What is a meme ( pronounced “meem”– rhymes with beam)? It is a contagious pattern of cultural information that are passed from mind to mind and directly shapes and propagates key actions and mindsets of social group. aka- it’s culture passed from person to person by different means (not to be confused with memes).

According to Postman’s article Memes, L/literacy and classroom learning, there are 3 charactersitics of memes — fidelity, fecundity, and longevity.  The most important one to me would be the fecundity- the rate at which a meme is is copied and spread because if it gets spread, it should last for a while!!

An example of a meme would be FML, laughing cats, or even the silly bunnies that we love so much.

But I want to focus on a particular meme that makes me laugh on a daily basis : textfromlastnight

Even wikipedia discusses the page “textfromlastnight” noting that this particular site gets 4 million hits per day and it has only been around since February 2009. Personal information is not shared on the webpage such as phone numbers, but rather just area codes.

An example of a textfromlastnight would be:

(803):

Why am I in a dog kennel?

(1-803):

It was for your own safety

they are simple texts, uploaded.

More information on memes is available such as definitions, tools, or further explanation as needed.

This youtube video is hilarious in so many ways, yet he focuses on Textfromlastnight as a means of communication because technology consumes our daily living.

Textsfromlastnight can also be used as an IPOD APPLICATION to make it more accessible to those who are not always at a computer.

But how could this be used in the classroom? Textsfromlastnight might not specifically be able to be used–it’s too far advanced for middle school students. But what about other memes available to the public? Could you have a blog where everyone could text their answers in? I know for sure there is one system where if a question is asked, people can text their answers. How cool would it be to play jeopardy with texting– but this also deals with the fact that technology is not always available to everyone.

So, I would most likely use different memes in the classroom if the resources are available, but until then, I will just use different memes with all my friends at this point in time.

What would you do?

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