Seth Godin Defines Memes

This talk was given in 2003. It’s called “How to get your ideas to spread”. It’s been seen over 3 million times. It’s what marketing is about. It’s what I lose sleep over. Seth doesn’t mention the word meme. He does talk about obsession, and I am a bit obsessed with memes. I obsess about how a meme can be built that will be successful enough to make a difference in the world? I wonder what the building blocks are for peace memes.

Seth talks about the importance of something being remarkable, worth making a remark about. This was before Facebook and Twitter. He was not talking about retweets or likes. The concept was the same then as it is now, with or without social media. We, as human beings, have to choose where to focus our attention. A successful meme will spread if, and only if, it is worth remarking about. It has to be worth focusing our attention on.

Own Your Brain is about building successful memes. I believe that we need memes that contain information which will help us understand our vulnerability to dangerous manipulative tactics. We need memes that help us collaborate better, so that we can find solutions to some of the big issues we face, like poverty and climate change. We need to learn how to communicate better across cultures. We need to learn to empathize with those we have seen as the enemy, the other, the evil ones.   These are ideas that, I believe, we need to package in a way that will be remarkable.

When I watched this video, again, recently, I understood the importance of what Seth was saying. He said that the key is to get the attention of those that are listening, and hope they remark about it to others. I realized this is the goal of Own Your Brain, to reach out to those that are listening.

There will be many conversations posted on this site with people who were manipulated at a vulnerable time in their life. Hopefully, people will be interested in protecting themselves and their loved ones from these coercive tactics. Those listening will grow in their empathy, because of the deeper understanding they will gain from these stories. If this happens, the memes will spread.

Maybe you have never seen this video and will watch it. Maybe you have seen it already and will watch it again. Maybe you will not watch it at all, but during the time you read this post ideas spread, memes spread. Let’s build and spread remarkable peace memes together, even if it takes many stories, many attempts to find those that are listening.