January 05, 2007
Memeplexity
Another internet story for those of you who hold a day job which prevents you from getting up to speed in the world of the world wide web.
This is the story of the making of a memeplex . The story of a video that unintentionally explodes into cyberfame, does a quadruple flip, and propagates.. You can follow its metamorphosis on Metafilter, but you may find a translation helpful.
It all begins with Yale senior, Aleksey Vayner's excellent job-hunting idea. He made a video CV that he sent to a few select investment banking firms. The kind he thought might be interested in eugenics, perhaps. To their everlasting credit, rather than rushing to interview Aleksey, Wall Streeters laughed and forwarded the video to a few of their friends. It spread as only these things can do in cyberspace, practically closed trading one day, and became a meme.
When I first saw the video, I hoped that Aleksey had his tongue in his cheek, and was, himself, out to expose the underbelly of investment banking, the but he did not. Personally, I found it chilling that this is what one Yale senior was thinking. So did his peers. IvyGate The Ivy League blog set about investigating Aleksey's claims and summarily finished off his investment banking career before it started.
Ah, but then the parodies began on YouTube. Michael Cera, of Arrested Development stars in "Impossible is the Opposite of Possible" and others that may or may not be jokes, that you can find yourself by following YouTube suggestions.
Photo note: Recycling. Creativity propagating at the town dump - a metaphorophoto of sorts
Posted by Dakota at January 5, 2007 05:12 PM