Definition:
A meme is an idea, behaviour or cultural item that is transmitted through imitation and transformed as other people reproduce it. On the Internet, it commonly takes the form of a recognisable image, video, phrase, audio clip or template that circulates in new variations.
Humour is common but not essential. A meme may also express an opinion, react to an event, represent a shared experience or operate as a code within a community.
Table of contents
Origin of the Term Meme
Biologist Richard Dawkins coined the term in his 1976 book The Selfish Gene. He started with the Greek word mimema, relating to something imitated, and shortened it to sound similar to gene. His cultural analogy described units of information that spread through imitation.
The original concept could encompass tunes, customs, ideas or ways of doing something. An Internet meme is a later and more specific expression: a recognisable digital object that different users copy, modify and redistribute through blogs, forums, messaging services and social networks.
An early example frequently cited is the Dancing Baby, or Ooga-Chaka Baby, a three-dimensional animation that began circulating in 1996. Its distribution showed how an item could move between email, websites and traditional media before today’s social platforms existed.
How an Internet Meme Works
A meme needs a reference that other people can recognise and reuse. This reference may be a base image, scene, phrase, gesture or narrative structure. Each version retains part of the shared pattern and changes another element to fit a different situation.
Circulation commonly relies on four related properties:
- Recognition: the audience identifies the original template, character or situation.
- Replicability: the format can be copied, shared or reconstructed with little effort.
- Variation: users change the text, image, audio or context to produce a new version.
- Context: meaning depends on cultural references, events and the codes of the community using it.
The spread of a meme therefore involves more than reproducing an identical file. Collective reinterpretation can generate numerous variants, and the authorship of each modification is not always easy to reconstruct.
Distribution and Evolution
Memes compete for attention, but they also combine with one another. Their journey is not uniform and may include these stages:
- Emergence: an item or situation begins attracting attention within a particular group.
- Replication: other users share the content and create versions adapted to new contexts.
- Saturation: repetition reduces novelty and may trigger fatigue or a parodic response.
- Recirculation: a news event, anniversary or community revives a template and gives it another meaning.
Virality can accelerate this cycle, although not every meme reaches a mass audience. Some remain inside small groups and work precisely because members share an internal code. Distribution depends on user networks, current events and the recommendation systems of each platform.
A GIF, screenshot or video may form part of a meme, but the technical format does not define the concept by itself. The same item may circulate without variation, whereas a meme is recognised through the relationship between a common reference and its successive adaptations.
Functions in Communication and Marketing
On a social network, memes condense ideas and emotions into recognisable items. They can comment on current events, reinforce group identity, challenge a discourse or express a reaction that would take longer to explain in conventional text. This expressive economy supports their use in digital conversations.
Brands and organisations also use memes to participate in shared references or adapt a message for particular audiences. The result depends on understanding the context: an execution that is late, overly promotional or detached from the community’s tone may be perceived as a forced intervention.
Engagement helps observe reactions, comments, saves or redistributions, but it does not by itself demonstrate a commercial result. An analysis should separate reach, interaction, sentiment, traffic and conversions. It should also examine whether the acquired meaning matches the message the organisation intended to communicate.
Creation, Rights and Risks
Creating a variant may require only adding text to a template, clipping a scene or combining an image with audio. Editing applications simplify the process, but meme creation depends mainly on understanding the reference and making a change that is meaningful to the audience.
The public circulation of an image does not mean that it has no rights attached. Copyright, licences, personality rights and platform rules may affect reuse, particularly in commercial campaigns. Transformation or parody may receive different legal treatment depending on the country and the specific use.
The main risks include loss of context, false information, harassment, appropriation of personal images and reproduction of stereotypes. A variant may also change meaning when it moves from one community to another. Interpreting a meme requires attention to both the item and its circulation context.
A meme is therefore a form of cultural transmission based on repetition with variation. Its relevance does not depend only on the number of shares, but on the ability of a common reference to acquire new meanings as it circulates.