The Knitting Fiend

As regular readers know, I proposed a “Blog Carnival”. Naturally, a reader emailed asking what the heck is a Carnival?

Reading that, I remembered that the word “blog” itself was unfamilar to readers in 2004. So, it is hardly surprising that the concent of a “Blog Carnival” is also new. “Better explain that”, thought I!

Ok, so I patiently explained that it’s sort of a method of “running a simultaneous meme.”

My answer was so immensely clear that a curious reader emailed to ask this:

“..for those of us who don’t really understand even the basics of carnival, what is a “blog meme”?

(I find myself asking myself: It is possible to describe one “blog thing” without describing another equally mysterious “blog thing”? Well, lucky for me she didn’t ask me how to pronounce ‘meme’, because I don’t know!)

Ok… here’s my attempt to answer “What is a meme?”

First, the term “meme” is short for “me, me, me, me”. It captures the concept of “me too”.

Because speakers of English like to create new words, blogs are fairly new, and bloggers often decided to write “me too” responses commenting on other people’s articles, bloggers coined a new word.

This new word is “meme”.

It describes a blog topic every blogger jumps on after reading another blog article. It is as though, bloggers are collectively saying, “She had her say. Now listen to ‘me, me, me, me, me’!!!!”

So, for example, if “Michelle Malkin” (currently the #1 blogger as rated by The Truth Laid Bear), writes an article on “fish sticks” today, tomorrow, we might read 1000 bloggers all writing about fish sticks.

That’s the type of memes often seen on political blogs.

We also sometimes see this type of meme at knitting blogs, but it doesn’t spread quite so rampantly. Although Wendy and Carrie are widely read, and bloggers are influenced by their articles, other knit bloggers do not necessarily decide to write about “fish sticks” simply because Wendy or Carrie do so.

Knitting blogs do memes a bit differently. What happens with knit blogs is this:

Someone creates a subject, and writes a blog article. When they finish writing, they “tag” three other bloggers and ask them to write blog about that subject. Often, at least one of those blogger writes on the subject and tags others.

This is called a “meme” because each blogger is providing their opinion, or spin, on the same exact subject.

Now, in a normal “meme” situation, the topic gets discussed serially. Blogger A discusses, then a few more bloggers, then other bloggers. You can all read my entry for “The Days Of Our Lives Meme”. Jussi tagged me. I took her up, but I tagged no one. (This was because every blog I read at the time had already been tagged!)

But, let’s get back to the whole Carnival issue. In a blog a Carnival, Blogger A suggests at topic and invites any and all bloggers to pretty much give their spin on the topic at the same time. If loads of people participate, this means we can all read everyone ideas at nearly the same time.

As a general rule, this can be both more entertaining, and informative. Each blogger gives their spin without reading anyone else’s idea first. A Carnival is “me too” in the sense that we all discuss the same topic, but no blogger is entirely influenced by someone else’s post.

I don’t think Carnivals will replace the other sort of meme, but they are fun. I’m hoping to run one every other week. If they catch on, that will be great. If, after trying to launch a few, no one is interested, I’ll just bag it.

So, once again, I suggest you participate in the The Carnival Of Knitting.

And why shouldn’t you participate. Let’s face it, you’re a blogger. A blogger needs to blog. So, why not hope to post your opinion and later read other peoples. That’s the fun of a Carnival!