PressEthic

Oh, memes. There’s apparently no consistent definition, although Richard Dawkins, who first popularized the term in his book The Selfish Gene, defined it as "a unit of cultural transmission, or a unit of imitation."

Anything, from a movie catchphrase to a religion, can be a meme. In fact:

The concept of memes itself comprises a meme. Even the idea that the concept of memes is itself a meme has become a widely spread meme. However, the idea that the idea that the concept of memes is itself a meme is not yet particularly common as a meme. (Not to mention that, at this stage, the idea makes most people's heads hurt.)

The most common examples, at least those most often called memes, appear in blogs, especially less formal ones. Frequently, they take the form of quizzes.

You can find out what circle of Hell you’re going to, what Care Bear you are, when you’re going to die, what type font best suits you, whether you’re a male or a female, and where you should live.*

Bringing us back to ethics, you can also find out how evil a website is, based on some numerological calculations I don't entirely understand.

Basically, Gematria is searching for different patterns through the text, such as the amount of words beginning with a vowel. If the amount of these matches is divisible by a certain number, such as 7 (which is said to be God's number), there is an incontestable argument that the Spirit of God is ever present in the text. Another important aspect in gematria are the numerical values of letters: A=1, B=2 ... I=9, J=10, K=20 and so on. The Gematriculator uses Finnish alphabet, in which Y is a vowel.

Let’s start right here. PressEthic (as of writing this) is 47% evil. My corner of it is 56% evil.

The New York Times is under fire lately, but it’s only 28% evil. AM New York beats that; it’s only 1% evil. The Philadelphia Inquirer is 35% evil, just a little more than the Wall Street Journal at 33%. The Washington Post is 23% evil.

The National Enquirer, a supermarket tabloid, is only 1% evil. TVGuide is 36% evil.

Slate? 46% evil.

And apparently, the word “business” has a value of 666.

None of this is serious, of course. It’s a game, a little online toy where you can make a nice, shiny button for your LiveJournal.

But in a time when ethics are so confusing, when we don’t know what people are taking a stand for, when rights and responsibilities are shakier than ever, it’s nice to know that, according to someone’s mathematical calculations, the Times is still 72% good.

Now let’s shoot for higher.

*If you’re wondering: Purgatory, Champ Bear, age 78, Arial, female, and El Paso, Texas.