For today's fact, I began with an article about Return of the Jedi, which is 25 years old this week. I learnt that the Ewoks' victory over the Stormtroopers was a Vietnam analogy, and that David Lynch was slated to direct it (can you imagine?). From there I was unwittingly led to the discovery that in an early Chinese version of Revenge of the Sith, when Darth Vader stands up and cries "Nooooo!" (OK, I didn't want to have to think about it either), the English subtitles said 'Do not want'. Aside from beautifully summing up Darth's emotions, this caption has transformed into an internet phrase, and has been attached to any manner of stupid pictures in an increasingly unfunny way.
This phenomenon has been seen several times over the last few years, with clips like Star Wars Kid and the new 'Rick rolling' video tomfoolery being passed on and updated. The continuation of these clips generally have a pretty reliable quality arc - initially, the first few parodies and references are very funny, before a slow decline until it's getting sent up on Children in Need, and you just want it to stop. Anyway, these internet trends have a name - they're known as memes. This does however relate to a wider phenomenon, which I shall attempt to explain below:
A meme is a cultural item that is passed on by repetition.
The term originates from Richard Dawkins' book, The Selfish Gene, which speculates that cultural ideas are passed from generation to generation in the same way as genes pass information on, um, genetically. It's an interesting idea, but probably wasn't designed with repetition of Rick Astley videos in mind.
This phenomenon has been seen several times over the last few years, with clips like Star Wars Kid and the new 'Rick rolling' video tomfoolery being passed on and updated. The continuation of these clips generally have a pretty reliable quality arc - initially, the first few parodies and references are very funny, before a slow decline until it's getting sent up on Children in Need, and you just want it to stop. Anyway, these internet trends have a name - they're known as memes. This does however relate to a wider phenomenon, which I shall attempt to explain below:
A meme is a cultural item that is passed on by repetition.
The term originates from Richard Dawkins' book, The Selfish Gene, which speculates that cultural ideas are passed from generation to generation in the same way as genes pass information on, um, genetically. It's an interesting idea, but probably wasn't designed with repetition of Rick Astley videos in mind.
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