The word “meme” was invented in 1976 by evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins in his book The Selfish Gene. He needed a term for a cultural unit that spreads from mind to mind the way genes spread through bodies — an idea, tune, catchphrase, or fashion that replicates itself by imitation. He shortened the Greek “mimeme” (imitated thing) to “meme” to rhyme with “gene.”
Dawkins never imagined his scientific concept would become the name for cat photos and Pepe frogs, but the mechanism is exactly what he described. Internet memes are cultural genes — they mutate, compete for attention, and the fittest versions survive. Every LOLcat, Doge, and PEPE coin traces back to a scholarly footnote in a 1976 biology book.
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