Confused by the cryptic message comprising inches, followed by minutes that women and, in the odd instance, even men, are posting on their Facebook walls?
Do not let your imagination run riot. It is part of a campaign for breast awareness, wherein girls are asked to post their shoe size followed by the minutes they take to comb their hair. The senseless, even at times suggestive, campaign is an Internet meme, a cultural phenomenon that often goes viral for no apparent rhyme or reason.
Last year, two similar memes on breast cancer awareness created as much curiosity: the first was where girls posted as status messages on the colour of their lingerie; and the second a more provocative sounding status on where they like to put their purse.
A meme is described by Merriam Webster's dictionary as “an idea, behaviour, style, or usage that spreads from person to person within a culture.” The term was coined in 1976 by evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins in his book The Selfish Gene . Over the last few years, there have been a splurge of Internet memes, but until two years ago the phenomenon was strictly restricted to more geeky forums. One of the places where it thrived first was 4chan.com, the anonymous bulletin board known for its notoriety as much as for its brilliance.
Some of the earliest, most popular Internet memes originated from 4chan.com. “Rickrolling” is one of the earliest and most popular Internet memes, wherein users post videos, all of them ending with the 1980s pop star Rick Astley performing the song “never gonna give you up.” It pops up on unsuspecting viewers hoping to see often some other video and end up getting ‘rickrolled.'
While it is tough, there have been instances where marketers and non-governmental organisations have attempted to exploit the phenomenon to spread awareness by hoping their memes go viral.
Arun Nair, director of digital marketing and social media Sulekha.com , says memes are an interesting and important part of Internet's sub-cultures and though some commercial undertakings are trying to figure out how to exploit them, there is no sure-shot formula.
One such phenomenon was the double rainbow video that went viral on YouTube. Microsoft took it up and featured the person who uploaded the video, but this was done after Paul Vasquez was already an Internet sensation.
The underlying theme of successful Internet memes is that they are simple and the humour is easily understood. Tambrahm Rage ( >www.tambrahmrage.tumblr.com ), a web comic blog about the quirks of Tamil Brahmin households, is one way of effectively using the Rage comics meme that has been popular for some years now. One can build one's own rage comic through at >http://ragecomics.memebase.com/ rage-builder/ .
