Memes Shaping the Blogosphere The science of memetics – the scientific and systematic study of memes and their propagation – is not yet considered a science. People will admit that memes are a key factor in cultural evolution, but they are too difficult to track, too unpredictable to study them closely. Unless “one day we discover a surprising identity between brain structures that store the same information, allowing us to identify memes syntactically” (Dennett 354), there would seem to be little hope for a science of memetics. How can we explore and apply memetics to culture if we cannot isolate and investigate the memes themselves, their behaviors and effects? While the movement and influence of memes across culture at large is perhaps impossible to analyze using precise methodology, the virus-like memes spread across the Internet – especially in the so-called “blogosphere” – are easier to track. As a result, it is also much easier to highlight how memes have directed the evolution of the “blogosphere” and, indeed, blogging and the Internet itself. Richard Dawkins, who is credited with coining the term "meme", defines it as:...a unit of cultural transmission, or a unit of imitation...Just as genes propagate in the gene pool jumping from one body to another. via sperm or eggs, then memes propagate in the memetic pool by jumping from brain to brain through a process that, broadly speaking, can be called imitation (Dennett 344-5). Since the blogosphere can be defined as the space of the Internet populated by blogs, memes travel through them not from brain to brain, but from page to page, leaving a trace that can be monitored and analyzed. Memes have been a major part of the blogging world since at least 2001, when "Best Meme" first appeared as a category in The Bloggies, the annual weblog Oscars. The winner in the "Best Meme" category that year was "A Day Without Weblogs," which suggested that every December 1 people use their weblogs to link to information and resources about AIDS, in memory of those who had died. “A Day Without Weblogs” actually started with just fifty blogs in 1999, but by 2001 over 1,000 weblogggers participated (Link and Think, 2003). The success of "A Day Without Weblogs" was one of the first demonstrations of the power and reach of the blogging community. The success of the project helped draw attention to a serious problem and mobilized many casual web surfers to donate time and money to the cause.