html
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