How a 'Beme' Works

I am at 3GSM in Barcelona all this week talking about how the "third screen" is coming to a mobile phone near you soon. I was going to be writing about the new features and applications driving wireless for the Bubble Generation, but my blog yesterday on "bemes" has generated a lot of mail.  I thought I'd better elaborate with a story.

On Sunday, I had a chance to catch the FC Barcelona/Real Racing soccer match (hey, got to do something until the Patriots suit back up in August).  It was a great game and my seats at the foot of the south net meant I got a closeup look at the amazing Ronaldinho score both his goals in Barca's 2-zip win. 

Now, if you've ever attended a sporting event in Europe you know that its quite a bit different an experience than a day at the park American-style.  You know, lots of colorful team songs, home-brought food and a fog bank of cigarette smoke.  Odd thing was, 10 minutes into the second period, the +90,000 people in the stadium start doing the "wave."  Inherently, the wave exemplifies a beme.  Let me explain.

First, you have to admit that it is somewhat remarkable that the Spanish were even doing the wave.  First concocted 25 years ago by Krazy George as a way to kill time during boring Oakland A's games (at least that's the meme mythology), the wave has crossed the planet as a sports arena staple.  The fact that the wave has become a universal practice defines what Richard Dawkins meant by a "meme," a widely-shared cultural artifact.  But doing the wave--the act of standing and waving ones arms in orchestrated unison, is to be part of a beme.  Case in point: at the Barcelona game each successive round of the wave could be attributed to a single flag-waving nutcase who stirred his seat mates, and then section mates and then 90,000 people to rise and shout and spill beers together.  His was a purposeful act to stimulate a social response on a mass scale.  Due to the massive scale of the Internet, it is now possible for ordinary people--like us bloggers--to do that on a global basis.  This helps explain the real power and potential of citizen publishing.

Now, one reader wrote with the belief that you can't artificially induce a meme, that bemes won't stick the way naturally-occurring memes do.  As proof, he cited the recent Cartoon Network PR stunt in Boston as an example of a failed attempt at a beme.  However, people actually are still talking about that guerrilla move and, ironically, just by repeating the story, he was promulgating the beme...and so it goes.  Blogging is not simply and passively sending a message in a bottle hoping someone will find it.  Blogging is a purposeful act to change the world--to get people to stand up, cheer, maybe spill some beer.  That's a beme.