memeology

I felt the example of the request for Nike shoes customized with the word 'sweatshop' was a good illustration of the topic of memes and contagious media. The idea of memeology is to create an idea that is simple and can all be explained in one sentence, that is easily accessible by everyone. As we see in the effects of Jonah's simple idea, the growth of it merely depends on the audience. In Media Literacy a few semesters back, we discussed how artists can lie about their intentions of their creation. Therefore, the contagious artist does not define the artwork, but its definition, again, succeeds at the expense of audience participation.
To help support the idea of contagious media and contagious ideas, its as if you start out with an idea that "inspires conversation, provokes debate, or moves us to tell a friend" as the seed that is planted underground. When you begin to water that seed with social investment through the use of communication technologies and multiple recipient consumption, the idea seems to "spread on its own, like a self-replicating virus." With the example of the 'sweatshop' shoes, the artist wanted to construct an idea that would speak to Nike on how he felt about sweatshop labor. He even used the company's own resources to simply relay his views, which is really genious. When Nike refused his request for the 'sweatshop' shoes, it then turned into the seed of the contagious creation that it became through blogs, message boards, and email forwarding.