Baraka_Guru

The idea of the "Internet meme" has indeed cheapened the idea of memes in general. I guess there is nothing you can do to stop the shifting meaning of words and concepts.

I'm prepared to call this sort of thing a fetishization or yet another bit of Internet-manifested hyperreality. But a meme? I think that's a stretch, just like most other things labeled as such. But I guess calling things "hyperreality" isn't as quaint as calling it a "meme."

That said, I must admit I was unable to look away. It was like some kind of grotesque novelty that had me staring---enthralled even.

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Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot