A memeplex was theorized by Richard Dawkins before he went off the deep end; a collection of memes which form a cohesive whole and have a web of inter-relationships and dependencies.
Any organized religion can be considered a memeplex, as can some cultural conventions and, I would have argued before the philosophy faculty had me removed, so too are many internet media fandoms and roleplaying games.

Think of this conception of The Others as a kind of contagious religious mania which induces compulsive behaviours, fixations, and shifts in values culminating in the carrier messily exploding from their own flesh as a huge lotus of volanic glass in which eyes are suspended reflecting a world entirely at odds with the physical surrounds while the less-progressed cases gather and wail prayer-like strings of gibberish.
Is this an accurate understanding of The Others? Maybe. It is definitely an accurate understanding of something in the setting.