12:06 PM
Though it was a relatively accurate model for the closed system of the SA Forums back in the days when I hung out there, I've never really tried applying the SA Forums Meme Timeline (part at right, or you can check out the full timeline) to a larger Net phenomena. But I'd like to try and map the timeline to the Flash Mob meme that's been burbling through the web for a few weeks.

a: June 16: The invitation to the second NYC Flash Mob gets posted on many blogs

b: June 16-18: The invitation and reports on NYC FM 2 gets posted to Net nexuses such as Gawker, Metafilter, and BoingBoing (as well as many other sites I don't frequent, I'm sure.)

c: June 19: Meme successfully replicates, as mob-planning groups begin to form in various cities

d: July 8: Online discussion group forms.

e: July 16: Post on cheesebikini, a hublog for the meme, waxes paranoid about the phenom being coopted:

PLEASE NOTE: Don't be a sucker! Large corporations might try to organize their own flash mobs to increase consumption of their goods and services. Keep this in mind during any flash mob. If you participate in this event, please don't purchase a single item within the Mall of America during the flash mob, or while traveling to or from the event. If we all adopt this policy it will prevent transformation of the flash mob movement into a series of crass corporate marketing ploys.

f: July 31: Post is made on Metafilter summing up the flash mob phenomena. Nearly every comment in the comments thread is a negative backlash against flashmobbing and those involved.

Those seem to match the curve pretty closely, but are only selected views of the memetic battle. Note that at d, contrary to the SA timeline, the original meme continued to gain strength. Allow me to suggest a couple new datapoints:

E: July 23-26: The major media begins to cover flashmobbing out on the fringes of the phenomena, as at its core meta-FM sites (and streams on prexisting sites) connecting cells form.

F: July 31: Flash mobs continue to occur around the globe.

I'd like to posit that the SA Meme Timeline doesn't track a phenomena, but rather the passage of a meme through a particular type of mindset--the online, trendsurfing cooler-than-you, self-proclaimed digerati. These are the folks who need to know about new memes before everyone else (hence their lurking and posting on SA, MeFi, FARK, and elsewhere) yet can't stand when they fall into the zeitgeist.

Hence, points e and f represent their own personal rejection of the trend, while E and F track the actual progress of the meme, which travels in a more bell-shaped curve until it rejoins what the digerati would call the "memetic afterbirth". In actuality, this is when the meme falls to a low enough level of public consciousness that the digerati can think it's cool again.

The trick, then, might be to find that "coolness threshold" ((a+d)/3, perhaps?) where a meme is still acceptable to the digerati, yet gains enough general mindshare to propagate and survive, and then keep it there for as long as possible. Possibly by building a cellular nature into the meme--so that rather than exploding into the general populace, small but viable meme hothouses of 100-300 people keep forming in isolated groups. The Flash Mob meme seems to be doing this rather well, but the trend-tracking (and though they'd deny it, trend-propagating) digerati are apparently free-falling toward their point of infinite rejection of the meme. Don't worry about them, though; they'll have their Phoenix-like rebirth soon enough.

Me? I wish I could have gone up for the Mall of America mob. It sounds like it was fun.

This is the kind of stuff that passes through my head all the time and distracts me. Which explains why I have a lot of work I need to go do now.