Meme isn't new: it dates to evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins' 1976 book The Selfish Gene, where it functioned with a meaning other than its current most common one. In Dawkins' conception of the term, it is "a unit of cultural transmission"—the cultural equivalent of a gene: The term meme is a shortening (modeled on gene) of mimeme, which comes from Ancient Greek mīmēma ( μίμημα; pronounced [míːmɛːma]), meaning 'imitated thing', itself from mimeisthai ( μιμεῖσθαι, 'to imitate'), from mimos ( μῖμος, 'mime'). [17] [18] [19] Edmonds, Bruce (September 2002). "Three Challenges for the Survival of Memetics". Journal of Memetics. 6 (2). Archived from the original on 8 September 2021 . Retrieved 8 October 2021. JANELLE BROWN, WIRED NEWS: And the next thing you know, his friends have forwarded it on and it's become a net meme.

There are many selfish people who are extremely original, then they take those pure ideas and use them to raise themselves up, that is an insincere move.” – Daniel Smith In The Selfish Gene Dawkins (1976) popularised the gene’s eye view of biological evolution. Yet, rather than confining his argument to selfish genes, Dawkins wanted to emphasise what he called ‘universal Darwinism’. This is the general principle that whenever information is copied with variation and selection, then evolution is inevitable. Campbell (1960) describes the same process as “blind variation with selective retention”. Dawkins distinguished between the information that is copied (the replicator), and the carrier of that information (the vehicle). This is similar to Hull’s (1988) distinction between replicators and interactors. In the case of biology, genes are replicators and their phenotypes are their vehicles or interactors. Animals, in Dawkins’ view, are the ‘lumbering robots’ that carry their replicators around and protect them. Examples of memes are tunes, ideas, catch-phrases, clothes fashions, ways of making pots or of building arches. Just as genes propagate themselves in the gene pool by leaping from body to body via sperms or eggs, so memes propagate themselves in the meme pool by leaping from brain to brain via a process which, in the broad sense, can be called imitation. Memes, analogously to genes, vary in their aptitude to replicate; successful memes remain and spread, whereas unfit ones stall and are forgotten. Thus, memes that prove more effective at replicating and surviving are selected in the meme pool. [ citation needed]

Distin, Kate (2005). The Selfish Meme: A Critical Reassessment. Cambridge University Press. p.238. ISBN 9780521606271. Memes are, simply put, ideas that catch on. This book is, not so simply, a collection of memes in essay form …, written by self-proclaimed off-planet journalist Rheingold. Jan, Steven (2007). The Memetics of Music: A Neo-Darwinian View of Musical Structure and Culture. Aldershot: Ashgate. Archived from the original on 5 January 2015 . Retrieved 10 December 2008.

The particular meme discussed in the interview is believed my many to be the first meme, in the modern sense of the word. But it's interesting to note that, as with most other instances of the word in use for years to come, the example was seen as simply an iteration of the existing meaning. Millikan 2004, p. 16. "Richard Dawkins invented the term 'memes' to stand for items that are reproduced by imitation rather than reproduced genetically." 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. For broad appeal, a meme might appeal to dissatisfaction and provide rough explanations for why things are going wrong. More so could be tapping into an intuitive logic at the center of spiritual traditions– that the greater the sacrifice, the greater the redemption. As such, fascism is the meme of collective brutality against those seen as "weak" or "foreign". [22] Origins Richard Dawkins coined the word meme in his 1976 book The Selfish Gene. Early formulations

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Claude I. Salem, The New York Times Magazine, 17 Apr. 2011 The Internet and a New Meaning of 'Meme' R. Evers, John. "A justification of societal altruism according to the memetic application of Hamilton's rule". Archived from the original on 6 October 2018 . Retrieved 26 July 2013. Selfishness is a trait that can have a significant impact on our personal and professional relationships. a b Laurent, John (1999). "A Note on the Origin of 'Memes'/'Mnemes' ". Journal of Memetics. 3 (1): 14–19. Archived from the original on 13 April 2021. At first blush, the notion that the self-disclosure impulse is somehow good for the species might seem counterintuitive. If all we did was prattle on about ourselves, we’d soon bore one another to extinction. Why would we have evolved to get a rush of pleasure from hearing ourselves talk?