Glancing at the comments over at the theOtaku.com Anime Podcast X, ep.5, I found an interesting idea that I've had but never really expressed it before:
"I still think its possible to go through life and not end up absorbing every bit of culture. If you're allergic to a particular music genre, like I am, and do your best to avoid it, then it's very possible you won't hear a song no matter how popular it is." TimeChaser
Go read the comments and listen to the podcast for more context, but the general idea is clear enough in the comments.
You know what? I agree with TimeChaser's view that it's possible to not know this meme from that, despite being on the internet and associating with people who know them. From personal experience, when I first heard people talking about memes, I thought of Richard Dawkins' analogy with genes. A couple of years later, and I still don't know what the heck some people are talking about when I hear the latest meme (in fact, I'm not even sure if they're memes at all, which further reveals my lack of knowledge concerning internet culture, haha). I have no idea what most Japanese anime terms mean, and it was only a couple of months ago when I finally learned what "pantsu" meant (ffff you, Strike Witches). I could probably go on and on listing what memes I don't know, and do you know why? My interests are elsewhere, and those interests don't even remotely involve memes or pantsu.
For instance, I'm currently reading a two-part document published by the U.K. House of Lords titled "Surveillance: Citizens and the State". I've also got lined up "The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms", "USA PATRIOT act", "Katz v. United States", and other legal papers dealing either directly or indirectly with the topics of surveillance and the right to privacy. The reason I mention these is to give you and idea of where my thoughts are right now, and to show you the kinds of stuff I'm generally interested in - viz. things that make little or no reference internet culture.
Of course, most meme knowledge depends on the sites you visit, which are somehow related to your interests. In my case, I already expressed my interests, so the sites I visit often are journals, academic resources and podcasts, and wherever I can buy/borrow a book! When it comes to anime I come here, and over to OtakuBoards. If I want to have fun with films, I go over to 100thingsIlearned.com and be a jerk. In sum, I can travel the internet and avoid most memes and various internet terms, despite the fact that I have some contacts who know more about that stuff than I ever will. (Another case: I don't really know what the heck "troll" means. I've seen it used more than once as a badly thought-out knee-jerk reaction to whomever simply disagrees with another.)
So yeah, I'm not a snob about internet culture or anything, it's just that most of it doesn't interest me enough to find out what it all means. Of course, when it does interest me, it's for reasons other than my wanting to use those terms or memes (e.g. I think terms like "troll" and "flaming" shouldn't even be used by anyone engaging in fairly serious discussions: those terms don't help reasoned argument at all; they just encourage quick reactions). Other than that, I don't swim in the popular online meme pool, but hang out by the side reading some boring texts, occasionally getting splashed whenever someone does a cannonball.
