On quizzes, tests and silly lj games

[bolson]

From the altfriday5: 1. How often do you do a "Which X are you -- pretty pictures!" type of quiz? How often do you post the results? Why do you do them (or why not)?

Almost never. Years ago something told me INTP but it didn't come with a pretty picture. I just don't see the appeal. Sometimes the questions and answers are amusing. If everyone else was doing it I'd have to check it out, but seeing the result of one or two other people doesn't pique my interest generally. I think I've taken a few and not posted the results because the answer didn't strike me as funny or insightful.

2. How often do you do a "Answer a bunch of questions about yourself in your journal" type of quiz (excluding friday fives ;-)? Why do you do them (or why not)?

I've done that once or twice. It doesn't really fit into my style of lj usage which is just occasional happenings and musings. I play the alt friday 5 because I know the questioner and that makes it much more interesting than the usual anonymity of the internet.

3. How often do you make a "tell me something" (e.g. a compliment, a secret, etc.) and/or "I'll tell you something" type of post?Why do you do them (or why not)?

Never done that, but I've used other people's offers of such before. Oh, I know, if I posted one of those I'd get terribly few responses proving how few friends I have.

4. How do you feel about the enjoinder that one "must post this in your journal!"? How do you feel about tagging specific people to answer the same questions or otherwise pass the concept of the post along?

I think when tagged I've played along, but I wouldn't tag people. It's a stupid game.

5. What is a "meme", in your own words? Have you ever heard the formal of a "meme", and if so, what is it?

Grrrr. lj-meme is such a horrible misuse of "meme" which is a much more interesting concept than these stupid quizzes and question games. A "meme" is a thought gene, an idea gene. The environment is what's in people's heads right now. Memes reproduce by being communicated from person to person. Memes mutate. Some memes are useless or unattractive and die. Some last a long long time. Ever hear the one about the jewish carpenter who walked on water?

Comments

[motyl.livejournal.com]

s/proving how few friends I have/proving that my friends know they can talk to me about anything without needing silly memes as an excuse/

This is a good thing.

And as an aside
Memes reproduce by being communicated from person to person. Memes mutate. Some memes are useless or unattractive and die. Some last a long long time.

Ignoring the quizzes, you do know that you just described an lj-meme, yes? =P

[lightcastle.livejournal.com]

Someone beat me to it. I was also going to argue that "LJ Quizzes are a good way to prove how many friends I have/prove that my friends know they can talk to me about anything without needing silly memes as an excuse/" etc, could be a meme.

[soong.livejournal.com]

having friends with whom one can talk about anything without a silly pretext is indeed good.

ok ok, lj-memes can go through similar processes. but I still want 'meme' to only be the spicific thing it was before these lj things started popping up. I think I shall now refer to these things as l-jenes (ell-geenes). (it'll never catch on. weak meme)

[catya.livejournal.com]

I think the jewish carpenter meme is actually a good bit older than that. Mithras, etc? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life-death-rebirth_deity