Metro Memes

I’ve never been very struck on the idea of the meme, which has always seemed to me to be a somewhat overblown conceit for a natural and obvious aspect of concept formation and knowledge transfer that happens all the time. Attempts to draw parallels with genes seem to me to be strained in the interests of a snappy term that ought to be useful, but somehow doesn't quite work out. As an information scientist I would have expected discussions of memes to feature prominently in the professional literature, but evidently they don’t. I'd rather come to the conclusion that it was just a word contrived to draw an audience to its apparently intellectually sophisticated users, a word saying "look at me me ...me".

 

However, this week I was in Brussels and – intending to explore the exhibition grounds of Heysel, the most famous feature of which is the Atomium, supposedly representative of an iron atom – I decided to take the Metro from the Midi (or Zuid) station. A nice lady at a kiosk sold me a Brussels Ticket for 7.50 euros, valid all day anywhere on the system, and I followed the signs towards Line 6 and the platform for its terminus station - anglicised as King Baudoin. I was confronted with a line of ticket gates, but my ticket, which was a piece of card bearing a magnetic strip, wouldn’t work. Passengers came with Oyster-type cards, scanned them and were admitted to the system. There were no Metro staff to ask. Panic and annoyance. Recollections of George Tooker paintings of anxiety and entrapment on the New York Subway.

To cut a long story short, as well as several devious but unsuccessful attempts to beat the system, which must have been highly amusing to anyone watching the CCTV monitors, I asked a smartly dressed commuter for help. He led me to the last two ticket gates, alongside which were small red devices. Into one of these I inserted my ticket; it was swallowed briefly, read, and regurgitated, the gate opened, and I was on my way.

 
A couple of hours later I was back at the very same spot, and encountered a young oriental guy with a ticket similar to mine, wandering around looking very confused. With pride, confidence and a strong sense of international altruism I showed him what to do, and he was suitably grateful. So, I wondered, is this how knowledge of how to enter the Brussels Metro is passed on? Is this how you beat the Belgians at their own game? Normal processes of intuition or familiarity with similar systems in other parts of the world were clearly of little help. Had I discovered an unusual species of delayed-reaction meme, or just the consequences of an enthusiasm for a not properly-thought-through technological zeal? I would like to think that some hours later our oriental friend returned to the Midi/Zuid station and was able to forward his newfound competence to the next grateful beneficiary. And so on.