sig virus

A parasitic meme embedded in a sig block. There was a

meme plague or fad for these on Usenet in late 1991. Most

were equivalents of "I am a .sig virus. Please reproduce me

in your .sig block.". Of course, the .sig virus's memetic

hook is the giggle value of going along with the gag; this,

however, was a self-limiting phenomenon as more and more

people picked up on the idea. There were creative variants on

it; some people stuck "sig virus antibody" texts in their

sigs, and there was at least one instance of a sig virus

eater.

[Jargon File]