Shauna GM
boosted
"A critical thing about #memes: for any #meme to be successful, it needs to be readapted to new contexts. And when it is — literally, that is in the word — the context collpases, right?
But that's how ideas spread. Ideas don't spread if you can't apply them to a new situation. So, in a way, #contextcollapse is inevitable."
@etymology.substack.com talks about the ways #socialmedia #algorithms have accelerated the context collapse that changes the words we use.