Richard Dawkins wrote The Selfish Gene.
He coined the phrase MEMES to be be its cultural equivalent. It never hit me before how appropriate that name was, meme. It screams ME ME ME. Don’t know about you, but I never could grasp what a meme was, but now it doesn’t matter, you know it when you hear it, right? the Me Me Me meme.
I read recently that he could have also called it the Unselfish Gene, which he might have had to call Wewe, but WE WE WE all the way home didn’t sound right, save for kids games. Imagine saying-How do we spread We We’s instead of Me Me’s? its a profound question that any five year old can grasp, even if Wall Street or Congress can’t. They seem to think the Constitution begins “Me the People,”
Unconfirmed rumor says the AFLCIO wanted Rich to call it the Labor Gene, known as Team, but his spokesperson said NO WAY JIMMY , there is no eye in team, only e and a, and probably m and…. is that a t at the starting line? Probably. Southern Baptists also objected, saying they wanted God Gene, and heavens, there are four eyes in Mississippi. What is that supposed to mean-a selfish River? Disney said his parks would sponsor calling it the Fun and Fantasy Gene, aka Theme, and the United Cattle Farmers and Food Association said they would pay for the name Healthy to fit into your jeans-Gene with only a small vowel change to mo mo- as in ” Steak and Veg build your mo Jo mo-Tivation, increase your Mo Jo Mo-bility.” Tea Party Neo Palinists lobbied for the title Libertarian Gene, aka Mean, because meme sounded too girly. But ME ME won the day and the history, as they say, is the rest or the most of it.
In a last minute bid, the paradenoid party tried to head off immigration reform by calling it the Foreigners Gene, or ‘them them.’ How do you stop them them’s from spreading their tijuanas over the border and killing off all our me me memes that us we we’s work so hard to inculcate. Our nation is founded on me me’s becoming we we’s to hold out the them them’s. Not Selfish at all.
This whole sorry fictitious affair had to end when the Producers of the King’s Speech objected to any terminology that invited derision of stutterers. Henceforth, the Council on Civil Liberties ruled that meme must NEVER be hyphenated. A gene can be selfish, yes but memes are for sharing, No?