There’s a natural tendency to associate a word with the first place you hear/read it, but cow-orker is not an SDMB thing. I first encountered it in Dilbert (I think it started in one of Scott’s newsletters, but I’m not sure–it may have been the cartoon).
Personally, I think we use the word “meme” way too much. It’s a good word. There’s nothing else that means exactly the same. But every in-joke isn’t a meme.
Very true. I’ve never thought about it that way, but you’re quite right. It’s not the intelligence of each individual member of the SDMB that makes it such a valuable resource. It’s the diversity of the membership, and the fact that we even have an expert on topic XYZ (whether it’s a particularly intelligent expert or not).
I’m with you. I think this is another manifestation of the SUV hate and its ilk–it’s overgeneralization.
Cellphones are wonderful things, but some people misuse them. SUVs are useful, but some people drive them that don’t “need” them. Some environments lend themselves to letting your cats go outside and some don’t.
When I encounter someone yelling into a cellphone in a crowded restaurant, my first thought isn’t, “we should ban cellphones in here.” It’s “why can’t that person speak in a normal voice and/or step outside for this call?” When I hear a phone ring in a movie theater, my first thought isn’t, “they should install a cellphone signal blanking device in here so doctors on call can’t watch movies.” It’s, “why didn’t that twit turn off his phone or set it to vibrate?”
Hi Opal is a meme specific to the SDMB. I guess you could call it an inside joke also, but the thing that makes “meme” more accurate is that inside jokes typically aren’t repeated ad nauseam the way memes are. Also, inside jokes are jokes, whereas a meme is not necessarily.
Hate the word all you want, it expresses its meaning succinctly and it’s here to stay.
To be fair, this is a message board. It is not a place in real life where the past is the past. You can look through the archives, search through the history, and as you are reading the thread of olde, realize it as if it were just yesterday because… Well face it, you are getting the exact same communication as when it happened.
Its not like when at the office someone has to explain the in-joke and has a tough time recalling and explaining the situation, contect, and dialogue. Its right there.
I recently (in the past 1.5 years) read the horror of blimps, and litterally cried while I was laughing out loud. I honestly had to wipe the tears from my eyes because I couldn’t see the screen anymore. Multiple times.
Does this make me any less able to say that I had the experience of a wonderfully eloquent poster, making a fantabulous post? Does it make me have any less of a right to use it in my life just because I wasn’t there at the time?
If that were the case, then many of the catch phrases and "meme"s in real life should get the axe. Much more than the ones listed here where you can experience it in the exact manner you would if you were actively browsing the boards at the time.
I used one above, “get the axe” is a great example. And so are these.
No axe to grind.
The whole nine yards.
A Dime a Dozen.
Cry Wolf.
When was the last time you actually heard someone cry “Wolf!”?
When was the last time something worthwhile actually cost a dime a dozen?
Certainly not in my lifetime. At least that I’m not aware of.
Yet we don’t throw these to the sidelines to die, as they are part of our past. They helped shape us, and they will help shape those who come after us.
These are not merely terms, they are part of what defines us. As a culture, as a board. I may not be the most active poster on here, but am I forever cast aside that my join date is my Dope discovery date?
I say that while we should look toward the future, we should not turn a blind eye to the past. Without the past what are we?
yes, I know that the list above probably isn’t memes, but they illustrate the point quite clearly enough for my purposes.
No it is not. Go back and reread Cecil’s column on it. He does a pretty good summation. Hi Opal is an inside joke. All that use it are in on the joke. Those that aren’t wind up asking about it. Over and over. It will never spread outside of a small community that is in on the joke. It has not taken on a life of its own. It is not spread the same way genes are spread. A meme can be a joke or a catch phrase. But that does not mean that all jokes and catch phrases are memes.
The word meme expresses the meaning of Dawkins theory well. It should, he made it up. I happen to think his theory is 50% truth and 50% bullshit.
In an effort to steer us back on topic, (or at least the original intent of the topic); I’m going to throw another one out there:
The idea (oft-repeated on these boards) that retail workers in crappy jobs who are regularly abused by customers should “Just quit” if they don’t like their jobs, should IMHO, be hustled into a car with tinted windows and Ministry of the Interior licence plates by men in suits and sunglasses.
Some of the posters on these boards are lucky enough to have jobs where they get on with their co-workers and boss, get to surf the internet all day, get paid well, have a generous bonus scheme, and generally like their jobs.
And some of us work in retail.
In a perfect world (Like this mythical Doperi-La we hear so much about on the boards), the JobFather or the Employment Fairy would allocate jobs to people based on what they’d like to do, none of us would ever have to deal with the general public (unless we felt like it), and our Butlers would be driving us to work in our “weekday” Bentleys so that the paint on our Ferrari wouldn’t fade from being out in the sun during the commute.
But we don’t live in Doperi-La, we live in the real world, and in reality lots of us have to work in shitty jobs where we cop more flak than RAF Bomber Command and the US 8th Air Force combined because they’re the only jobs available.
So, the next time someone posts a rant about the unreasonable fucktardery of customers, the correct response is not “If you don’t like it, quit!” I’m sure they’ve thought of that already. It’s not always an option. And even if it is, whatever job they manage to get after quitting may not be an improvement.
Someone’s kitty gets a hurt paw and it’s hugs all around here; a retail worker posts about how they nearly lost their job because they followed a company policy & a customer complained about it, and it’s “Fuck you, get another job if you don’t like it!” The staggering lack of compassion these boards have for retail workers just boggles the mind, IMHO.
It’s a USAian thing; get used to it. We do still run the world, you know. Till someone else cold-dead-hands us, the rest of you are just gonna have to tolerate our uneasy relationship with the contradictions of capitalism.
Walmart has better customer service than what it replaced? That’s not true in my experience. Walmart is cheaper and bigger. Period. And its cheapness comes at the price of destroying good American jobs and replacing them with crappy Walmart jobs. What’s the benefit of getting a cheap Walmart when the result is less overall income? Around here, Walmart does not compete primarily with groceries/supermarkets anyway. It competes with everything else.
In any case, I don’t think many of the things people have complained about above are really memes (such as “+1,” etc.). I think they’re better classified as posting practices. I think of a meme as an idea or proposition, like the fast-food worker thing.
I’m generally in favor. However, the word “Asplode” makes my head well, implode, or explode, or displode. Three perfectly legitimate words instead of a fake word that’s only funny when a three year old uses it.
(and yes, I understand that it’s from HomeStar Runner. that still doesn’t make it funny)
