Been working on a bit of an idea over the last few days which I wanted to share. Started really with elsie3g thoughtful post the other day about the characters OG mirroring each other. Struck me that we are very much mirroring or mimicking the characters on this thread through the use of certain phrases or behaviours.
Turns out there is a scientific name for these ideas, behaviours, phrases or styles which spread from person to person in a cultural group. They are called memes and comes from the Greek for 'imitated thing'.
Good examples of these from the thread are words and phrases such as 'cockwomble', 'wait out' , 'stay focused, stay alert, stay alive' and 'might gonna need....'. Behaviours include exercising, wearing certain items of clothing such as combat trousers, lumberjack shirts and big gloves.
The really interesting thing about these memes is that they have been likened to genes in as much as they can spread through a population, self replicating if they are popular. They can also, like genes, mutate or evolve. Examples here I think include 'might gonna need' which has been adapted to be used in all sorts of circumstances outside of its original use and 'decompression' which has mutated into 'recompression' to denote a lapse back into OG obsession.
However I think the most interesting might be the term 'stag' which was originally used to denote male only but now has metamorphosed into a visual metaphor for CJ.
Anyway sorry for the ramble and as always feel free to ignore or comment as you see fit!