I received a lovely Twitter from Amanda Chapel with a link a Strumpette post, by Brian Connolly, about the Web 2.0 mind virus that is making everyone mad, mad, I tell you. She defined a meme for me and I like her definition, "Memes are like viruses, little brain hijackers whose hosts work hard to spread." Yep, that's a meme.
Ever wonder why the Hell it appears that some of your most respected, knowledgeable and intellectually capable colleagues have completely lost their minds in all this Web 2.0 stuff? I mean, perfectly sensible people totally abandoning all logic and critical thinking, and gleefully hopping on the Cluetrain to nowhere.
Well, recently Edelman's Steve Rubel helped bring the answer more into focus (rather ironic coming from the head of the Me2Revolution, one of PR's loudest Web evangelists). A few weeks ago Steve said, "I am a recovering Web 2.0-aholic;" and added: "Let's face it, we're skunk drunk and it's because of money. It's almost like we all need to enter Betty Ford Clinic 2.0 together."
Poignant. Something is askew for sure. But sobriety isn't the issue. Of all the countless wacky things PR 2.0 cultists have proclaimed in the last few years, there's been little juice actually, i.e. there's been lots of conferences but little in the way of revenue. Take Kami Huyse and "friendz," for instance; these folks are more God-fearing tea-totaling Heaven's-Gate-like anorexic sorority geeks than fat drunkards.
Turns out, the cause could be a virus. Watch this
Watch what? Well, watch the movie over at Strumpette.com. Here's a spoiler:
"The ant has been hijacked by a parasite that infects its brain inducing suicidal behavior."
And, when you're done watching Dan Dennett come back and read the following, the punch line:
This is Dan Dennett, one of our most important living philosophers. Dennett is currently the Austin B. Fletcher Professor of Philosophy and Co-Director of the Center for Cognitive Studies at Tufts University. He is best known for his provocative and controversial theories on human consciousness.
Filmed in February '02, the clip is an excerpt from a talk Dan gave at a renowned TED conference. His presentation here was on the topic of toxic ideas. According to Dennett, "Memes are like viruses, little brain hijackers whose hosts work hard to spread."
Think about it!
Once again Amanda Chapel aka Abigail Baffing aka Brian Connolly does not understand anything that happens outside his Luddite cave.
Web 2.0 means websites that you can do more than stare at and buy stuff from. Web 1.0 was the brochureware of "having a web presence".
For more on the Amanda Chapel team troll hoax, see:
Amanda Chapel anti-blogosphere team troll"
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