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Memes are like a virus. Memes are beliefs that get passed along from person to person, growing and evolving until they have a life of their own. Memes have a purpose; to mess people up and to keep folks down.

Our culture is full of memes that keep people in their place like; ‘It is better to give than receive,’ and ‘money is the root of all evil.’  Our memes about religion emphasize that we should be self sacrificing (so we can go to war and be willing to die) and that a rich man can’t get into heaven (so people will be satisfied with their lot in life.)

One of the really popular artistic memes is that an artist isn’t famous until after they’re dead. This popular meme has inspired a story where an artist fakes his his own death to artificially drive up the value of his work and, lord knows, maybe someone somewhere has even done this.

In reality, if you examine the lives of many of the great composers, you will find that many were actually quite successful in their own lifetime. Beethoven, for example, was generally acknowledged as the greatest living composer of his day and the city if Vienna, at one point, paid him to live there and knock out a symphony or two whenever he could manage.

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Certainly not all forms of communication are good. Some forms of communication can be quite harmful; lies, malicious gossip, propaganda and memes.

” ‘A meme,’ said the Doctor, ‘is a unit of cultural transmission. A term coined by Richard Dawkins. It’s a…concept that proagates itself within a culture by a process of imitation. Like a tune, or how you tie shoelaces, marriage, language or wearing a hat. The idea gets passed on from person to person, spreading, transmitting and, in a sense, evolving‘ Jonathan Morris, The Tomorrow Windows.

Our culture is full of such memes and they mostly serve the purpose of keeping people in their place. They teach things like it is a virtue to be ‘poor but honest,’ and ‘your reward is in heaven.’

The are many memes that apply to artists and either keep them down or discourage people from exercising their artistic expression. One of the most popular memes of this type is the ’starving artist,’ closely allied with the meme that artists don’t need compensation for their work because they just love doing what they’re doing.

Be the superstar you were meant to be. 

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