Meme
I badly want to write a meme that worms its way clear to the other end of the Internet and back. When I see something like the “BBC Book List” meme wending its way through Facebook for what must be the third time in three years, I am wracked with jealousy. The thing is ridiculous. My sense of literary balance scoffs at the fact that it’s overpopulated by nineteenth century British novels and young adult literature and that it overlaps series and individual books that are parts of the series (e.g., The Chronicles of Narnia and The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe). Moreover, the thing fabricates out of whole cloth the claim that the “BBC reckons most people will have only read 6 of the 100” books.1 Yet the meme has such staying power that even when people realize that it’s only loosely based on this list from the BBC (though it’s actually more or less this list from The Guardian), they complete the meme with both lists. Still others complete the meme despite having the sneaking suspicion they’ve done it before. The meme is a perfect storm of perceived elitism (and the requisite responsive crotchetiness), lists, and interactivity. It is brilliant.
1 For more on the meme, see Christine Cavalier and the commenters at PurpleCar.
