By Madison Dymond ’16

A word that gets thrown around quite often is “meme.” All teens know what memes are, but when asked the actual definition of a meme, the response is a vague answer, such as: “It’s a thing…Like a thing on the internet that becomes a thing…An internet joke…” Teens see things classified as memes and think that an example is the same thing as a definition.

The reason few people question memes is that humans want to feel included. Memes are things one is just supposed to “get.” People want to feel “in on” the joke. If one asks what a meme is, he/she will be frowned upon for not “getting it.”

Google defines memes as “an element of a culture or system of behavior that may be considered to be passed from one individual to another by nongenetic means, especially imitation.” This definition is very broad, and gives us no information on why or how something becomes a meme.

According to a research paper titled “Makes a Meme Instead: A Concise History of Internet Memes” by Linda K. Börzsei, memes were born in “The Selfish Gene,” a book by Richard Dawkins, in 1976. He coined the term meme and used it to describe any cultural ideas passed from person to person. The term was then popularized in the early 80s, as the internet became more accessible.

It is nearly impossible to identify the first meme. Many say it was the emoticon. Today, most of us wouldn’t think of that as a meme, but it fit the definition. If we go by Dawkins’ definition, we could conclude that memes have always been around, even before the existence of the internet.

Memes are primarily spread through social media, and at the top of the social media hierarchy for memes is tumblr. Tumblr has, in a sense, become a sort of headquarters for memes. The website is characterized by its popularity among countercultures and “internet people.” Tumblr is a corner of the internet that has somehow managed to not become mainstream, and the main humor of its users is exactly what memes need in order to thrive: irony.

Due to the sarcastic and dark humor of the majority of the website’s users, things that one can “like ironically” instantly become popular. The meme will be created on any social media site, and will be spread across the internet in a series of gifs, videos and text posts.

A perfect example is the “mmm watcha say” meme. It started with a Saturday Night Live skit. The scene presented a series of over-dramatized events. Each time one of these events occurred (specifically the shooting of a gun), Jason Derulo’s song “Watcha Say” would start playing. This song was so inappropriately used and ironic that it instantly became an extremely popular meme.

The sad truth about memes, however, is that, just like everything else, memes die. Some people will take a meme too far and drag it out to the point where it is no longer ironic; it becomes annoying. The internet is always changing and people are always looking for the next thing. Attention spans are short. And so whether it is “Why You Always Lying” or “John Cena,” it will eventually die out. The only consolation is that, with all of these dying memes and changing times, Rickrolling will always be around.