VMeme

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^vMeme is a typographic construction created for the 1996 book, Spiral Dynamics: Mastering Values, Leadership, and Change. It collapses a v for 'value system' and meme in an effort to represent an "idea attractor" rather than an information packet. The word meme was coined by Richard Dawkins in 1976 for idea chunks which are similar to genes — they replicate, spread, and compete for dominance in human consciousness. They are attracted, ignored, or repelled by minds at different levels of psychological existence based on their fit, and how they are received. Memes are like contents; ^vMemes are like containers.

In Spiral Dynamics, the distinction between memes (idea packages which behave like mind viruses) and Gravesian levels of psychological existence designated as ^vMemes is clear. The memetics aspect was included because it was a new field and the "levels of existence" theory appeared to offer a framework it lacked, just as memetics helped explain some of the apparent variability within Gravesian levels. Subsequently, some readers conflated memes with ^vMemes and incorrectly used the term "meme" for both concepts.