(no subject)

[metaphorge]

Many people often seem to become upset when memes they personally hold important or identify with are replicated in what they feel to be an inexact fashion.

Agree, disagree, commentary?

(I feel the wikipedia article on "cultural appropriation" has good things to say on and examples of this subject.)

Comments

Just some 5 minute thoughts...

[ineffabelle]

Agreed and this applies to so many axes of human life.

I'm sure Plains Native Americans get annoyed seeing "dream catchers" all over the place.

I think there's more chance for upset when the meme(s) in question seem "essential" to the identity of the original holder. Because there is more chance for misrepresentation and miscommunication.

[ineffabelle]

I also suspect that this creates a certain amount of tension between cis-gendered and trans-gendered people...

There's just a lot of applications of that idea. Good insight!

[cherrypep.livejournal.com]

Agree, although I think that this is an effect based in the use of language rather than just the use of certain memes.

Language, meaning and society are very interdependent. Your 'cultural appropriation' article is more or less spot on. Imho it's about identity, the demonstration and/or establishment of. Semantics, particularly in terms of implication, depend strongly on context -- time, space and place...

[rpeate.livejournal.com]

Hey, I started having comment problems last night. Now what do we do? :)

(And I'm no longer authorised even to view your post on comment problems! :) Did I offend?? :) )

[gorillashaman.livejournal.com]

Violation of memetic purity. A mutated meme may be less fit for survival.

[the-revolution.livejournal.com]

Agree.

Meme mutation.

[feyandstrange.livejournal.com]

For people who value their individuality, having something they have chosen as an individual marker become a group marker is kind of hard.

I went to school with a kid I know only as Batman. Long before any of rhe movies came out, this kid wore a (different, thrift-store or home-silk-screened) Batman shirt to school every day, painted the logo on his Converse, knew his comics history and TV show, and nobody else was like him. He wasn't a hopeless little nerd, either; he was social, a skate rat, and kind of cute.

Then the Batman movie came out, and suddenly Batman merchandise was everywhere. Suddenly our Batman was no longer a standout or in any way unique; his years of fandom swept aside by marketing. It was sad.

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then an accurate imitation is the most sincere and flattering; a half-assed effort is an insult to the meme and those who care about it.

And there's the question of why a meme is replicated. Batman is one thing; a religious symbol is another. Is it disrespectful to a faith and its believers to wear, say, a T-shirt with "om" on it in Sanskrit if you don't know what it means and just bought it for the cool lettering?

[roadriverrail.livejournal.com]

I agree that people often seem to become upset in this way. I think that it is very rarely worth it, though, and think that when most people do it, they are taking themselves far too seriously.

[lysana.livejournal.com]

Agreed, and as someone who works within a culture that has had multiple aspects of it adopted and adapted, it does get annoying. The reason it gets annoying is that people will take the newer definitions as ancient, and it gets hard to explain the history without sounding pedantic or strident. It wouldn't be so bad if the people doing the adopting and adapting admitted they were changing it. Too many of them don't.

It's my experience that American mainstream culture has no memes to speak of that it holds particularly dear, preferring to claim others as its own. It takes being in contact with a minority culture and learning its truths to grasp the other side of the story.