The central thesis I present here is not new to memetics, at least not to the philosophy of biology: classical (Dawkinsian) memetics is rife with scientific and theoretical problems and must be radically modified (or altogether discarded). What is new here is my claim that the supposed failure of memetics, the interdiscipline, can become a crucial advantage for meme studies, the transdiscipline; and that the temptation of memeology, the multidiscipline, must be resisted (just as we resisted the temptation of sociobiology). The time is right for turning meme studies into an inclusive transdiscipline, given the development of modern data science and the digital humanities, as well as the boom in the sophisticated philosophical understandings of culture and the internet. Yet, data alone is not enough, just as a memetic theory alone was not enough. We need metamemetics, the philosophy of meme studies.
Published as part of Critical Meme Reader III - Breaking the Meme
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