A meme is a unit of cultural information spread by imitation. Britannica.com

My 1982 Oxford English Dictionary does not include a definition of ‘meme’. A quick google search reveals the word was first coined in 1976 by an evolutionary biologist named Richard Dawkins who defined memes ‘as the cultural parallel to biological genes’. Similar to genes, memes carry information, are transmitted and undergo natural selection. Like favourable biological traits, the strongest memes survive.

Simple curiosity started me down this rabbit hole. I had been noticing the sheer volume of memes in my Facebook feed and how often descriptions of memes enter into conversation.

Our social pages make it so easy. When a meme strikes a cultural chord it is passed on, duplicated, replicated and re-captioned for multiple purposes; think of Bernie Saunders in his mitts and jacket at Biden’s inauguration. There are an astounding number of sarcastic Willy Wonka memes.

Before the internet, T-shirts with pithy sayings and images would qualify as memes. One that has survived in memory from decades ago? A classic picture of Barney with the caption, ‘Rubble without a cause.’

Pithy scrawls on bathroom walls are not memes. Here’s an example, seemingly written with angst and frustration, ‘My Mother made me a lesbian.’ Responded to with wit and wisdom, ‘If I gave her the wool would she make me one too?’ Perhaps someone with more time and imagination than me could couple this with an image, and voilá, a meme.

Bumper stickers are not memes, just opinions.

I know I just came back, but I will be away from my technical devices next Sunday. I’ll return the week after.

Stay safe everyone.

Anne Milne is an every Sunday blogger.  Facebook or Twitter.