Second, I would rather avoid approaching studies of Internet memes in terms of psychology. We can debate endlessly about why we create things or pass them on to other people, but in the end it’s not very quantitative or, really, qualitative. Only until we can sit down for years with an MRI scanner or something similar will we be able to approach answers to questions of “why,” without resorting to the very basic answer of “because we like to.” Instead, what I propose is looking at how we create and how we spread culture — through the interpersonal connections we establish and the tools we use. I feel that answering “how” instead of “why” will provide us with more answers than questions in the end.

I also think now, since we’re discussing the human layer, it makes sense to acknowledge the theorizing we will perform on a psychological and sociological level. What drives the individual to create or spread a meme? Is it really genuinely a desire to connect? A desire to be seen as cool or make someone laugh? Is there a real life analog of someone who would be most likely to spread a meme or enjoy them? What kind of drive instigates the meme mentality? Where does the meme fall in a “cultural diet” of different forms of entertainment, including television, literature, magazines, movies, radio, podcasts, poetry, etc. etc.? Can we derive the meme’s importance from the felt significance or historico-cultural significance of other forms of culture… or are we moving toward micro-units of cultural transmission that has no predecessor?

You said “This counteracts the stereotypical marketer’s view of the meme as “viral” because of the possibility for an idea to be discarded, rather than passed on to other people.” What do you mean by market’s view? What does “viral” mean? What do you mean by that statement?

The Britain’s Got Talent connection is a great example to study internet memes. Just to share a personal ancedote, I was talking to some friends hanging out over dinner, and one of them mentioned this. I communicate with these guys primarily only over the phone and in person, and very rarely through email or Facebook or through any internet means. One of them brought up Boyle’s performance, and it was the first instance where I (and others) learned of it. Later on an email with a link to the video was sent around so the meme is transmitted, I guess.

I think it’s kind of interesting to look at it from a person-to-person framework, because the medium of transmission, sometimes, gets confused in the definition and study of internet memes. It’s definitely got a lot to do with studying popular culture, of course, but there is probably some defining nature to internet memes that makes them different than, say, quoting lines out of the Star Wars movies for a joke, which was done way before the web was popular.

The third thing is about semantics web. I’m not sure if it proposes what you say it does, at least from my shallow understanding of it. It’s not a big deal to your main point about Benkler’s model, but I think it would be different than what you propose. As I understand Benkler, he would probably say something like the semantics web is just an elaboration of the code layer so you can generate more/different content. Machine sophistication ultimately still only serves the end user, which is people. That part is no different than the end user today who might have to spend 30 seconds Google up an answer to a question versus a hypothetical future where she would spend only 5 seconds to search for the same answer to the same question. Unless, of course, semantics web proposes something more drastically different.