What is a meme in social media?

What Is a Meme? A meme is a virally transmitted image embellished with text, usually sharing pointed commentary on cultural symbols, social ideas, or current events. A meme is typically a photo or video, although sometimes it can be a block of text.

Are You meme illiterate?

Memes constitute a prominent and influential language online, but most of us are meme illiterate. Sure, the simple bold text on a meme may be in English, but the references and meta callbacks are completely foreign. Conversations are happening all around us, but we have no idea what is being said.

What is a meme and why is it important?

Dawkins used "meme" to represent any piece of cultural information or content which operates via replication, alteration and mutation, surviving through dissemination. As a result, memes are a cultural equivalent to a gene in the sense they are passed from person-to-person and can be the basis for an evolutionary process.

Where did the word meme come from?

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 meme to describe an idea or behavior that spreads across people in a culture.