What’s In Your Meme

Stop right now and go dump out the entire contents of your backpack, messenger bag, purse, or whatever. Then organize that into interesting little clusters, snap a photo, and post it to online to show the world. You have just participated in one of the most interesting photo meme’s thats lightening up the pages of Flickr daily. So lets take a look at what makes the “what’s in your” meme so popular.

Technorati Tags: airplane-essentials, Apple, flickr, moleskin, productivity, ipod, meme, whats-in-my-bag

Find out about new stuff

If advertisers could figure out how to capitalize on this thing they would make bank. Checking out what other people keep as their daily “must have” items is a great way to see not only what is hot on the market, but also it gives you a general idea about the usefulness of the product.

Additionally, this applies to items beyond things like a cellphone or iPod. You are able to see what books people are reading and even down to what pen they use with what moleskin they have in their bag.

Due to the tagging feature provided by Flickr, you can look at the brief descriptions people offer about the contents of their bag. This is great because you can then read exactly what kind of digital camera that is, or which generation iPod. Serious, this is some of the best product research you can do, its like word-of-mouth 2.0.

Creativity and Productivity

I’m a big sucker for productivity p0rn which is essentially why I specifically like this meme. I can check out all the neat productivity items people carry around with them, but more importantly I am able to become inspired in two ways, creatively and productively.

On the creative end I am able to check out how people are designing their stuff and thus become inspired. For example, one user shows his laptop and it has a lot of cool designs on it. That then helps to get my own creative juices flowing.

Secondly, on the productivity side I am able to get ideas about how people are organizing their stuff. I am able to become better organized by simply checking out what works for others and even what items others have that help them stay organized.

Subgroups

The last interesting bit about this meme is the subgroups embedded within the overall meme. For example, some people chose to only show airplane essentials. Furthermore, others like to show off all of their photography equipment. You can find collections of moleskins, or even Apple related products. Whatever you are into there is certainly a subgroup to meet your tastes.

Why you would want to know

Common, it just human nature to covet thy neighbors bag contents. For me, it is mostly curiosity. I spend hours just looking at the junk other people carry around with them. Certainly I can’t be the only people in the world that is into this kind of thing. I highly recommend that if you are not participating in this particular meme that you give it a try, or at the very least check it out for yourself.

Happy hunting!