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Mar 20, 2024 · There were a lot more memes and meme formats going viral faster and harder than ever before, and fewer and fewer of them made any real sense to those outside of the know. This all led to what many consider the " surreal era " of memes between 2017 and 2020, denoted by formats like Lord Marquaad E, Ugandan Knuckles , the B emoji and deep-fried memes .
The word meme was influenced by the word gene and is the shortened version of mimeme. It was derived from the ancient Greek word “mīmēma,” which means “imitated.” Dawkins draws a parallel between the two because, much like genes, memes spread ideas, styles, and behaviors from person to person within a culture, often carrying a symbolic meaning that represents a phenomenon or theme.
- What Is A Meme?
- Meme vs. Image Macro
- Recent Examples of Memes
- Learn More About Memes
You might be surprised to know that the word meme didn't originate online. In fact, author Richard Dawkins first used the word in his 1976 work The Selfish Gene. The book looked at evolution and used memeto describe an idea or behavior that spreads across people in a culture. When someone says meme nowadays, they're probably referring to an interne...
Before we continue, we should address a common wording mistake. Many people use the word memeto refer to any image that has text overlaid on it. For example, here's a random image of a guy using a computer with some text I added: The proper term for this is an image macro; this is not a meme. Why not? Because this hasn't spread across the internet....
In internet time, the above memes are ancient history. Here are some of the most popular memes from the past few years.
We've taken a tour of five classic and five modern memes, but this is only a tiny sampling. Memes are constantly emerging and dying off---what's insanely popular today is stale next week. Many memes originate from corners of the internet like 4chan and Reddit. Eventually, if they stay popular, they make their way to mainstream social networks. If y...
- Ben Stegner
- Editor-In-Chief
Oct 13, 2022 · The word now is defined as "the study of memes" but memetics describes how ideas reproduce, change and evolve. Dawkins used "meme" to represent any piece of cultural information or content which ...
- Olivia Munson
- SEO, Trending Reporter
Apr 20, 2023 · The concept of memes traces its roots to biologist Richard Dawkins’s 1976 book, The Selfish Gene. Dawkins defined a meme as a cultural unit that spreads from person to person, much as genes spread through reproduction. The term meme itself comes from the Greek word mimema, which means “that which is imitated.”
The meme as a unit provides a convenient means of discussing "a piece of thought copied from person to person", regardless of whether that thought contains others inside it, or forms part of a larger meme. A meme could consist of a single word, or a meme could consist of the entire speech in which that word first occurred.
Jul 13, 2022 · Context can have a huge impact on what a meme means or how relevant it is to the recipient. Memes can also impart significantly more information than simple text alone.
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