Memetics is the study of memes, and a meme is a unit of imitation. Our ability to imitate what we see others do is what sets us as human beings apart from the rest of the animal kingdom. Animals cannot generally learn by imitation; they have innate abilities, and talents which they each learn individually through trial and error. New behaviours are generally only learned by whole species or social groups in the animal kingdom over the course of the generations through natural selection choosing the animals who are born with a propensity for that behaviour. Human beings, on the other hand, can watch something being done and then immediately copy it themselves. When you imitate someone else, something is passed on. This 'something' can then be passed on again and again, and so take on a life of its own - this 'something' is a meme. Some examples of memes are: Clothes fashions, tunes, ideas, political opinions, particular ways of making something, recreational passtimes, and so on. Memes may also be clumped together and passed on as a whole memetic structure called a 'memeplex'; religion is a classic example of a memeplex, but so is something such as identifying oneself as a rocker, or a skater, which may not only include a certain taste in music but also a certain type of dress sense, and particular behaviour patterns and so on.

Often Memes are acquired and passed on without us consciously recognising that we are doing so. So much of our culture and our personalities is based on this principle of imitation that we will often imitate a word, phrase, way of thinking, accent, or whatever that we have seen and heard around us without realising what we are doing or where we have picked it up from.

Many people have heard of the idea called the 'six degrees of separation'; this tells us that we are socially separated from the entire population of the planet by six degrees of seperation. If you take all the people you know aws friends, aqcuaintances and work colleagues, or who you meet regularly during the course of your life in some way (such as, perhaps, the shopkeeper who sells you your morning paper or ciggaretes), they comprise the first degree; if you then take all the people they regularly come into contact with, that is the second degree; by the time you reach the sixth degree, for a normal / average person this will include the entire population of the planet. This shows you how quickly and easily a meme can spread and expand its influence. In the modern era of instant global communication and cheap travel the potential power of any meme is at the greatest it has ever been. 

There are a number of things that determines how 'infectious' a Meme is, and therefore how likely it is to be passed on. We are more likely to imitate someone we admire, or someone who is succesfull, powerful or intelligent, or someone we are attracted to. We are more likely to pick up a meme which will harmoniously fit into a memplex that we already have, or a memeplex which is capable of containing the individual memes that we already have. Increased frequency of exposure to a meme makes it more likely that we will adopt it. Noticably novel or original memes are more likely to be imitated because we gain social status by being imitated ourselves, so there is a tendency to want to be the first to acquire a new meme. A meme with practical / material benefits is more likely to be imitated, as is a meme with strong emotional resonance, beauty (poetic or material), humour, or which stimulates curiosity.

In many ways memes take on a life of their own, and are a powerful force over our lives. The theory of memetics is used to describe the mechanisms of 'social evolution'.

The idea of memetic warfare is that we can use an understanding of memetics to influence our society, and by extension the world, in  order to attain a chosen ideal. By consciously creating and / or spreading memes we can lead and control the actions of others, and define the directio in which society evolves. Memetic warfare is a war in the name of an ideal, whether that be rationally formulated as a political philosophy poetically described as a godform, or whatever. It is a war for the dominion of a idea / ideal over the hearts and minds of people, rather than the traditional war for the dominion of a nation over the lands of the earth. Those who engage in the practice of Memetice wafare are seeking to establish a kind of cryptocracy, in which an intellectual minority exerts influence over the lives of the majority from behind the scenes, expressing and asserting their will implicitly, enfolded within the memes they spread, rather than explicitly through material mechanisms of power such as government.

If you are interested in finding out how to engage in Memetic Warfare campaigns take a look at this page: