THE HISTORY OF MEME? HOW THE WORD MEME CAME INTO EXISTENCE?

Like all phenomena, Internet memes also had a major breakthrough. The term meme is defined as “a cultural idea…that self-replicates and spreads among people” and was first used by Richard Dawkins. The term Internet meme is defined similarly with the exception that the idea spread virally. An Internet meme can range from a moving icon, image, or video; the idea is to get this concept viral and popular no matter how ridiculous it really is. The very first Internet Meme that came to prominence came in 1996, where the meme consisted of a dancing animated baby. Internet memes slowly started to make its way to the web, which saw an increase in Internet use. Reportedly in 1999, site views increased dramatically, with the numbers jumping from “four views to 15,000 per day”.

Richard Dawkins first used the word meme as a unit of cultural inheritance in his book 'THE SELFISH GENE'

Memes began slowly emerging throughout the years, seemingly with every year having a stand out meme. Memes can be seen as a way to get “15 minutes” of fame on the Internet and gain popularity. With the rise of social media such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and many more platforms, memes have continued to emerge and spread even more rapidly.

The first-ever meme template to be used on the internet

Dawkins explained this theory of imitation and parodies similar to evolution theory. “Just as genes propagate themselves in the gene pool by leaping from body to body via sperms or eggs, so memes propagate themselves in the meme pool by leaping from brain to brain via a process which, in the broad sense, can be called imitation”.

Today we have infinite memes on the internet.