– Definition: n. an idea, behavior, style, or usage that spreads from person to person within a culture.
– Used in a sentence: Charles MacKay’s Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds is perhaps the Western World’s first serious catalog of memes.
– Why: I am a semiotic and purist dinosaur who thinks the term’s au courant application shortchanges its original meaning. Memes are the heavy-hitters of enculturation. Let’s not confuse them for “captioned graphics,” shall we?
What is a good example of a meme? How does it differ from an archetype?
Good question! Rather than inflict on you my own verbose half-understanding, here’s an article which readably lays out the particulars: https://wikidiff.com/archetype/meme. Enjoy!
Hmm. I think I get it. Slippery concept.
It is that.
A concisifying thought just struck me; tell me what you think:
A meme is an idea.
An archetype is an embodied idea.
Eh?
I like it. Memes are more fluid, and archetypes are more solid, so it fits.