Breeding memes in a corporate setting: what the developers of Dodo IS laugh at

Hello, Habr! Recently, I thought that “I want to laugh for five minutes” and began to recall working jokes. The more I laughed, the more I realized that the essence of memes is more complicated than it seems. In the end, I wrote this article, which has become a whole pseudoscientific research. Under the cut, there is a bit of theory and the most ossified memes of Dodo Pizza Engineering.







So let's get started. In the first three chapters there will be a lot of text, but there will be no pictures at all. Therefore, if you immediately want to find out what engineers at Dodo are laughing at, just scroll down to the bottom of the story. For more diligent and patient, I prepared a summary of popular science information.



I'll start my story with the fact that bioinformation consists of genes, and culture consists of memes.

Memetics and its foundations

Did you know that there is a section of scientific knowledge called "Memetics"?

Memetics is a theory of the content of consciousness and the evolution of culture, built by analogy with genetics and the biological theory of evolution of Darwin and originating from the concept of a meme proposed by the biologist Richard Dawkins. Proponents of memetics describe it as an approach to evolutionary models for transmitting cultural information based on the concept of memes.

And a meme is a unit of cultural information. That is, in fact, literally everything that transfers replicated information from person to person, from pictures on the Internet to religion, can be considered a meme.



Since memes are similar to genes, the same processes have become characteristic of them:

1. Natural selection. A meme, as a social phenomenon, cannot exist by itself, outside the eyes and minds of those who look. For meme to live, develop, spread, multiply, he needs viewers. There are fewer spectators than memes. Therefore, a simple evolutionary process of natural selection takes place, in which, as a rule, the strongest, funniest, topical one wins.
2. Mutation. This is a persistent change in the meme. Like all mutations, change can be spontaneous or induced. The spontaneous successful mutation of the meme can be attributed to the classic case, when the Medved errative grew up and the old, beloved, beloved Preved, Bear grew.
3. Artificial selection. Professional memo-guides carry out deliberate selection, amateurs act at random, and it also turns out pretty well. For example, I would attribute the Stubborn Fox in Keanu Reeves to the results of the fruits of professional breeders. But Stubborn fox in the hands of Zhdun rather to the expected selection by lovers.

Despite the fact that memetics has a founding father, community, research, publications, methodology, science has not yet received official approval from the global scientific community, because:

• there is no clear definition of the object of study (memetics refer to memes a too wide range of phenomena, literally everything);
• too literal an analogy with genetics (I don’t know why this is not so, perhaps this is not really liked by geneticists).

Corporate memetics

Any team is a special ecosystem, consisting of a huge number of laws, sequences, relationships, groups, metacons, and all that.



If you think about it, the more or less stable community of at least 2 people instantly grows in memes. In them, participants refer to past events that cause strong emotions, or simply memories that can be fully shared only within the community. A funny statement or picture cannot become a meme until they are repeated. It turns out a great way to unite the community through the experience of joint experience and emotions again and again. That is why new, only growing memes, often come with a background to give the reader / viewer the opportunity to experience that same “first time”.



It is funny that both positive and negative experiences can become a catalyst for the emergence of memes in any group, the main thing is that no one takes the situation to heart. These thoughts made me look differently at proverbs and sayings - these are memes of the past!



Corporate memes are an integral part of the life of modern society, they are born where the average person spends more than a third of his conscious life. They act as small-town folklore, can be divided into separate dialects (from department to department), be a secret mark only for those especially dedicated, and also serve as a bottomless resource for team building.



But, despite the prevalence and inevitability of the phenomenon, corporate memes very rarely leave the environment in which they were born. We will correct this annoying omission - we will share our treasures with the Khabrovsk citizens.



At Dodo Pizza Engineering, memes are blooming, even there are two internal channels-containers of memes and jokes (one without censorship, the second (for the most tender) with censorship and without mat), which we specially highlighted so as not to interfere with the work process.

What good is it

At first glance, it seems that memes are plus or minus creatures frivolous, superficial. However, if you look better, it turns out that they perform a bunch of functions and take out some shit on their fragile shoulders.

Useful Functions of Memes

1. Communicative. Sometimes people simply communicate through memes or transmit important information in an easy and accessible way. Just as part of a sentence, or, for example, briefly and succinctly on how to do it.
2. Self-expression, self-identification. Someone is joking to remind about the mistakes of the past, and someone, to remind themselves, to show what they are capable of, having demonstrated the full depth of their creativity.
3. Transmission of emotions. Humanity will never get tired of inventing ways to convey their emotions, trying to do this in the shortest and most expressive way possible. Despite the fact that the stereotypical meme should be funny, emotional memes more often than others can be based on negativity and not be fun at all. But this does not prevent them from taking a strong position in the hearts of people.
4. Cultural. Memes, as a means of transmitting cultural information, can create a specific cultural environment in which a particular person or a whole group is “cooked”. The environment already affects a person - a certain view is being developed on different events, things, phenomena.
5. Alarming. A way to talk about what's bothering you. Here, an important role is played by emotional coloring. It allows you to quickly assess the presence of a problem, and a wrapper in the form of a meme provides the speed of transmission and processing of a message.
6. Team building / opportunity to feel like a part of the company. Because people are deeply social creatures, they need to feel belonging to any group. This can be achieved by offering a suitable joke to those who are able to appreciate it. In addition, memes tied to a narrow group are a way to adapt in it. Studying memes, a beginner understands what atmosphere reigns in a group, how close this group is to him culturally, and whether he can join it.
7. Defensive reaction of the psyche / discharge of emotional tension. It’s convenient when you can pour out everything that has accumulated in the form of a meme, but this method of unloading often borders on toxicity and, instead of laughing, can lead to conflict, so be careful.

Well, now the time has finally come for what it was all about - for Dodo Pizza Engineering memes. In preparation, no engineer was hurt, except for tears and colic serious damage.

Internal Memes Dodo Pizza Engineering

Guys, all the memes that I quote below are the fundamental classics of our inner humor, which holds a lot. There will be screenshots of correspondence in Slack and small explanations. If something remains completely incomprehensible - write in the comments.

That's all for today. Write in the comments if any memes seemed painfully familiar to you or share your unique ones. Again I want to laugh for five minutes.