2. you know, we have fun here, with the word “meme,” but according to meme theory, which is an actual thing pioneered by reptilian human impersonator Richard Dawkins in his 1976 book The Selfish Gene, most of what we call memes are very unsuccessful memes. A meme, in the scientific sense - if one is generously disposed to consider memetics a science on any particular day - is an idea that acts like a gene. That is, it seeks to replicate itself, as many times as possible, and as faithfully as possible.
That second part is important. A gene which is not faithful in its replication mutates, sometimes rapidly, sometimes wildly. The result might be cancer or a virus or (very very very rarely) a viable evolutionary step forward, but whatever the case, it is no longer the original gene. That gene no longer exists. It could not successfully reproduce itself.
The memes we pass around on the internet are, in general, very short lived and rapidly mutating. It’s rare for any meme to survive for more than a year: in almost all cases, they appear, spread rapidly, spawn a thousand short-lived variations, and then are swiftly forgotten. They’re not funny anymore, or interesting anymore. They no longer serve any function, and so they’re left behind, a mental evolutionary dead end.
This rendition of Freddie Mercury’s immortal opera Bohemian Rhapsody is about the most goddamned amazing demonstration of a successful meme I’ve ever seen. This song is 42 years old, as of 2017. FORTY TWO YEARS OLD. And it has spread SO far, and replicated itself across the minds of millions of people SO faithfully, that a gathering of 65,000 more or less random people, with nothing in common except that they all really like it when Billie Joe Armstrong does the thing with the guitar, can reproduce it perfectly. IN PERFECT TIME. THEY KNOW THE EXACT LENGTH OF EVERY BRIDGE. THEY EVEN GET THE NONSENSE WORDS RIGHT. THEY DIVIDE THEMSELVES UP IN ORDER TO SING THE COUNTER-CHORUS.
“Yeah, Pyrrhic, lots of people know this song.”
Listen, you glassy-eyed ninny: our species’ ability to coherently pass along not just genetic information, but memetic information as well, is the reason we’re the dominant species on this planet. Language is a meme. Civilization is a collection of memes. Lots of animals can learn, but we may be the only animal that latches onto ephemera - information that doesn’t reflect any concrete reality, information with little to no immediate practical application - and then joyfully, willfully, unrelentingly repeats it and teaches it to others. Look at how wild this crowd is, because they’re singing the same song! It doesn’t DO anything. It’s not even why they showed up here today! If you sent out a letter to those same 65,000 people that said, “Please show up in this field on this day in order to sing Bohemian Rhapsody,” very few of them would have showed up. But I would be surprised to meet a single person in that crowd who joined in the singing who doesn’t remember this moment as the most amazing part of a concert they paid hundreds of dollars to see.
And they’re just sharing an idea. It’s stunning and ridiculous. Something about how our brains work make us go, “Hey!! Hey everybody!! I found this idea! It’s good! I like it! I’m going to repeat it! Do you know it too?? Repeat it with me! Let’s get EVERYBODY to know it and repeat it and then we can all have it together at the same time! It’s a good idea! I’m so excited to repeat it exactly the way I heard it, as loudly as I can, as often as possible!!”
This is how culture happens! This is how countries happen! Sometimes a persistent, infectious idea - a meme - can be dangerous or dark. But our human delight at clutching up good memes like magpies and flapping back to our flock to yell about them to everyone we know is why we as a species bothered to start doing things like “telling stories” and “writing stuff down.”
“That’s a lot of spilled ink for a Queen song, Pyrrhic.”
“Euphemia and Fleamont Potter tried and failed for many years to bring a child into the world before baby James came along. They were much older, and wealthy, so James grew up in a doting environment without the compromise of siblings, in a home without material limits.” (From Pottermore)
by far the best part of grocery shopping is the little babies. i was carefully selecting mushrooms when i felt upon me a piercing gaze and looked up to see a very chubby and very red-cheeked baby staring intently at me from a grocery cart with a slightly furrowed brow, hand clutching an apple for dear life. i wiggled a mushroom at her and she gasped and kept staring. i turned back to the mushrooms and heard a shriek. i turned around and the baby stared in anticipation. i wiggled another mushroom and she shrieked again in delight. she looked down at the apple in her hand, considering it for a moment. fair-minded as she was, she decided it would only be right to wiggle produce at me in return, and she held up the apple and shook it with all her might. i think i could live forever now
I keep thinking about how Fortress Inquisitorius isn’t shielded and the show made a point of bringing it up and I keep thinking about that line of entombed Jedi and Force-sensitives, I keep thinking about Jedi Master Tera Sinube and his body being held there.
I’m sure it’s a great tool for intimidating anyone they walk down that long hallway, showing them that there’s no mercy here, this is what will happen to you if you don’t bend to our demands and join the Empire, even the children will be tortured and broken if they resist.
But what if it’s more than that?
I keep looking at that terrible, awful hallway, thinking about Obi-Wan having to stare at the face of an old friend, one who had been around for hundreds of years in the Jedi Order, he probably had at least one class taught by Master Sinube.
How terrifying and grisly the whole thing is.
And how it reminded me of something else.
Of one of the most horrific things the Empire ever did:
They used Luminara Unduli’s body as bait for any Jedi who might sense her and try to rescue her. The Grand Inquisitor himself lures Kanan and Ezra in, when they’re looking for her to be Ezra’s teacher, and it’s not until they’re face to face with her corpse that they understand that her Force presence is being used to trick them, to make them think there’s another Jedi in the galaxy that they can help and be helped by.
Obi-Wan doesn’t sense them until he’s face to face with them because his Force abilities are weakened from a decade of disuse, but how many other Jedi are out there, sensing something of Master Sinube or a Jedi youngling that they want to help?
How many other Jedi would mount a rescue mission on Fortress Inquisitorius because they thought a Jedi was in need of them and they could use the help of another Jedi in the galaxy? It’s so tempting, there’s not even any shields, the Inquisitors think they don’t need them, we can do this, we can help a Jedi!
But it’s all lies, it’s the Empire using the dead bodies of Jedi to trick more of them into coming right to them, that torture chamber right down at the end of that very hall. And by the time you’re close enough to realize what’s truly off about their presence, it’s too late. There’s an entire Fortress surrounding you.
