Meme (MEEM)
Origin
Coined in 1976 by evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins in his book The Selfish Gene. Dawkins wanted a word describing a unit of cultural transmission that could spread and evolve somewhat like genes.
Language Root
From Greek mīmēma (“something imitated”), from mimeisthai (“to imitate”). Dawkins shortened the term to meme partly so that it would resemble the word gene.
Original Meaning
An idea, behavior, phrase, fashion, melody, or other element of culture that spreads from person to person through imitation.
Evolution Over Time
Meme originally had nothing specifically to do with funny internet pictures. Dawkins used it to discuss how cultural information spreads and changes. With the growth of online communities in the 1990s and 2000s, “internet meme” became a common term for images, jokes, videos, phrases, and formats that people repeatedly copied and modified. Eventually, meme became strongly associated with this internet phenomenon.
Modern Usage
A piece of cultural content—especially an image, video, phrase, joke, or recognizable format—that spreads rapidly between people and is often copied, remixed, or altered.
Word Family
Meme, Memes, Memetic, Memetics, Memeable
Related Concept
Imitation, Culture, Internet Culture, Virality, Social Media, Evolution, Communication, Remix Culture
Narrative
Long before memes filled social-media feeds, meme was a word about cultural evolution. Richard Dawkins needed a name for ideas that reproduce by passing from mind to mind. He looked to Greek mīmēma—“something imitated”—and shortened it to sound like gene. The internet then provided the perfect environment for his concept. A photograph gets a caption. Someone changes it. Thousands copy it. Millions recognize the joke. The individual versions disappear, but the underlying idea keeps reproducing. The internet didn’t invent the meme. It turned the meme into something we could watch evolve in real time.