Dan Zarrella - Latest Comments in Mythbusting: Ideas Do Not Spread Because they are Good

Re: Mythbusting: Ideas Do Not Spread Because they are Good

Carl Ingalls — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 20:33:25 -0000

Thank you for writing an article that stirred people up so well. You made them think. That is so much more important than trying to make them believe. Mission accomplished!

I've been doing amateur research on how "memes" propagate through Twitter via the retweet mechanism. Very simple measurements. Initial results are fascinating. Something very unusual going on there. Does not follow the standard model. Might be fun to discuss on Twitter. I just started following you. I'm Carl_Ingalls there.

Re: Mythbusting: Ideas Do Not Spread Because they are Good

Site O Rific — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 11:32:23 -0000

Anyone fascinated by the idea of a Meme or propagation of ideas may want to check out Spiral Dynamics and Don Becks research and implementation of memetic deep structures. Also Ken Wilber's AQAL model of human development.

Re: Mythbusting: Ideas Do Not Spread Because they are Good

Stuart Foster — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 09:13:27 -0000

Excellent points Dan. I often come up against ideas and content that is not necessarily the best...but is promoted by the best. It is an interesting juxtaposition within social media and one that will continue to grow as more and more marketers (who aren't necessarily great writers/content producers) enter the content arena.

Re: Mythbusting: Ideas Do Not Spread Because they are Good

Friedbeef — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 06:03:11 -0000

Excellent - very well put indeed

Re: Mythbusting: Ideas Do Not Spread Because they are Good

David G. — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 11:00:26 -0000

This article was not very well written in my opinion. It makes too many leaps for the reader. Assumptions on memes and their meanings, leaves some readers wondering "what you are talking about."
However, you didn't add Communism to your list of bad ideas that keep going and going and going...like the energizer bunny.

Re: Mythbusting: Ideas Do Not Spread Because they are Good

nanreh — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 17:59:18 -0000

nice post. i disagree with the idea that drug abuse/addiction happens because it's a successful meme. there's a physiological component to that one that's absent from all of your other examples.
thnx..
nanreh

Re: Mythbusting: Ideas Do Not Spread Because they are Good

sam — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 13:26:27 -0000

If anyone has jumped straight to the comments, congratulations, you win! Protip: skip the entire pretentious and annoying article and read this one useful paraphrased sentence:

we should rid ourselves of the notion that we only adopt ideas, content and products because of how good and useful they are. we instead adopt them because they are good at getting adopted.

Re: Mythbusting: Ideas Do Not Spread Because they are Good

John Savage — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 08:35:45 -0000

Wow, I truly love the MythBusters. Especialyl that cute red head!

Re: Mythbusting: Ideas Do Not Spread Because they are Good

Steve — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 08:08:50 -0000

Very interesting book about this is : "the purple cow" , by Seth Godin.

Re: Mythbusting: Ideas Do Not Spread Because they are Good

Stephan — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 04:40:33 -0000

in support of Douglas Walker's comment,
I would expand your argument against the naive use of the term 'good' in this article. There is no such thing as good in an objective sense (whatever that may mean). By using and presupposing the notion of 'good' in your article you are unintentionally creating the myth you are trying to 'bust'.

Just refrain from applying this concept of 'good'. Using it mearly creates a sentence that *looks* like a meaningfull statement, e.g. compare: "Mythbusting: Ideas Do Not Spread Because they are Blue".

For further reading e.g.:
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Jenseits von Gut und Böse
Note: do not read the translated version, just learn another language you might actually learn something in the process ;-)

Re: Mythbusting: Ideas Do Not Spread Because they are Good

Ben — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 02:52:50 -0000

That's just what the memes want you to think!

Re: Mythbusting: Ideas Do Not Spread Because they are Good

cyb — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 01:30:36 -0000

The only purpose of the word "anti-semitism" is that it is a smear word.

Most socalled jews aren't even descended from Shem (Shemites/Semites), the second of Noah's three sons so the word anti-semite doesn't even make sense.

Re: Mythbusting: Ideas Do Not Spread Because they are Good

tonyd — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 21:24:43 -0000

As good as Ted is I really hate that they have a pre-roll commercial for themselves. we get it. ted is good, except when they are telling us so.

Re: Mythbusting: Ideas Do Not Spread Because they are Good

Phil Baumann — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 20:58:35 -0000

This is spot on with respect to the success of meme via the stepwise process of selective pressures.

I don't know how far enough memetics has gone toward explaining everything about consciousness, but the analogy of ideas to memes works sufficiently well in understanding the transmission, or infectivity, of ideas from host to host.

Memes, like any replicator, need media to grow in and be transmitted through. It's very easy for the wrong ideas to spread through the right kind of media and into all sorts of brains.

How this specifically relates to 'viral marketing' depends on the marketer and the marketed.

So to whom is this thesis, which I believe is correct, worth more? The viral marketer or the target market?

