Jan 16 2009
What is a blogging meme?
I received a tweet from one of my twitter contacts (loisath) which told me that I have been tagged in her “7 things about me” meme. So the first thing I did was to go and see what it is all about by reading her blogpost about the topic. Basically you have to write a blogpost describing 7 things about yourself that people do not need to know about you. You then tag 7 others to do the same and then let them know. This results in everybody basically spreading the idea virally and it gets promulgated almost in the same way as a chain e-mail letter.
I then looked up what a MEME is (not the sound that sheep make apparently) and found a very good blogpost explaining it in a friendly non-scientific way from Gary LaPointe. According to him it is “lists of questions that you saw somewhere else and you decided to answer the questions. Then someone else sees them and does them and so on and so on”. In essence it is:
- An idea that, like a gene, can replicate and evolve.
- A unit of cultural information that represents a basic idea that can be transferred from one individual to another, and subjected to mutation, crossover and adaptation.
- A cultural unit (an idea or value or pattern of behavior) that is passed from one generation to another by nongenetic means (as by imitation); “memes are the cultural counterpart of genes”.
So what is the point?
So let’s get back to the the question that formed the basis of this meme: “7 things about yourself that people do not need to know about you”. Why would anybody need to know this about me? Isn’t it an invasion of privacy and poses a security risk? Will it be a “cultural unit” as posed in the definitions stated above? Hardly. In a way it does resemble the sheep-like action of sheep following one another in a thoughtless manner. So what would encourage me to immitate this meme and behave like a sheep?
Firstly, I have always liked sheep- they are wooly and cuddly and cute. Secondly, my rule of thumb is to do something if it at all encourage learning and collaboration. So the question for me is did I learn something? The answer of cause is, yes. I learnt a new word (meme) and what it means in different scenarios and I learned about the person that asked me to partake in the meme. From her answer, I at first thought that she was local (from South Africa- especially the bit about her aiding and abetting the theft of a microwave) which made me very excited to encounter another blogging local teacher! But, alas she was not, which made me realise that we indeed live in a global village and have so much in common (especially the cannot-spell-admisssion)! So from a collaborative point of view, she has strengthened her networking with me with her invitation ( I will now keep an eye out for her as I feel I know here just that little bit better). Thirdly by asking people to extend this meme, you can get some exposure for your blog (good old marketing tactic)!
When I started thinking about 7 things that people will not know about me….I realised that I am definitely not shy (as opposed to private), leaving very little that people do not know about me. So here goes:
The Rules
Each player starts with seven random facts/habits about themselves. People who are tagged need to write on their own blog about their seven things, as well as these rules. You need to choose seven people to get tagged and list their names. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them that they have been tagged and to read your blog!
7 things that you did not know about me… (definitely harder than it looks)
- I get on with bees (found this out recently as the bees seems to be refusing to leave my washing room ceiling and it does not really bother me anymore)
- I cannot seem to get plants to grow (so that is why I try to get communities to grow instead)- jip, no green fingers.
- I hate cooked spinach (much to green), but can eat it in a salad.
- I love reading forensic crime stories even from before CSI etc, made it fashionable
- I love maths (everybody knows that) but struggle with doing calculations in my head and goes blank if older people ask me to calculate 1+1 (comes from when my primary school teacher hit me with a stick everytime she asked me a maths question- reminder to self-must go for therapy….;-) This resulted in me wanting to become a maths teacher as a way of learning to cope and making sure that others do not have to live with the same fear.
- I cannot bake. Cook yes, bake no.
- I am scared of heights (comes from when I did a bungi jump way back….another sheep-like activity that I regret I ever partook in…)
So how do you choose 7 people? Okay, as I have been trying to get local teachers to blog, I think it will be useful to give everybody a common topic to get us started for the year. Also this can be a good way of extending your network to include people who do not know you.
So here is my tagees, with reasons why I chose them:
- Tateach (will be nice to get to know someone in Tasmania better!)
- Ronan7 (a local teacher and fellow web 2.0 enthusiast
- Melaniedebruyn (another local teacher and fellow web 2.0 enthusiast
- carbru (part of my blogging learning circle and a sweetie pie)
- moondancer (My sister and an avid blogger- would like to see if there is something I do not know about her…
- Ariellah (I hope she is not angry with me any more….)
- janenicholls (a random click from my tweeple network)
(I just love this new meme word and am definitely going to pronounce it mêêêê- mêêêêê (like the sound a sheep makes)
