The memes

When you are lazing on your favorite social networks, you sometimes come across strange image, GIF, humorous videos such as these:

That’s what we call memes. Let’s find out what they are.

What’s a « memes » ? His origin :

It’s a recognizable cultural element, reproduced and transmitted by the imitation of an individual’s behavior by other individuals.

The english term “meme” was first proposed by Richard Dawkins in The Selfish Gene. This word comes from mimesis (from the Greek "imitation"). Dawkins also constructs this term for its resemblance to the French word "same" (même)

Literally, it is “an element of a culture (taken here in the sense of civilization) that can be considered transmitted by non-genetic means, especially by imitation”. More simply, we must be able to identify with an image or video.

Concretely, the internet memes are presented in the form of an offset image accompanied by a humorous text. They can also come in the form of video or GIF.

How to build a meme?

Humor: the meme must have a funny and catchy dimension

Intertextuality: the meme uses one or more references to other cultural or textual elements, often implicit

The first meme :

In 1996, a computer image of a baby dancing on a black background was quickly shared on the Web. This animated gif is one of the first Internet memes.

10 best memes :