The article is thought provoking to say the least: However I disagree that chain letters & urban legends are shortlived. They return - like mildew - even when they seem to have faded away. - Think about how many times you have seen “Bill Gates will give away $1000 to the next 100 people who reply to this email” in the last 6 years alone; And “rats in the chicken bucket” has been circulating since I was in elementary school in the 60’s!! - These memes are truly of the virus variety. They never go away. 
Give us a shout when they’ve lasted for a couple of centuries. While Cecil may be overstating in calling them short-lived, he was comparing them with such cultural and cosmological phenomena as religion, politics, and metaphysics.
The question, “In a hundred years, who’s going to remember about this?” seems apt.
Of course, some urban legends have endured for centuries … which is how folklorists came to be interested in them in the first place (certain modern day “rumors” matched traditional folktales or legends. E.g. the Vanishing Hitchhiker.)
“I don’t beleive in Memes… let me post to the boards, stating that I think this is hogwash.”
“Yeah, Right on, I can get with this Idea, I think it is on the level let me post it…”
Which method Kills the Meme? Nither, the Exact opposite. Call them what ever you want, or dont beleive in them at all… the process will continue.
Personally, I beleive in Memes (as http://memecentral.com/ defines them). I have even used the term in passing on other Posts (What makes music catchy?)
It seems to me, that Memes propogate easily in Sci-fi areas.
Snowcrash
by Neal Stephenson introduced me to the entire concept, and here I am today, talking about it. Orson Scott Card’s Sequel to Ender’s Game… Speaker for the Dead had its own meme components… (Which I connect to the movie “Big Fish”) and then ontop of that, The Matrix, perhaps the Neo-Cyberpunk Flagship that it has become, has its own Memes… At the center of the entire premise, and then everything the Oracle says. Not to then mention the Religion piped into it…
And the real kicker of this is, we have been spoon fed memes since grade school… an Alphabet, Reading, Typing, Computer Use, could be argued to be memes.
I’m curious which memes in Speaker for the Dead you connect with the movie Big Fish. Perhaps in a Cafe Society thread you could expand?