family recipes

sourdough starters

cutting sandwiches diagonally

particular ways of folding pizza

“five-second rule”

putting a wet phone into rice

Useful, useless and questionable practices can all be culturally transmitted.

A meme does not have to be true to spread.

It does not have to be useful.

It does not have to benefit its host.

It merely needs properties that allow further transmission.

This is one of the most important—and most uncomfortable—ideas in memetics.