What's In A Meme?

If socioculture evolution is the development of one or more cultures from simpler to more complex forms, then Internet memes could be considered the simpler form that propel us into advancement, but then again, maybe not.  

Internet memes are seen every day by the thousands. They create a subculture enjoyed and simultaneously hated by all. Any Facebook user can tell you that there is nothing they enjoy more than a fresh, new, Internet meme pertaining to an interest shared within their friend list, and in the same breath they can tell you that there is nothing they hate more than the negative, recycled, political meme that has been clogging their newsfeed for weeks. Noticing this theme within my favorite forms of social media, I decided to take a closer look at the Internet meme and where it originated.

You can trace the origins of the Internet meme back to the pre-Internet era. The British evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins coined the phrase in his book The Selfish Gene and used it to describe the evolution of ideas in a culture.

The very first memes were therefore things like knock knock jokes and ‘yo mamma puns, because they were created to have a framework that could be passed on and altered by others to keep the jokes topical.

Once the Internet became more widespread, its social aspect began to flourish. Office workers began to rely on it for short humour breaks during the day. The idea of creating Internet memes quickly gained momentum. Photo memes like ‘Evil Burt’, ‘Little Fatty’, and ‘Tourist Guy’ began to spread like wildfire, beginning what is equivalent to an inside joke for the entire world.

Shortly after the first memes started appearing, viral content poked its head over the virtual parapet, too. Sometime in the late 1990’s a viral video known as the ‘Oogachaka Baby’ took the world by storm. The 3D-rendered baby danced to the intro of Swedish rock band Blue Swede’s hit “Hooked on a Feeling”. It was seen and shared, then seen and shared again, and became one of the earliest examples of an Internet phenomenon.

Although memes and viral content seem similar at face value, there’s a big difference between the two. Viral content can be classed as a static piece of content that is passed on unchanged, whereas a meme is a concept that could be constantly re-mixed.

Anthropologists claim that the travel of information, even in its simplest form, adds to the evolution and adaptation of our culture and status as humans. If this is true, then memes will serve as footprints throughout time, documenting our progression as a technically adept race.

This concept is easy to see when looking at a timeline of popular videos and images. Each photo or phrase documents popular culture in one glance. The progress the world has made technologically within the last 20 years has changed the way we, as humans, live and work in the world. The important question now is, what hilarious tidbits of information does the future hold for mankind? We can only speculate, but perhaps the Philosoraptor knows.