The Way of the Editor:

That Meme Thing

Pop culture evolution at its comics best.

meme 
n. A unit of cultural information, such as a cultural practice or idea, that is transmitted verbally or by repeated action from one mind to another.

Tracking down the history of web logs, or “blog” for short, was harder than I thought.

I assumed digging up articles talking about the history of web journals would be pretty easy, since blogging has become such an iconic part of internet and American pop culture, and such an integral part of youth communication. But perhaps that’s why it’s so rare to find anything written and published about it: because the the median is so fluid. Constantly updated, constantly edited.

There was hardly a peep in the ‘real world’ when Livejournal, one of the most popular online blog sites, recently celebrated its seventh successful birthday—not anything mass-circulated and easily trackable, at any rate. Initially created by programmer Brad Fitzpatrick as a means of keeping in touch with his friends and family over the internet, Bradfitz, Inc. (later re-named as Danga Interactive) took Brad’s internet blog service live with the release of Livejournal on March 18, 1999, and today, what originally begun as a pet project to keep in touch has morphed into a popular web service with millions of users.

But what really got me thinking about blogging and web entries was coming across the Batgirl meme, which began with a blog entry by creator Andi Watson (Four Letter Worlds, Love Fights) about several Asian Batgirl designs he had pitched to DC (but which were turned down), which then inspired a whole slew of artists to join in with their fan own interpretations, and has since become a collected thread of links to various artists’ Batgirl designs. A cousin thread, the Superboy meme, has become very popular as well.

Originally, memes were proposed in 1976 by Richard Dawkins, a British zoologist, in his book, The Selfish Gene. Dawkins describes how memes work in his article, “Viruses of the Mind,” saying:

A human child is shaped by evolution to soak up the culture of her people. Most obviously, she learns the essentials of their language in a matter of months. A large dictionary of words to speak, an encyclopedia of information to speak about, complicated syntactic and semantic rules to order the speaking, are all transferred from older brains into hers well before she reaches half her adult size.

Similarly, as the intensely hyperlinked and interconnected “blogosphere” has grown, it’s also developed its own “mind,” a culture with set expectations and conventions for interaction, adopting traditional conventions with slightly different twists in the meaning. “Memes,” for example, have become slang for themed projects that spanned across the linked blogs, an idea started by one user which then gets picked up and continued by another, who spreads the word to others, until you have a very complicated, yet very trackable ( thanks to the hyperlinks), web of associations.

The phenomenon of web journaling is undeniably widespread. In the comics world, blogs have also become a way for fans and creators both to share their opinions and work online. From fan-run review sites like The Secret Files & Origins Blog or Dave’s Long Box to ‘net threads such as the Batgirl meme. Even well-liked and respected creators have taken to “blogging” about their works in progress, notably Neil Gaiman’s Journal (as mentioned in a previous entry) or Evan Dorkin’s Big Mouth Types Again. There are also many “community journals” where lesser-known artists, writers, and fans have gathered to share, such as Darth Artsy, the Star Wars art journal, or the Joss Whedon fan community. Similar sites like this exist for every fandom, whether you’re into video games or comics.

So why wait? I hear everyone is getting on board for that online blogging, nifty fanart, associatively hyperlinked, bandwagon meme thing.

Links

Bat Girl meme
Superboy meme
“Viruses of the Mind”
Wikipedia entry on memes

A Smattering of Creator Blogs

Neil Gaiman—writer of the upcoming Eternals
Big Mouth Types Again—Evan Dorkin’s blog, creator of Milk & Cheese, Dork
Andi Watson—the guy who started it all…
Mike Wieringo—artist for the Flash, Robin
Tom Hodges—Star Wars web strip artist (read profile)