meme

An Internet meme, more commonly known simply as a meme (/miːm/ MEEM), is a type of meme which is spread via the Internet, often through social media platforms. Colloquially, the term may also refer specifically to pieces of media that take the general format of such memes, traditionally but not exclusively combining image macros with a concept or catchphrase.^[1] These traditional types of memes can be very simplistic, often featuring a single word or phrase. In some cases these words and phrases contain intentional misspellings (such as lolcats) or incorrect grammar (such as doge and "All your base are belong to us"). However, in more recent times, memes have evolved from simple image macros with text to more elaborate things such as challenges, GIFs and viral sensations. These small movements tend to spread from person to person via social networks, blogs, direct email, or news sources. They may relate to various existing Internet cultures or subcultures, often created or spread on various websites. Fads and sensations tend to grow rapidly on the Internet because the instant communication facilitates word of mouth transmission. Some examples include posting a photo of people lying down in public places (called "planking") and uploading a short video of people doing the Harlem Shake.

The word meme was coined by Richard Dawkins in his 1976 book The Selfish Gene as an attempt to explain how ideas replicate, mutate and evolve (memetics).^[2] The concept of the Internet meme was first proposed by Mike Godwin in the June 1993 issue of Wired. In 2013, Dawkins characterized an Internet meme as being a meme deliberately altered by human creativity—distinguished from biological genes and his own pre-Internet concept of a meme, which involved mutation by random change and spreading through accurate replication as in Darwinian selection.^[3] Dawkins explained that Internet memes are thus a "hijacking of the original idea", the very idea of a meme having mutated and evolved in this new direction.^[4] Furthermore, Internet memes carry an additional property that ordinary memes do not: Internet memes leave a footprint in the media through which they propagate (for example, social networks) that renders them traceable and analyzable