[elisee]

Related, though less about brands, I really liked "This Video Will Make You Angry" by CGP Grey. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE3j_RHkqJc - Thoughts/memes as germs trying to reproduce and spread, battling for attention and thriving when people endlessly argue as part of an us/them dynamic.

[jacquesm]

Oh, that's super good. I'll definitely include that in the post. The funny part is that this itself is a meme but it's like sharing a vaccine rather than a pathogen. I really like the disease analogy.

Thank you!

[PopeOfNope]

> The funny part is that this itself is a meme but it's like sharing a vaccine rather than a pathogen.

No, it's like those informational commercials raising awareness for muscular dystrophy. Just because you now know it exists doesn't mean you've cured it or even treated it. This stuff works whether you know about it or not.

[justaman]

I recommend reading http://www.amazon.com/Virus-Mind-The-Science-Meme/dp/1401924... this guy wrote Microsoft Word. One of the chapters is called "How to start a cult"

[lentil_soup]

This reminds me a lot of The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Selfish_Gene). That book actually coined the word "meme".

Mindblowing book if you haven't read it.

[datashaman]

Susan Blackmore's The Meme Machine is the book that brought the ideas home for me.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/254502.The_Meme_Machine

[frogpelt]

Having seen this link, many of the responses in this thread make a lot more sense now.

I'm starting to see a meme emerge here.