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Articles

A Memetic Analysis of Narratives & Conspiracies

Ignacio Gonzalez considers how memes replicate into conspiracy theories.

It is curious how the concept ‘meme’ has dwindled down to become a meme of itself. But beyond being a curiosity, this dwindling is unfortunate, since it has trivialized a concept that packs great explanatory power; certainly enough to help us demystify some otherwise perplexing aspects of human communication.

Nowadays, the term ‘meme’ popularly refers to a visually-aided joke passed around online with hopes of becoming viral. When an awkwardly amused Elon Musk told a swooning audience that “I’ve become meme [sic]”, he was using the term in this shallow sense. However, if we want to get our analysis of narratives off to a good start, we must shelve this impoverished signification and retrieve its original meaning.

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