What Is A Meme And How To Pronounce It? - Metro

First of all it’s meme, as in team, a long ‘e’ sound.

Oxford dictionaries define a meme as an idea that is passed from one member of society to another, not in the genes but often by people copying it, like political and cultural memes.

An internet meme is defined as an image, a video or a piece of text that is passed very quickly from one internet user to another, often with slight changes that make it humorous.

The word comes from the Greek word for ‘that which is imitated’ about gene patterns in DNA.

However the word meme and what it means has been adopted and intertwined with internet culture of sharing ideas, art and thoughts through this medium.

Richard Dawkins said that memes ‘are to culture what genes are to life. Just as biological evolution is driven by the survival of the fittest genes in the gene pool, cultural evolution may be driven by the most successful memes.’

Trippy.

Some of the most famous memes over the years include ‘The Condesending Wonka’ meme which is a screen capture of the actor Gene Wilder as the character Willy Wonka in the 1971 film Willy Wonka and the Chocolate factory.

The captions of the picture are patronising and sarcastic matching the expression on Willy Wonka’s face.

The Condescending Wonka meme is the most popular meme of all time in the UK, and became a meme in 2010.

In 2012 we were graced with this little beauty called the Grumpy Cat.

The picture is of a snowshoe cat called Tardar Sauce and rose to fame after it was posted on Reddit in 2012 because of the human expression of disdain.

There Are Two Kinds Of People In The Worldhttps://t.co/frkkJYoRyf#people #saying #grumpycat #funny pic.twitter.com/SJDgrPKQg7

— Josef Kowalski (@JosefKowalski) June 29, 2017

Since the dawn of the age of memes their shape and form have evolved into many different forms.

Many memes can be steeped in political or social context, but many expose comedic truths about life that people relate to and find funny.

Most memes are exchanged because it has made the person laugh and because they want to share them with their friends.

A new phenomenon has occurred on the social media website Facebook where users post a meme and other users who see the meme on the site and want to share it with a friend simply ‘tag’ their friend in the post on Facebook.

If you aren’t constantly tagging your friends in memes, are you really friends then?

— Tam (@tamtamm_s) June 28, 2017

Before memes hit mainstream popularity and started appearing on Twitter and Facebook, they appeared and were passed around on online forums such as 4chan .

Here are some fresher memes that are currently being shared among communities and people on the Internet.

#SaltBae the first meme of 2017.

The #SaltBae took over the #meme world recently. We have to agree…he’s pretty funny. #MemeMonday #SocialMedia pic.twitter.com/lxa86YADFU

— KKPR Marketing & PR (@KKPRMarketingPR) February 6, 2017

This is a meme of the character Arthur in the children’s television show, this meme came into power in 2016 over Twitter.

https://twitter.com/ArthursFistMeme/status/758587489804165120

Memes can be measured on how dank, fresh, spicy or zesty they are.

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Even the Queen makes an appearance in the world of internet memes.

These people… pic.twitter.com/aM2TVU1lp7

— Condescending Wonka (@OhWonka) August 10, 2016

The internet has popped up many new forms of communications such as emojis and gifs, that need to be decoded much like memes.

But memes aren’t always used for humour – these four lads from Birmingham suffered abuse after a meme went viral.

Here is a video of how to pronounce meme if this has all gone over your head.

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