Meme

The Oxford English Dictionary defines the meme as an element of a Culture (taken here in the sense of civilization) can be regarded as transmitted by nongenetic means, especially through imitation. The term meme was first proposed by Richard Dawkins in The Selfish Gene and comes from an association between gene and mimesis. Dawkins also points to a close kinship with the French word same. Memes were presented by Dawkins as replicators, comparable in this respect to genes, but responsible for the evolution of certain animal behaviors and cultures. Dawkins's definition is a unit of information in a brain, exchangeable within a society. It results from an assumption that cultures evolve as living beings, and variations by natural selection. Like the gene, the meme is the basic unit in this…

Meme Essay Memes are amusing images, videos, phrases etc. that people from all over the world create and spread all over the internet. Memes literally pop up out of nowhere and they show up on social media sites all of the time. They are everywhere and have been popular since the mid 2000’s. Memes are used as a form of a medium that people use to express their creativity and or beliefs. A controversial belief that people typically argue are rights of a particular group of people. Transgender…

People encounter memes in their everyday lives, whether it be on message boards, social media websites, or in conversations with friends and colleagues, memes are an inescapable aspect of American society. The first use of the term “meme” was by Richard Dawkins, an evolutionary biologist and author, who first used the term to describe the spread of cultural information between individuals within a culture. Internet memes, in particular, are used to spread the culture of the internet among…

Rao, Venkatesh. "Memes Are Not Popular Because They Are Meaningful." Opposing Viewpoints Online Collection, Gale, 2018. Opposing Viewpoints in Context, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/EZVELA053695431/OVIC?u=jack64631&xid=4ef99e7. Accessed 20 Feb. 2018. Originally published as "How Harambe Became the Perfect Meme," The Atlantic, 6 Sept. 2016. In this article “Memes Are Not Popular Because They Are Meaningful” Venkatesh Rao claims that memes are bad ever since the Harambe accident happened.…

What is a meme? One would think that the answer would be simple and easy, after all majority of people think of memes as simple things. They are images that show up regularly on their social media sites and most of the time the response they elicit is laughter. Memes make people laugh and that is their purpose, so surely something with a simple purpose wouldn’t have a complicated nature? Well that’s where Limor Shifman would have to disagree with you. She offers a novel definition of memes:…

In James Gleick’s article What Defines a Meme, memes are compared to complex organisms that could self-replicate and evolve within or between hosts. Like genes, memes can be furthered by natural selection; while the former needs a physical medium, the latter is abstract and constantly changing (mutating). Memes “exploit” human brains, languages, the Internet, and all kind of mediums to advance its own survival. Gleick argues that memes are as powerful and destructive as virus and epidemiology,…

going on in the world in a matter of a few clicks. Technology has opened the door to many opportunities for many people, one more funny and silly aspect of it is memes. Oxford Dictionary defines a meme as “A humorous image, piece of text, etc., that is copied (often with slight variations) and spread rapidly by Internet users.” As the internet has become more accessible to everyone over time memes have become a bigger part of the internet as a whole, which…

In Susan Blackmore’s “Strange Creatures” she describes the concept of the “memes eye view”. She claims the “memes eye view” is what makes humans different from animals, meaning humans can imitate therefore must be different from animals. As a reader dwells more on the thought of the “memes eye view” they can relate it to life experiences and other works of literature. For example, the “memes eye view” can be seen very clearly in “Bumping into Mr.Ravioli” by Adam Gopnik. In Gopnik’s work he…

Vie then points out that because memes are reaching so many people from so many different cultures, that they are effective in spreading idea for social movements. It is then explained what makes a successful meme- group identification. A large portion of the social media population has to understand and relate to the meme being presented. If group identification occurs, there is more likely to be attention on said meme. This could lead to support for a social movement, just as it did with the…

is Dawkins’ theory of memes. Dawkins introduces yet another replicator. Genes replicate genetic material, but memes replicate culture (Dawkins 2006, 189.) This non-genetic replicator demonstrates the evolution of communication as an example (Dawkins 2006, 190). In animals, communication evolves and helps their survival. For example, the saddleback birds of New Zealand learned the songs of neighboring bird populations and eventually developed their own songs (Dawkins 2006, 190). In…