Subgenius pointed out:
Cam wrote:why memes are so goddamn effective on dim people
It's a fair point. If Cam intended to equate dim with base intelligence only, then that would contradict what I said. But dim can also mean poorly educated or rude, or ill-mannered, or willfully ignorant, or a lot of things. And clearly, it was a rhetorical flourish anyway. He had a lengthy post explaining how he believes memes work and it wasn't an exploration of a single parameter.
subgenius wrote:and my point on the left being lousy at making memes was specifically as the cause for the left's motivation for dismissing them
Gotcha. Now subs, only a sound-byte that goes viral is a "meme". Hence, for the Right to make memes implies that the right is significantly influenced and organized by memes. In other words, your very own statement directly implies that the Right is brainwashed by silly pictures and slogans.
Perhaps, you muse, that we "on the left" can't brainwash our targets by silly pictures and slogans and so we criticize those who are so successful at it out of jealousy?
Well, it's possible you are correct in one respect, but wrong in another respect.
You are correct, because if I were to try and influence Analytics or Res Ipsa by silly slogans or drawings, it wouldn't work. But does that imply that I suck at memes? Not at all. Take your best right-wing meme maker and
that guy wouldn't be able to influence those two either. Don't you see how your very own point
necessitates a significantly gullible audience -- such as those on the Right who are easily suckered -- in order to stand?
However, you're also wrong.
My own aptitude for meme creation is decent. My friend I mentioned earlier, the NASA prospect who is otherwise, extraordinarily gullible and needy for belonging, started sending me unhinged right-wing emails in the early 2000s. They were annoying. So one day, I responded to one of his emails with an invented rant about government and central bankers. I tried to make it as stupid as possible. But I didn't include a greeting or signature, it was just a block of text as-is. My plan worked. He forwarded what I wrote to a couple dozen of his cohorts and cc'd me. He promoted it as mind-blowing. A couple days later he asked me my source. I responded with something like, what do you mean? It was just a bunch of stuff I wrote. I think then, he got it, and said no more.
Again, the point, as I think you can appreciate, is that meme creation necessitates above all, a gullible audience.
We can't take farmers and take all their people and send them back because they don't have maybe what they're supposed to have. They get rid of some of the people who have been there for 25 years and they work great and then you throw them out and they're replaced by criminals.
