[Ads-l] Antedating of "Meme" (OED Sense 2)

[Ben Zimmer]

On Sun, Feb 9, 2025 at 5:15 PM Shapiro, Fred <fred.shapiro at yale.edu> wrote:

> meme (OED, 2., 1998)
>
> 1994 The Advertiser 6 Dec. (LexisNexis)
>
> Cyberculture, cyberspace, cyberhype, memes ... are all computer buzz words.
>

I don't think there's enough to say definitively whether this example
belongs to OED's def 2: "An image, video, piece of text, etc., typically
humorous in nature, that is copied and spread rapidly by internet users,
often with slight variations." "Meme" may have been a computer buzzword
while still retaining the original Dawkins-esque meaning (or at least
evolving from it).

"Meme" was added as an entry to the Jargon File (aka the Hacker's
Dictionary) in 1990, suggesting an early adaptation in hacker circles.

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http://www.catb.org/jargon/oldversions/jarg211.txt
Jargon File, Version 2.1.1, June 12, 1990
This dictionary is a vector of the "hacker subculture" meme complex; each
entry might be considered a meme.
---

Usenet posts from the early '90s provide more context for how the meaning
of "meme" was mutating in the proto-Internet era.

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https://groups.google.com/g/comp.society.futures/c/D10-PEdt5eM/m/i-9o1GbTGa0J
Elan Moritz, comp.society.futures, Apr. 3, 1990
Subject: call for papers
Present day applications of Memetic Science include both human aspects of
replication, mutation, competition, spread and death of ideas and memes, as
well as their electronic analogs. The 'electronic memes' are beneficial
messages, reusable subroutines, programs that are freely [or
surreptitiously] copied and modified, computer viruses, worms, trojan
horses, etc.
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https://groups.google.com/g/news.groups/c/agKCQt3dmPU/m/KP5iJ9uU8PIJ
Ran Atkinson, news.groups, Feb. 4, 1991
Subject: CfD: comp.society.folklore
A fair percentage of the traffic would probably be humor of various sorts,
but the criterion for inclusion would be primarily its value as carriers
for hacker memes.
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https://groups.google.com/g/comp.security.misc/c/nHZtDEXHptw/m/WyBtwNsQUmUJ
Jesse Mundis, comp.security.misc, Oct. 23, 1992
Subject: What's a "mutating signature virus"?
As people have already said, "mutating signature virus" refers to the
spread of a "meme" through people who post to Usenet.
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https://groups.google.com/g/alt.memetics/c/K2Fk3sPeXb8/m/WGWiPQWxWEkJ
James Salsman, alt.memetics, June 30, 1993
Subject: [0] I know about a meme that's going to take USENET by storm!
Mark my words: single digits in square brackets are going to start
appearing on the front of subjects all over the place.
---

--bgz

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