Comment by endoblast

I think maybe you underestimate memes. A meme is a self copying idea that propagates through “sentient” creatures, which can also include many animals. (Animals can become fearful of arbitrary non-threats through social transmission , for example, and populations of animals can develop cultural behaviors that persist generations after the stimulus for the behavior is removed)

Memes are most powerful when they are packaged in complex structures, such as ideologies, cultures, or religion.

Memetic structures can contain formal mechanisms of transmission, proof of infection / identification of in a out group, immune systems against memetic disease (disease from the perspective of the memetic system, not the organism), and even apoptositic isolation mechanisms to prevent out of control mutations. These memetic systems of ideas and ideology are subject to rapid iteration and natural selection, and ones that survive in the wild for significant periods become pseudo legitimized as primary cultural paradigms.

Memes are by far the most dynamic and influential factor in human evolution and development, and have been for quite some time. All wars are primarily memetic.

memes are not "on the side of reality". memes are on the side of whatever resonates. What resonates is what aligns to your model of reality (which is shaped by the ideology you're inside).

There's no clear distinction between propaganda, advertising, and what you call "meme-ing". Companies can and do create campaigns that look organic, that do takeoff as people feel they are organic (and then they become actually real as people take them further than what the company is pushing)

For example: Barbenheimer was a meme that got people to watch two movies in one weekend (not a typical behavior for most people). Was that an organic meme, or a marketing campaign?

(If anyone is curious, I keep trying to write a good intro to this rabbithole, see my writeup on the New York Times explaining how a psyop works, which itself very significant for them to be spelling it out like this: https://defenderofthebasic.substack.com/p/new-york-times-is-... )