memetics

/me-met'iks/ The study of memes.

As of mid-1993, this is still an extremely informal and speculative endeavor, though the first steps toward at least statistical rigor have been made by H. Keith Henson and others. Memetics is a popular topic for speculation among hackers, who like to see themselves as the architects of the new information ecologies in which memes live and replicate.

[Jargon File]