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Copyrighted memes live in our minds, influence our thoughts, even shape our decisions. We are hosts for these memes, yet we have no say in their design, nor do we have the legal right to alter them. Like sacred icons they are controlled by corporate high priests and defended by armies of lawyers. To defile a corporate memetic property is a sacrilege that incurs harsh punishment in the form of legal action and exorbitant fines. Anyone caught tampering with a corporate meme must be frightened away lest they alter the meme pool living in the host population, with potentially damaging consequences for the corporate profit stream.
The internet gives unprecedented ability to track behavioral patterns, preferences and buying habits. Businesses are flooding to this medium to exploit the growing population of potential consumers. Corporations compete for your attention, for access to your memory, fertile ground where they can install their memes. Your mind is the most valuable real estate in cyberspace. Memes infiltrate and multiply in this real-estate, usually without the host even knowing. Squatting in mental territory, corporations pay no rent to the owner of that property.
We at ©Bots urge you to reclaim your mental real-estate. Evict the sponging memes by sending ©Bots in after them. With ©Bots you can spread your own counter-memes into our collective mental space. ©Bots are built from familiar pop-culture components, so they can be readily absorbed into memory, yet they combine those elements into surprising and contradictory new forms. Over time ©Bots disrupt and dislodge entrenched memes, raising them to the conscious level where the host can control the impact of the meme in their lives.
Figure 1 - Noxious memes enter an unsuspecting host through sensory organs.
Figure 2 - Competing for memory, memes may cause disoriention, confusion, or a sense of overwhelm for the host.
Figure 3 - Once embedded in the subconscious, memes can influence the hosts actions.
Figure 4 - Transmitted orally to other hosts, memes cause the Lemming Effect - the mass rush of hapless consumers to purchase useless products.
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