Memes: wait, what?

Dennet has a very particular way of describing memes as if they were living organisms. He seems to describe them as tiny microbes or viruses or bacterium that invade our body for a purpose, which is to reproduce and survive. I am very interested in the ideas he is putting forth about biological evolution and its further applications. However I feel like he took this meme thing a little too far. By the time I was done with the reading I realized he had spent all that time comparing a simple idea, like the idea of free speech, to a microbe of some sort that actively tries to reproduce and further its "species". I found this to be a little too far out there. Perhaps I missed the analogy or just didn't get the example, but I find it pretty ridiculous to give minds and will to something that we created. I simply find it difficult to believe that the idea of colors has its own autonomy in this world. Like I said, maybe he was just using that to demonstrate his ideas, but it just felt too silly for me to take it seriously at all.