Re: Mythbusting: Ideas Do Not Spread Because they are Good

Wes — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 20:27:53 -0000

I'll go ahead and stand up for Oran there. Memes, in the end, cannot survive without the human actors who perpetuate them. While it is an interesting idea, and can be useful to explain some specific situations, not all cultural practices can be considered 'memetic'. As well, a simple test for these memes would be to say, 'if they are so good at replicating themselves, why are they not embraced by every person on earth?' Obviously, blood feuds and terrorism will hit a brick wall sooner or later as the meme will perpetuate itself into oblivion, but where is the check on something like anti-semitism? or religion? both of these have been posited as self-replicating memes, but if they are so powerful, why am both an atheist and a lover of the semitic races? The reason is because human beings, as sometimes logical actors, are not slaves to their actions or to their culture. They, to quote a phrase, live in webs of significance that they themselves, create.

Re: Mythbusting: Ideas Do Not Spread Because they are Good

Matt — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 15:02:50 -0000

So I think whoever believes the myth that this article debunks needs to go pray for a better mind. Any amount of exposure to popular media should clue you in that an idea does not have to be good in order to spread.
This whole article is one big fallacy. It is begging the question from the start. His premise is that ideas don't have to be good to be accepted. SO, these ideas are bad, they are accepted, so they are bad. You did nothing to prove your point beyond the common sense of your premise. Maybe next time find something original to say and then try to support it. Stop attempting to rip off other people's ideas (and failing miserably I might add).

Re: Mythbusting: Ideas Do Not Spread Because they are Good

jdonnovan — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 11:59:46 -0000

I have been saying this all along, but everyone, especially these days, thinks that their ideas being great is all that matters when in reality the greatness could be in the form of promotion. Oh and I love the mythbusters!

Re: Mythbusting: Ideas Do Not Spread Because they are Good

Dan Zarrella — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 14:45:52 -0000

"Here’s another myth for you to bust: memes. There’s no such thing."

Really? And intellectually lazy? Memes are certainly not some "mythical entity" but a unit that has been studied by many intellectually rigorous scientists, Richard Dawkins, Susan Blackmore and Daniel Dennett to name a few.

Re: Mythbusting: Ideas Do Not Spread Because they are Good

Oran Kelley — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 13:18:37 -0000

Here's another myth for you to bust: memes.

There's no such thing.

Essentially, anyone who uses this word is announcing "I am intellectually lazy and am simply not up to the task of trying to explain human behavior."

This is fine, but just don't pretend otherwise. It's not as if no one has ever come up with explanations for things like
* Blood feuds
* Terrorism
* Suicide
* Drug abuse
* Antisemitism
* Pyramid schemes
* Cults
A lot of anthropology is dedicated to illuminating practices like these.

But of course, they are actually the result of the activity of some mythical entity. Might as well just say the gods did it.

At least that explanation doesn't pretend to be rational.

Re: Mythbusting: Ideas Do Not Spread Because they are Good

gregory — Fri, 30 May 2008 07:48:11 -0000

a good move towards deeper reality

we use "meme" because we don't have a word for the livingness of what we call ideas, but they are actually elements of consciousness, we don't have them, they have us ...

which means ipr is built on a shallow reality meme, among other

Re: Mythbusting: Ideas Do Not Spread Because they are Good

Sparky — Thu, 29 May 2008 17:25:20 -0000

Just look at Windows and Microsoft products. They're not good ideas, but they market them so much that people buy them. Great article!

Re: Mythbusting: Ideas Do Not Spread Because they are Good

Doug — Thu, 29 May 2008 17:13:49 -0000

Why is 'antisemitism' on there, but not 'anti-caucasism' or 'anti-_____'? Is it not sufficient just to put prejudice in all cases? Why do the Jews get special treatment, and that anti-Jew in particular is considered worse than say, Jewish hostility towards Europeans, or Jewish hostility towards Palestinians?

Re: Mythbusting: Ideas Do Not Spread Because they are Good

Frank Patrick — Thu, 29 May 2008 15:58:56 -0000

This piece is a big "duh". I'd be surprised if anyone with half a brain these days thought the quality of an idea had any effect on it's spreadability. The believers in that myth are probably outnumbered by the believers in Zeus these days.

Re: Mythbusting: Ideas Do Not Spread Because they are Good

yttrx — Thu, 29 May 2008 15:53:16 -0000

Its always a good idea, when presenting ideas which were conceived by others before you, to toss a few of those people a scrap in memory by way of reference, in this case: Timothy Leary, _Info Psychology_; David Bohm, _Wholeness and the Implicate Order_; Robert Anton Wilson, _Quantum Psychology;, C.G. Jung, _Psychology of the Unconscious; Friedrich Nietzsche, _Geneology of Morals_; and Ezra Pound, _Guide to Kulchur bear mentioning here.

Re: Mythbusting: Ideas Do Not Spread Because they are Good

Megan — Thu, 29 May 2008 15:35:27 -0000

Oops, sorry about the repeat "The Tipping Point" suggestion.