Meme addiction. One day at a time.

Instead of listing the many, many things I am grateful for today, I want to confess: I have become a meme addict. Yes, I have entered the land of Conspiracy Keanu and Excited Soccer Kid and Successful Black Man and my personal favorite, Disaster Girl.

I could go into how Pepper Spray Cop memes tell the story of the entire Occupy Wall Street movement, or how it is either an important social communique or a cultural touchstone or an example of technology running faster than our ability to process information. Yeah, the academic stuff that's not even cool enough to be geeky. There's even a site that analyzes the creation of a meme, charts its history and stats, and gives historical background. While talking heads and sociologists analyze what it means, the average person just looks at it and laughs and "gets it," or else gets furious. (Although I'd guess the memes mainly reaches the audience that gets it, because the fuddy duddies are too busy watching Fox News or reading the Wall Street Journal.

I haven't created my first meme yet, but I am considering ways to use it to promote the things I believe in. But I guess we all do that, by sharing and posting the memes we like, the ones that tell a bigger truth in one sentence or image.

I don't know whether to be overjoyed or very, very afraid.

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