virus: Re: your mail

Lee Daniel Crocker (lcrocker@calweb.com)
Mon, 28 Apr 1997 13:19:22 -0700 (PDT)


> >>Why? What empathy does Coca Cola Schweppes have with me? Coke memes have
> >>certainly transmitted between that Company and my mind... otherwise I
> >>wouldn't call Cola "Coke".
> >
> >Umm.. sorry, but if you want a response to this, you're
> >going to have to spell it out for me.
>
> BUT I know about Coke, I can sing at least three Coke advertising tunes, I
> know about their sponsorship deals, and whenever asked to think of soft
> drinks, Coke would always appear amongst my first five answers. Even if I
> was witholding saying "Coke", it'd still pop right in there. Thus, the Coca
> Cola company have definitely transmitted memes into my mind, although their
> dominant memes ("Coke is fucking cool") don't (at the moment, at least) gel
> with my dominant memes.

An even more obvious case: the "Santa Claus in red & white suit" meme
is so successful in American culture that most people don't even know
that the Coca-Cola company created it.