Researchers Get $1 Million Grant To Study Internet Memes

I know that when it comes to Internet memes, there has been plenty said and done about the situation. From normal looking photos that you would never have guessed for it to end up as a meme in a hundred million years, there are some Internet meme “classics” that are worth taking note of. However, it seems that a bunch of researchers over at Indiana University have actually been given a grant to study the life cycle of memes. The size of this particular grant? We are talking about a respectable close to a $1 million figure, now how about that?

Indiana University will be on the receiving end of nearly $1 million where federal grant money is concerned, in order to have the researchers there investigate the genesis, spread, and demise of Internet memes. All four Indiana researchers will participate in a $919,917 project that is known as Truthy which will “explore why some ideas cause viral explosions while others are quickly forgotten.”

Perhaps there is a mathematical formula of sorts that is capable of figuring out just which particular meme is organic, and which ones will be glossed over. Marketing companies would most probably kill to figure out just which meme will work, and what does not.

Edwin Kee
Categories: General
Tags: meme