A curated list of resources, tools, papers, and projects related to Memetics — the study of memes as units of cultural transmission and evolutionary dynamics.
- 📚 Theory & Foundations
- 🧠 Academic Papers
- 🧮 Computational Memetics
- 🧪 Experiments & Simulations
- 🔧 Tools & Libraries
- 📊 Datasets
- 📎 Related Fields
- 🎙️ Talks & Lectures
- 🧭 Influential Figures
- 📦 Repos to Watch
- The Selfish Gene – Richard Dawkins (1976), coined the term "meme" as a replicator in cultural evolution.
- Thought Contagion – Aaron Lynch (1996), mathematical treatment of memetic spread.
- Viruses of the Mind – Dawkins’ essay exploring memes as parasitic cognitive entities.
- The Meme Machine – Susan Blackmore, expands on Dawkins with memetic theory as a framework for consciousness and culture.
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MOSAIC:Modeling Social AI for Content Dissemination and Regulation in Multi-Agent Simulations - The MOSAIC framework introduces a generative, multi-agent simulation using LLM-powered personas to model social network behavior, including content sharing, flagging, and misinformation spread. It evaluates moderation strategies that both reduce misinformation and boost engagement, while revealing a mismatch between agents’ stated reasoning and actual behavior. The open-source project offers a scalable tool for studying online dynamics and AI-driven content ecosystems.
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One pathogen does not an epidemic make: A review of interacting contagions, diseases, beliefs, and stories - This review argues that contagion models—used across biology, computing, and social science—have evolved in disciplinary silos, often assuming that each contagion spreads in isolation. It challenges that assumption, showing how biological and social contagions frequently interact within and across hosts, with significant implications for modeling accuracy and real-world application. The authors call for a unified, interdisciplinary approach to contagion science that bridges social and biological domains.
MOSAIC-submission - a framework for simulating social media dynamics using AI agents with configurable personalities and behaviors. The simulation can be used to study the spread of information, misinformation, and the effects of various moderation strategies.
- 🧬 Cultural Evolution
- 🕸 Network Theory
- 🧪 Epidemiology of Ideas
- 🤯 Cognitive Psychology
- 🧠 Memetic Engineering
- 📈 Information Dynamics
- 🎯 Influence Operations
Pull requests welcome! This list thrives on thoughtful contributions. Please keep it focused on memetics as a scientific and analytical field rather than purely entertainment memes.