Richard Dawkins, an English biologist, coined the term “meme” in 1976 with the book The Selfish Gene. He had created the term to identify an artifact of cultural propagation that is spread within a culture much like genes pass information from one generation to the next. In his opinion, memes undergo evolution through natural selection, just like genes. He argued that memes, like genes, undergo a process of evolution, replicating and mutating over time as they are transmitted from person to person.
The Birth and Evolution of Memes
#1
Early Memes
Memes existed before the internet; the first is usually identified as the "Dancing Baby." This was an animated GIF that became popular in the late 1990s. In fact, this meme spoke to what early viral content looked like at that time, as it spread through email and message boards. Other early examples include the "Hampster Dance" and different emoticons, with the smiley face ; -] being one of the first..
#2
Whats an image macro? The basic formula is taking an image and superimposing text. Traditionally with the font Impact on top of it. It was these formats that people preferred because they were easy to make and the creation tools were not that hard to find.
In 2007, video memes began to rise, especially in the YouTube platform. This includes, most commonly known, "Rickrolling" and "Chocolate Rain." Very soon after Vine was introduced-six second movies that actually invented a new sub-genre for memes-short-and-funny,.
It continued with the development and rise of social media, like TikTok, which combined some of the best aspects of the predecessors to allow for the instant, pretty easy creation and distribution of memes. Today, various meme forms incorporate images, videos, and GIFs; most depict current events, cultural trends, and social opinions.
Evolution of Internet Memes
Indeed, meme culture's prime shifted from being text-based with the advent of image macros in the mid-2000s.Whats an image macro? The basic formula is taking an image and superimposing text. Traditionally with the font Impact on top of it. It was these formats that people preferred because they were easy to make and the creation tools were not that hard to find.
In 2007, video memes began to rise, especially in the YouTube platform. This includes, most commonly known, "Rickrolling" and "Chocolate Rain." Very soon after Vine was introduced-six second movies that actually invented a new sub-genre for memes-short-and-funny,.
It continued with the development and rise of social media, like TikTok, which combined some of the best aspects of the predecessors to allow for the instant, pretty easy creation and distribution of memes. Today, various meme forms incorporate images, videos, and GIFs; most depict current events, cultural trends, and social opinions.
#3
Modern Meme Culture
Today, memes are just a means of communication. They are used to create jokes or point out social problems and comment on pop culture. Memes go viral pretty quickly, but they do not stay in that state for very long. Many, if not most of them, disappear after a few days or weeks to give way to new trends. Memes change so often, reflecting the rate at which technology and culture do; as such, it's hard to predict what any subsequent fad could be. Memes have evolved from an idea of theoretical cultural transmission into an active and deepening part of Internet culture, with every transformation of its various practices of communication and sociality.
#4
Overall, memes are a way of grasping how cultural ideas and behavior diffuse in the population, showing the way individual actions articulate with social trends. That is, these emphatically flag the role that copying from others has in the development of the ways people behave and the way culture changes.
impact on Society
Memes are complex ways of representing human social behavior: they dictate public opinion and shape and drive cultural trends. These factors may even influence mental health in cases such as the COVID-19 pandemic, where memes helped a lot in dealing with anxiety. In addition, memes can spread over social media with an unprecedented speed that serves to illustrate how quick changes in cultural trends can be toward the representation of the current spirit of ur time.Overall, memes are a way of grasping how cultural ideas and behavior diffuse in the population, showing the way individual actions articulate with social trends. That is, these emphatically flag the role that copying from others has in the development of the ways people behave and the way culture changes.
Reactions
Reactions
1
