The "Bacon Meme": Torani Bacon Syrup

Bacon is delicious; this fact cannot be disputed. Unfortunately, it seems to be the case that bacon is no longer simply a food to be enjoyed by everyone but the jews but rather bacon has come to be something of a cultural icon. It is a well-known fact that I hate the term 'meme', for reasons I have already explained. So, I am not going to claim that there is a "bacon meme" out there infecting particular minds when people sneeze. However, it does seem to be the case that bacon is being utilized in a very problematic and unjustified way. Why problematic and unjustified, you ask?

Well, I recently came to learn that Torani makes Bacon Flavored Syrup. And I think the advent of Bacon Flavored Syrup has taken bacon too far. I have no problem with bacon qua bacon. And, hell, Beggin Strips were fine; dogs deserve bacon. But consider the following bacon products:

Baconnaise
Bacon Salt
Bacon Mints
Bacon Floss
Bacon Popcorn
Bacon Vodka
Bacon Explosion
Assorted Bacon Snacks

I take these products to be indicative of a problem.

First of all, bacon is not a spice; bacon is not a flavor additive. Salt, pepper, mint, cinnamon, and coriander are all kinds of food additives, spices and flavorings to be added to particular foodstuffs. Bacon is not a flavor additive; bacon is a food unto itself. So where garlic salt is a sensible product, insofar as garlic is a flavoring to be added to foodstuffs, Bacon Salt is not sensible given that bacon is not a flavoring, but rather is a foodstuff unto itself. Mint flavored floss? Fine, mint is a flavor. But bacon is not a flavor.

Second of all, bacon is not healthy. There are studies which articulate the negative health effects of bacon, in case you could not figure this shit out for yourself. So the question to ask, given the health issues associated with bacon, is whether or not it is problematic for bacon to be so prevalent in popular culture. If we can maintain that marketing cigarettes to children is problematic then why not argue that marketing bacon to children is problematic as well? Why promote bacon or place focus upon bacon when it is so detrimental to one's health?

It is one thing to consider bacon-flavoring as a problem. But when one considers items such as the Bacon iPhone Case or these Bacon Shoes I think a problem can be discerned given that we are taking bacon beyond being simply a food and have made bacon something more. Just as it would be problematic to have an iPhone case which resembled a pack of cigarrettes, or a pair of shoes decorated with used needles, I worry that embracing bacon in this way indicates a problem with how we understand both ourselves, our bodies, and the world in which we live. We have ignored both what bacon is and its health effects and turned bacon into something else, a perpetual referrent with a meaning and value somehow estranged from bacon unto itself.

Moreover, I am personally growing tired of bacon jokes. The Push Button, Receive Bacon joke was funny for a few minutes. I mean, man, those three red lines do kinda look like bacon...kinda. But we've crossed the damn line. And, sure, this xkcd bacon comic was kind of funny, and the Three Panel Soul, Bacon Ice Cream comic was good for a lol. But if we understand each of these particulars to be participants in a larger whole, that which idiots would label the "bacon meme", then what does that say about our species and its values? Or, well, our species minus the jews.

There is no such thing as a "bacon meme"; there is no such thing as a meme. Yet it does seem to be the case that "bacon" has come to be something more than just bacon. And you can argue that it is just a joke, or that this is a harmless bit of fun.

But when Torani suggests adding Bacon Syrup to whiskey in order to make a Bacon Manhattan? Something is fucked up.

Meme: Still fucking stupid

Remember Ceiling Cat is Watching you meme? Well, I have a Part 2.

Meme: a postulated unit or element of cultural ideas, symbols or practices, and is transmitted from one mind to another through speech, gestures, rituals, or other imitable phenomena.


Ideas are not finite, discreet, entities which can be packaged, and transferred from one incorporeal mind to another incorporeal mind.
Brain states, if we are uncomfortable with "idea" are, again, not discreet entities which can be packaged and transferred from one brain to another brain.

An idea is not an entity.
A brain state is not an entity.

If we want to talk about ideas / brain states as finite nuggets which are transferred from one mind to another via language, speech, gestures, rituals then we need to read Wittgenstein. Wittgenstein explained how language is not the transfer of one idea from one mind to another mind. Language is a game. Or read Roy Wood Sellars and his explanation of language.

When I say "the apple is red" I do not take my idea "apple is red" and somehow shove it into your little fucking brain / incorporeal mind with my magical virus words.

No one actually thinks than an idea or brain state is a little virus in my mind / brain which somehow poofs off into your mind / brain unless you’ve had the particular vaccine which applies to that particular idea / brain state. But the only way to maintain that "meme" is sensible is to tell that exact story: Some little finite and discreet idea "goes" from my "mind/brain" to your "mind/brain" via "language".

"meme" is a half-assed attempt to get Darwinian Evolutionary Theory to apply to Culture Studies. And it is fucking stupid.

Rant: Ceiling cat is watching you meme.

Since I first became aware of his existence I was certain that Richard Dawkins was an idiot, or at least a very irate and confused person. Initially I thought this because his idea of "conversing" with religous people involved him yelling at them and telling them they were stupid. Then after watching interviews with him and seeing his written works about religion I began to understand that he fundamentally misunderstood religion, shown through his trite and sophmoric arguments which were below even the standards of a basic Intro to Theology class. I thought, however, that maybe his work in other fields would be impressive and that his performance in the religious sphere resulted from his misunderstanding of religion, and not some flaw on his own part.

Then I read about memes.

A meme is "a unit of cultural transmission, or a unit of imitation". Dawkins argued that a meme "propagates from one mind to another analogously to the way in which a gene propagates from one organism to another as a unit of genetic information and of biological evolution." So, when I post, "ceiling cat is watching you masturbate" the "ceiling cat" meme replicates itself into your consciousness from my own (by way of the tubal interwebs) and then from your mind the celing cat meme can replicated again into the mind of another and this way the ceiling cat meme can "survive".

Forgetting for a moment that this is an entirely idiotic and flawed way of talking about ceiling cat jokes, what interests me is how this relates to the idea of God.

The notion of God exists as a means of explaining some of the things which we observe in the world. If a person is sick and they get better in a manner which cannot be explained we say, "God did it." because it serves as an explanation which fits with our chosen world view. Or, if there are other means by which something can be explained one may still choose to say, "God did it" if that fits better with their own world view. The idea of God gives an origin and explanation for a thing which happens in the world.

Now, how is the idea of memes not this exact same situation? We have a situation in which one person says, "ceiling cat is watching you masturbate" and then someone else who hears that says, "ceiling cat is watching you masturbate" to another person. And then Dawkins jumps from this thing that happens to the idea of some thingness, "meme", which explains the thing happening.

Now, arguably, any explanation or name or word will fit that same pattern. But if there is some flaw in utilizing a means of explanation which cannot be supported empirically (god) how is there not some flaw in utilizing a means of explanation which cannot be supported empirically (meme)? If it is problematic for an individual to go beyond empirical evidence in their positing that "god exists" is it not equally problematic to go beyond empirical evidence and posit that there exists this thing, "meme" that exists beyond yet also as part of the phrase, "Ceiling cat is watching you masturbate"? Do not both of these actions (claiming "God" and claiming "meme") attach onto empirical reality some other layer, some depth, some greater degree of explanation which only exists in-so-far as we say it does?

I think they do.

So, remember, Richard,