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Inconvenient Meme

A meme associated with a popular product or service, that's funny, and makes it feel uncool, inconvenient, or outright inappropriate to do something associated with it, enabling people to suppress unwanted services or social phenomena, like brands.
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So, for example, suppose the world has a popular service called "Hexbook," that's running in the middle ages, and people are tired of it. So, they come up with a new meaning to the word in verbal form, and ask:

Do you know what it means to get hexbooked? It means, to get hacked by a witch sticking a fake bible into one's face, so they don't see anything but it, and can't take it away.

Or, let's say there are unhealthy candies, like "Sickers," that are popular. So, they come up with a verb, e.g., "to sicker" that implies something unwanted, and not good, that is easy for people to explain and spread.

Such rumors may help people to suppress unwanted phenomena like harmful services and products, through a new type of mental social folklore and humor, that makes it uncool to use them, and spreads like a virus with a Streisand effect.

Mindey, Jul 03 2020

0oo.li - harmful vs bening market potentials https://0oo.li/inte...ocieties#1582926195
Issues with market potentials [Mindey, Jul 03 2020]

Memetic Engineering https://en.wikipedi...Memetic_engineering
A broader term. [Mindey, Jul 03 2020]

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       //popular // ... // unwanted //   

       Summary: there are things that are popular with some people, but unwanted by others. You want the power to suppress popular things, because the populus is often wrong (true), on the assumption that you are significantly less wrong (questionable).
pertinax, Jul 03 2020
  

       [pertinax]   

       // less wrong (questionable)   

       Not even right... I'm talking about the power for the more witty and insightful within society, not the more powerful per se.   

       And, among the issues it is meant to address, see the link. This idea is not particularly good for the linked issue, but maybe we can come up with better ideas for that, but may be fun to think about :)
Mindey, Jul 03 2020
  

       I'm sure this has been done many times. It is easy to think of a brand or company with risible negative associations but which is still trading. The people who use the company or brand name as a joke or insult are a different demographic from the people who willingly hand over their cash.
pocmloc, Jul 03 2020
  

       //the power for the more witty and insightful within society, not the more powerful per se//   

       OK - so do you (like, say, Marcuse) imagine "the powerful" as some sort of remote and sinister cabal of psychopaths? Or would you recognize that there are many different kinds of power, and they do not all inhere in the same people?
pertinax, Jul 03 2020
  

       // I'm sure this has been done many times. It is easy to think of a brand or company with risible negative associations but which is still trading.   

       I wouldn't be surprised if there were, though, it's interesting that everyone is so silent regarding concrete examples. Forms of humor as a form of subconscious social defense seem to have the beginnings in the behaviors of monkeys. So, maybe a good sign that it's not so funny anymore -- halfbakers about to evolve into a new more sophisticated species?   

       Linking [memetic engineering].
Mindey, Jul 03 2020
  

       From your link:   

       "[...]with the intent of altering the behavior of others in society or humanity"   

       In other words, it *is* a grab for power over other people, without their consent or even their knowledge. [-]
pertinax, Jul 03 2020
  

       // "[...]with the intent of altering the behavior of others in society or humanity"   

       Well, not the most ethical thing in on itself, but memetic engineering is happening, want it or not, and often it's the consumer that gets duped, because there are squads of marketers working on it. What this idea is proposing, is using the same technique as a counter-attack.   

       For an inverse example, if we add a good connotation to "fishboning," (e.g., thinking of fishbones as treasure troves) it may have a massive effect on all the good ideas.
Mindey, Jul 03 2020
  

       Do you know any marketers? And are they, in your opinion, as clever and powerful as your previous annotation implies that they are?
pertinax, Jul 03 2020
  

       // Do you know any marketers? And are they, in your opinion, as clever and powerful as your previous annotation implies that they are?   

       [pertinax], in my experience, not as bright as those that acquire marketing services from them...   

       As, the best people to come up with memes are those a bit monkey-like, that like to chill out, and think of what would trigger effects in limbic systems, rather than think of what's actually beneficial.
Mindey, Jul 03 2020
  

       I don't really get it - and perhaps it's because, like [pertinax] I'm less inclined to believe in a single, monolithic branch of power that decides what is, and what isn't cool. I think I used to think there was a single "society" which decides these things. But if that was ever the case, I think it's shattered now into countless cliques, like fragments of a hologram - all similar in some ways to at least a sub-group from the whole, but each unique nontheless.   

       Facebook, Trump, Liberal, Socialist, Health Care, Gun Control, Nestle, Monsanto, Microsoft, Apple, Google - all these things have had some form of association-work applied to them, and, depending on your own bubble, will have different engrams and emotions adhered onto each. Nothing is its own thing any more, everything comes packaged with a collection of baggage that's been pebble dashed onto its surface by political polarisers keen to simplify their demographic messaging.   

       I'm not convinced I'd like to see any more of that - the world is being politicised enough - far too much in fact. When it becomes a *political act* to wear, or not wear, a facial covering designed to reduce the prevalence of a widespread virus, we know it's gone too far.   

       This conflation of emotion with physical things is just fetishisation, and yes, that sells stuff, but it is fundamentally empty and meaningless.   

       I'm not keen on prying open this particular Pandora's box any more than it already is. [-]
zen_tom, Jul 03 2020
  

       [zen_tom],   

       // I'm less inclined to believe in a single, monolithic branch of power that decides what is, and what isn't cool. I think I used to think there was a single "society" which decides these things.
// I think it's shattered now into countless cliques, like fragments of a hologram - all similar in some ways to at least a sub-group from the whole, but each unique nontheless.
  

       Indeed quite true... And that's why the Trump campaign required personality tests, and person-specific data before targeting....   

       Though, it doesn't mean that cross-domain meme virality isn't a thing -- people have just too much in common biologically, and the degrees of separation has shrunken from 6 to approx. 3.5.
Mindey, Jul 03 2020
  

       //the degrees of separation has shrunken from 6 to approx. 3.5.//   

       Now *that* is interesting - source?
pertinax, Jul 03 2020
  


 

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