What is a meme based on?

Meme, unit of cultural information spread by imitation. The term ‘meme’ (from the Greek ‘mimema,’ meaning ‘imitated’) was introduced in 1976 by British evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins in his work The Selfish Gene. Learn more about the history of memes in this article.

How do you make a meme?

A meme can include a video, image, text, GIF, among other mediums. While you can use a popular image or person, such as Kim Kardashian yawning, you can use any random thing to make a meme. So long as the emotion and meaning behind the creation is recognizable and identifiable, you have made a meme, said Ingram-Waters.

What is a “meme” in linguistics?

In Mr. Dawkins’s original conception, a “meme” was analogous to a “phoneme,” the smallest unit of sound in speech, or a “morpheme,” the smallest meaningful subunit of a word, Kirby Conrod, a professor of linguistics at Swarthmore College, said.

How long is a meme?

The length of a meme varies. Because they can take the form of images, symbols, text, videos, or GIFs, they can be as short as a single image or phrase and as long as a multi-minute video with an elaborate narrative. Some memes have short-lived bursts of popularity on social media, while others endure for years.