Backtracking a Meme
Back on October 2nd, I started a 3 Things You Haven’t Let Go meme. I tagged Ann, Joanne and Jon.
Today, I discovered that Rolando had completed a 3 Things You Won’t Let Go meme on October 27th. Was this my meme? Had it mutated once in got loose in the wild? Is this how my meme went feral?
I decided to track the meme back to see if it went back to me or not. Rolando had been tagged by Jesse who did her post on October 27th. She had been tagged by the Canadian Curmudgeon in his post on October 26th. He had been tagged by Twisted Sister.. redneck girl extraordinaire in her post of October 26th.
Twisted Sister had been tagged by Inside Emmy’s Mind in her post of October 26th. She had been tagged by Alcoment in her post of October 25th. She had been tagged by No Middle Ground Here. And that’s where my tracking ends, since BlogSpot is saying “Page Not Found.”
So, let’s see if we can track it forward. On October 4th, Jon posted his response in “Learning to Let Go.” He tagged Ronnie, Darlene and Erina.
I don’t see where Ronnie completed the tag, so that’s a dead-end. I don’t see where Darlene completed the tag, but she was tagged by the “3 Things I Wouldn’t Let Go” meme by Miscellaneous Ramblings, which she completed on October 27th. Hmmm. Another lead? Let’s backtrack this one…
Ah, but Miscellaneous Ramblings is also known as the Canadian Curmudgeon, which part of the previous attempt at backtracking that led to the dead-end at No Middle Ground Here.
Now, I don’t see where Erina completed the tag, so the trail dead-ends again.
Joanne provided hers on October 19th in “3 Brief Confessions (for once!).” She tagged Lisa, Moooooog35, Nick, Stealth, Meleah, and Chessnoid.
Stealth sounds familiar, plus the link in my web browser indicates I’ve visited it before… Sure enough, Stealth’s site is No Middle Ground Here! Thus completes our circle!
Let’s follow the path and evolution of my meme…
dcrBlogs -> I started “3 Things You Haven’t Let Go”
Joanne -> changes to “3 Things I Won’t Let Go”
Stealth -> back to “3 Things You Haven’t Let Go”
Alcoment -> changes to “3 things you won’t let go”
Emmy -> stays “3 things you won’t let go”
Twisted Sister -> stays “3 things you won’t let go”
Canadian Curmudgeon -> stays “3 things you won’t let go”
Jesse -> stays “3 things you won’t let go”
Rolando -> stays “3 things you won’t let go”
You’ll notice that within one tag, the meme had changed. A tag later, it was back again. One tag after that, it had changed again, where it remained for the rest of its journey up to Rolando’s post.
Within 2 or 3 tags (can’t know for sure because No Middle Ground Here is “Page Not Found”), my link as the originator of the meme had vanished. How quickly you can be forgotten in the blogosphere!
You can see how quickly a meme can up and die (as demonstrated by none of Jon’s taggees completing the tag) and how quickly it can spread (as demonstrated by my finding it on Rolando’s blog after it had made a wide circle after Joanne). You can also see how it can change over time and take on a life of its own, even casting its “parent” aside. 
Apparently, they also lose their capital letters over time as well.
So, what does this tell us and what can we learn from it? I don’t know, but Odyssey 5 is looking a lot more realistic now, isn’t it? 
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Hey DCR, sorry I didn’t trackback or mention you in my post. I usually go by the information from my tagee’s posts and don’t back from there. It is interesting to see the journey that your meme took along the way. Now that I know that it was you who started the meme, I’ll do back and update my post so my tagee’s know who it came from.
That’s some good detective work!
No problem, and thanks. I was mainly curious whether it was my meme or if someone else had started a similar one. A lot of memes don’t have their “parent” identified, so I figured sooner or later that info gets lost or omitted. But, I was figuring more later and not so soon!
ha ha!!…funny post, i have a hard time keeping up with all the tags and memes so, i try and do what interests me most…..and leave the rest…i mean really who has the time for all of them really…….lol
I know, I have a backlog of memes to do too. In the future, if I start getting tagged with too many, I may be more selective. But, for now I’m still trying to do them all.
Actually, I was the one who tagged Stealth of “No Middle Ground Here”…the original page is no longer found because she was being stalked and so created a new private blog.
PS: LOLs, I love how you tracked the changes!
you didnt find my reply to the tag because i was unaware that i was tagged. in fact, i just learned it from this post. hahaha!