Humans Are Just Machines for Propagating Memes
In an interview with Wired, British scholar Susan Blackmore talks memes, ideas, human evolution, and also offers a possible explanation for the enduring “success” of the Paris Hilton meme:
Presumably because it presses enough human buttons - you know, sex, greed, celebrity. Some memes will succeed because they make you talk about them even though you think they’re bad. For example, a horrible story about murder or torture upsets you. And one of the ways you try to cope with the upset is to tell somebody else, to share the burden, and that way it spreads and upsets more people, even though you wish it wouldn’t.
