Immunity to Memes

[Dildo Argentino]

Actively looking for and engaging with accomplished and versatile people with radically different ideas on important things seems to be an activity that boosts immunity.

It seems to me catchy one-liners (or even few-liners, we can include iconic songs and conspiracy-theories, too) are primarily in-group markers to aid identification (a bit like uniforms or dress-codes), but as most of us are now swimming in a sea of ideological mess and get exposed to most everyone's brain-dirt, their role is shifting: in the before-time, by and large you found yourself in a group and then studied and learned the visual, linguistic and other behavioural badges that went with being a member: in this after-time, children who are not forced into a specific group by their caretakers actually build identities out of various badges originating from various groups and matrices. These cobbled identities sometimes have a weird tragi-comic feel, like cargo-cults.

Teaching critical thinking to kids (largely by demonstration) is vitally important. If that parental duty is not neglected, there is a hope that the identities they build for themselves will be somewhat organic and adaptive, leading to autonomy and a level of immunity against the catchy bullshit that now appears to be our common substrate. No guarantees, for sure, but by and large it seems to work better than not doing it at all.

[Cramulus]

Hugely related: https://www.frontpagelive.com/2020/01/01/ex-fox-anchor-explains-how-to-start-deprogramming-your-fox-brainwashed-friends-and-relatives/

This article (written by ex-fox anchor tobin smith) points at something I suggested upthread - that educating people about propaganda techniques helps innoculate them against it.

a few snips

Our real superpower at Fox News is that 85%+ of our audiences are just absolutely clueless to the powerful cognitive manipulation techniques that are baked into every 7–8 minute Fox News opinion segment.

The other aspect of what I came to describe as Fox News' tribal hate porn superpower is that by delivering compelling new evidence of right-wing tribal superiority and more reasons to righteously and morally hate and demonize their binary existential tribal enemy (or "out-group" in social science speak), we get our tribalized viewers and streamers high.

Why? Because at your subconscious level, tribal hate media is simply a powerful exercise in tribal ego-gratification because the act of hating on your tribal enemy is self-congratulatory. Look — when you consciously or unconsciously say "God — how could those stupid libtards be so ignorant" all your sub-conscious ego hears is "And look how smart you are relative to those idiots, Big Boy!"

[rong]

78. The most effective advertising does not say "Brand X has qualities Y and Z"; instead, it presents a meme which associates X with Y and Z and leaves it up to the recipients to connect the dots. All the most virally infective memes require that the readers/viewers/listeners do some work to make some sense of what they are given – they are "pull" rather than "push" marketing.

I think this is at least partly why Dunkin Donuts is rebranding itself as just Dunkin