Preservational: ideas that influence those that hold them to continue to hold them for a long time. Ideas that encourage longevity in their hosts, or leave their hosts particularly resistant to abandoning or replacing these ideas, enhance the preservability of memes and afford protection from the competition or proselytism of other memes. You might be surprised to know that the word meme didn't originate online. In fact, author Richard Dawkins first used the word in his 1976 work The Selfish Gene. The book looked at evolution and used meme to describe an idea or behavior that spreads across people in a culture. Efficiency of parenthood: an idea that increases the proportion of children who will adopt ideas of their parents. Cultural separatism exemplifies one practice in which one can expect a higher rate of meme-replication—because the meme for separation creates a barrier from exposure to competing ideas. When telling jokes and creating memes, the comedian makes the audience laugh. At the same time, the audience needs to have enough awareness of current social issues, the news, wordplay, and comedy itself to shoulder at least part of the burden. It’s a delicate balance. Many great memes and quips will go over the audience’s heads.

Dawkins cites as inspiration the work of geneticist L. L. Cavalli-Sforza, anthropologist F. T. Cloak, [27] [28] and ethologist J. M. Cullen. [29] Dawkins wrote that evolution depended not on the particular chemical basis of genetics, but only on the existence of a self-replicating unit of transmission—in the case of biological evolution, the gene. For Dawkins, the meme exemplified another self-replicating unit with potential significance in explaining human behavior and cultural evolution. Pike, Kenneth (1967) [1954]. Language in Relation to a Unified Theory of the Structure of Human Behavior (Reviseded.). Popper, Nathaniel; Browning, Kellen (29 January 2021). "The 'Roaring Kitty' Rally: How a Reddit User and His Friends Roiled the Markets". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331 . Retrieved 15 June 2023.Farnish, Keith (2009). Time's Up! An Uncivilized Solution to a Global Crisis. Totnes: Green Books. p.256. ISBN 9781900322485.

For instance, the possibility that ideas were subject to the same pressures of evolution as were biological attributes was discussed in the time of Charles Darwin. T. H. Huxley (1880) claimed that "The struggle for existence holds as much in the intellectual as in the physical world. A theory is a species of thinking, and its right to exist is coextensive with its power of resisting extinction by its rivals." [25] Although Richard Dawkins invented the term meme and developed meme theory, he has not claimed that the idea was entirely novel, [23] and there have been other expressions for similar ideas in the past. [24] McNamara, Adam (2011). "Can we measure memes?". Frontiers in Evolutionary Neuroscience. 3: 1. doi: 10.3389/fnevo.2011.00001. PMC 3118481. PMID 21720531. Pettis, Ben T. (19 August 2021). "Know your meme and the homogenization of Web history". Internet Histories. 1–17 (3): 263–279. doi: 10.1080/24701475.2021.1968657. S2CID 238660211. Archived from the original on 17 March 2023 . Retrieved 28 February 2023. Petrova, Yulia (2021). "Meme language, its impact on digital culture and collective thinking". E3S Web of Conferences. 273: 11026. Bibcode: 2021E3SWC.27311026P. doi: 10.1051/e3sconf/202127311026. ISSN 2267-1242. S2CID 237986424.Distin, Kate (2005). The Selfish Meme: A Critical Reassessment. Cambridge University Press. p.238. ISBN 9780521606271. Dawkins used the term to refer to any cultural entity that an observer might consider a replicator. He hypothesized that one could view many cultural entities as replicators, and pointed to melodies, fashions and learned skills as examples. Memes generally replicate through exposure to humans, who have evolved as efficient copiers of information and behavior. Because humans do not always copy memes perfectly, and because they may refine, combine or otherwise modify them with other memes to create new memes, they can change over time. Dawkins likened the process by which memes survive and change through the evolution of culture to the natural selection of genes in biological evolution. [21] Memes in a Digital World: Reconciling with a Conceptual Troublemaker". academic.oup.com . Retrieved 1 May 2023. Dawkins, Richard (2004). A Devil's Chaplain: Reflections on Hope, Lies, Science, and Love. Boston: Mariner Books. p.263. ISBN 9780618485390.

Gottsch, John D. (2001). "Mutation, Selection, And Vertical Transmission Of Theistic Memes In Religious Canons". Journal of Memetics. 5 (1). Archived from the original on 12 April 2021 . Retrieved 8 October 2021. In his book The Robot's Rebellion, Keith Stanovich uses the memes and memeplex concepts to describe a program of cognitive reform that he refers to as a "rebellion". Specifically, Stanovich argues that the use of memes as a descriptor for cultural units is beneficial because it serves to emphasize transmission and acquisition properties that parallel the study of epidemiology. These properties make salient the sometimes parasitic nature of acquired memes, and as a result individuals should be motivated to reflectively acquire memes using what he calls a " Neurathian bootstrap" process. [65] Memetic explanations of racismDennett, Daniel (2006). Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon. Viking (Penguin). ISBN 9780670034727. Arguably the most creative thing to come from TikTok this year, Ratatouille the Musical brought people around the world together to produce something magical we could all enjoy. After all, isn't that what memes are for?

Huxley, T. H. (1880). "The coming of age of 'The origin of species' ". Science. 1 (2): 15–20. doi: 10.1126/science.os-1.2.15. PMID 17751948. S2CID 4061790. Ingold, Tim (2000). "The poverty of selectionism". Anthropology Today. 16 (3): 1. doi: 10.1111/1467-8322.00022. Brodie, Richard (1996). Virus of the Mind: The New Science of the Meme. Seattle, Washington: Integral Press. p.251. ISBN 9780963600110. At present, the existence of discrete cultural units which satisfy memetic theory has been challenged in a variety of ways. What is critical from this perspective is that in denying memetics unitary status is to deny a particularly fundamental part of Dawkins' original argument. In particular, denying memes are a unit, or are explainable in some clear unitary structure denies the cultural analogy that inspired Dawkins to define them. If memes are not describable as unitary, memes are not accountable within a neo-Darwinian model of evolutionary culture. Kull, Kalevi (2000). "Copy versus translate, meme versus sign: Development of Biological Textuality". European Journal for Semiotic Studies. 12 (1): 101–120. Archived from the original on 23 January 2023 . Retrieved 23 January 2023.

24. Wash Your Lyrics

Post, Stephen Garrard; Underwood, Lynn G.; Schloss, Jeffrey P.; Hurlbut, Willam B. (2002). Altruism & Altruistic Love: Science, Philosophy, & Religion in Dialogue. Oxford University Press. p.500. ISBN 9780195143584.