meme
[ mēm ]
noun
an element of a culture or system of behavior that may be considered to be passed from one individual to another by nongenetic means, especially imitation.
The oldest example of a meme I can think of is "Where's the beef"
"Calling shotgun" or playing "Slug Bug/Punch Buggy" are other examples of pre-internet memes
It's a phrase that for some reason spreads like wildfire beyond the status of inside joke among your friends.
And more like an inside joke among the community.
If you understand what "going viral" means when referring to a video.
A meme is a phrase or image that has "gone viral"
The internet and Memes
So with the internet phrases catch on more easily and spread more quickly.
I suppose technically the following can be considered memes:
"lol"
"a/s/l"
Thanks for the explanation. But the quote below leaves me totally lost. I dont have a clue what any of those phrases are.
The following are examples that would definitely be considered memes:
“I put on my robe and wizard hat"
"copypasta"
"Sauce"
"Millhouse is not a meme"
And as for the following, I know what facebook is, although I have never gone to it (at least not deliberately - some people misrepresent their facebook pages as a home page) and I don't have a clue what tumblr is.
A New Definition
Images are the most popular version of a meme.
So when image memes exploded in popularity because of social media like facebook and tumblr and etc. people needed something to call them.
The previous term for an image with words on it was an Image Macro.
But Meme caught on and sort of changed the whole definition.
That is why these images with words are called "meme"s
tl;dr (The short version): A meme is an inside joke shared among a community (In this case the internet)
tl;dr?
