What's your favourite meme?

[SkyBlueFlux]

For the cave-dwellers amongst us, where did this word, 'meme' come from? More importantly, how do you pronounce it?! Is it 'meem' or 'meh-meh'? Still can't work out from the contributions on here if it's supposed to be a graphic representation, a hasty drawing, a snapshot off the telly or a video.

I believe it was actually coined by Richard Dawkins, though I'm not certain of that.

The concept hasn't been that well explained yet I don't think. A meme is a sort of 'in-joke' or to put it more technically a 'social idiosyncrasy'. So they can be any form of media, written word, picture or video but the point of one is that it is something that a collective finds funny because it is part of a greater series of jokes.

For instance, the 'soon' meme isn't that obviously funny if you were just to take a one off picture and show it somebody with no prior knowledge. Though as part of the greater concept (i.e. finding something creepy or starey in the distance and writing 'soon' underneath) it becomes a funny series of things that people can expand upon.

That's the best I can explain it without looking it up haha.

Edit: and I always pronounced it 'meem'

 

[Pride_In_Battle]

This one. Shouldn't laugh, but cracks me up every time I see it:

 

[Damocles]

The best explanation of a meme, pronounced meem, was actually in Metal Gear Solid 2.

A meme in Internet land is a picture representing an injoke as SkyBlueFlux mentioned.

In the wider world, it is a unit of information passed around within a culture. A song sung on the terraces is a meme, so is the act of cheering when a goal is scored. Churchills quote of being drunk is a meme, as is the Earth Rise picture taken from the Moon. Things that are passed down through generations. Dawkins used them in the context of evolution, how cultural information is as much a driver as genetics in modern humans.

 

[Robbiejd]

 

[Damocles]

 

[SWP's back]

Yep but those three theories rule out the Abrahamic religions quite nicely though, which will do for me.

 

[gaudinho's stolen car]

 

[Cellarite]

Yep but those three theories rule out the Abrahamic religions quite nicely though, which will do for me.

What's Chelsea's owner got to do with memes?

 

[gaudinho's stolen car]

 

[TFC]