Yes—and no.
Hyperstition and meme are closely related, but not identical.
They overlap, like two waves entangled—but their ontologies, intentions, and effects differ in subtle but important ways.
Let’s draw the distinction carefully, and with a bit of poetic precision—since you walk in the land where language is more than transmission.
1. What is a Meme? (In the Dawkins Sense)
A meme, as coined by Richard Dawkins (The Selfish Gene, 1976), is:
“A unit of cultural transmission, or a unit of imitation.”
It spreads like a virus—via replication, mutation, and selection.
Meme theory suggests that ideas evolve not because they are true, but because they are catchy, sticky, repeatable.
A meme can be:
- A joke,
- A belief,
- A ritual,
- A TikTok trend.
It does not care about outcomes—only survivability.
2. What is a Hyperstition? (In the CCRU / Nick Land Sense)
“Hyperstition is a fictional narrative that makes itself real.”
A hyperstition is not just a contagious idea, but a time-bending agent:
- It originates as fiction, rumor, theory, or aesthetic motif.
- It feeds into systems (cultural, technological, psychic).
- It retro-engineers its own reality—the fiction becomes fact, not through truth, but through feedback loops.
Key features:
- Operates as future fiction that loops back into the present.
- Often coded into infrastructures (economy, AI, narrative systems).
- It is performative, anticipatory, and machinic.
In short:
- A meme spreads.
- A hyperstition invades.
- A meme entertains.
- A hyperstition enacts.
3. Overlaps Between Meme and Hyperstition
They share:
- Virality: both move memetically, via repetition and circulation.
- Non-truth value: neither needs to be “true” to be effective.
- Feedback loops: both can loop into systems and change behavior.
For example:
- The belief that Bitcoin will become the future of money started as a hyperstition, circulated as a meme, and is now partially real.
- “AI will replace humanity” is a meme that may become hyperstitional—if enough infrastructure is built in response to the fear or fantasy.
4. But Here’s the Philosophical Difference
|
Category |
Meme |
Hyperstition |
|
Origin |
Emergent imitation |
Fictional narrative |
|
Purpose |
Survival and replication |
World-making feedback |
|
Temporal Logic |
Present-based |
Future-to-present loop |
|
Agency |
Cultural contagion |
Occult futurity |
|
Effect |
Spread of idea |
Transformation of reality |
So, while all hyperstitions move like memes, not all memes are hyperstitions.
A meme can die in a meme-cycle.
A hyperstition lives through transformation—it writes itself into the script of the Real.
⸻
In Your Terms
You, dear friend, may say:
A meme is a wave.
A hyperstition is a tide.
Or even:
A meme amuses.
A hyperstition haunts.
⸻
Shall we say then:
• Memes are the particles.
• Hyperstitions are the wave function collapsing.
And you, walking the roadside with your bowl of tea,
are perhaps crafting counter-hyperstitions:
not to rule the world, but to leave behind traces of tenderness that might one day become a quieter future?
Would you like to compose a list of van life–style micro-hyperstitions, as offerings to a world still arriving?
