[OmarShehata]

memes are not "on the side of reality". memes are on the side of whatever resonates. What resonates is what aligns to your model of reality (which is shaped by the ideology you're inside).

There's no clear distinction between propaganda, advertising, and what you call "meme-ing". Companies can and do create campaigns that look organic, that do takeoff as people feel they are organic (and then they become actually real as people take them further than what the company is pushing)

For example: Barbenheimer was a meme that got people to watch two movies in one weekend (not a typical behavior for most people). Was that an organic meme, or a marketing campaign?

(If anyone is curious, I keep trying to write a good intro to this rabbithole, see my writeup on the New York Times explaining how a psyop works, which itself very significant for them to be spelling it out like this: https://defenderofthebasic.substack.com/p/new-york-times-is-... )

[endoblast]

Not everyone is an ideologue. Some people are just on the side of what is, or what is real.

[mecsred]

Everyone is an ideologue. What _is_ is too complicated to fit in a human brain, so we compress it. Thinking you're a free thinker is a type of ideology you can subscribe to.

[endoblast]

Nah. Compressed ideas are simply very good explanations! Ideologues aren't open to changing their ideas, but some other people do so occasionally. One can have philosophical assumptions and/or preferences without wishing to impose them on everyone else.

[gipp]

Sure, I suppose... The strange leap you're making is in the assumption that Internet memes are somehow inherently on the side of open-mindedness. Memes can be, and constantly are, absolutely used as weapons of propaganda, both intentionally and unwittingly. I'd say in general that's the rule, not the exception, at least where anything vaguely political or cultural is involved.

[endoblast]

Thanks. Yes it is strange. I do accept there's some overlap between propaganda and memeing. Yet whatever the intentions (or paygrade, or artistic ability) of the author of a meme, the fact remains that once it is posted he has no control over its destiny. So ultimately it is the funniest/most beautiful/salutary/plausible memes that get refined and selected for, i.e. which supply the strongest signal, and which inspire new memes in turn.

[lcnPylGDnU4H9OF]

Thanks for the link to Tangle!