Memes & Where They Came From

Fair Warning: It’s Caturday and I’ll be using Cat memes as illustrations.

Any scroll though social media feed will likely surface plenty of memes. They are all over the place. Some don’t seem to make any sense. Some are funny. Some make you think. Others express a very real point.

I was surprised to learn the term was coined by Richard Dawkins, a British evoluntionary biologist and author. His most well known books were written to support his atheism. He introduced the term in his 1976 work “The Selfish Gene”.

The term comes from the Greek word ‘mimeme’ meaning an imitated thing. Dawkins used the term to describe an idea, behaviour or style that would be rapidly shared from person to person within a culture. It would be a few decades later before the word would be appropriated into the digital world.

Memes are often created for shock value or to spread a message. A single image or video can trigger a deluge of humourous variations. Remember the Bernie Sanders image from the Biden Inauguration?

In 1993 “Wired” magazine defined a meme as “an infectious idea.. Much as viruses leap from body to body”. They didn’t really take off in popularity until around 2012. They’ve been an unstoppable force since.

Let’s break down a MEME:

• MESSAGE — must be clearly definable and relateable through common shared knowledge. Can be image, text, video, audio or a mix of them.
• EVOLUTION — doesn’t remain as a single depiction. Adapting and remixing by those who embrace the message has to happen.
• MALLEABILITY — aids its own evolution with characteristics that can be changed while retaining a semblance of the original
• EFFECT — going viral is essential for a meme to be effective.

The First Meme on the Internet

In 1996 the Dancing Baby meme made the rounds

It even made an appearance on the Ali Mcbeal show

You can find memes just about any where you look.

There’s:

• a meme subreddit.
• easy to find on Pinterest.
• their own account on Instagram
• hashtag on YouTube #memes
• hashtag on Twitter #memes
• of course they have a website

A search for Hive communities for Memes has several results.

These just scratch the surface of finding memes. Although, it doesn’t take much since they are every where and people just appropriate them to either pass on as is or modify.

NOTES:

1. Where did the meme images come from? Any place I found them. Swiped in true internet tradition
2. https://www.thrillist.com/entertainment/nation/first-meme-ever

Shadowspub is a writer from Ontario, Canada. She writes on a variety of subjects as she pursues her passion for learning. She also writes on other platforms and enjoys creating books you use like journals, notebooks, coloring books etc.

Share your posts by joining us on the DreemPort Discord