Anyone that has a smartphone is surely familiar with memes. There is no way to avoid them. They are everywhere on social media. They get shared on messaging apps and through email; they even get referenced in published articles. Most people don’t give memes a second thought, beyond noting whether they are funny or not. However, there is a history to them that might surprise you.
give... a second thought 對……重新思索∕加以考慮 beyond [ bɪˈjɑnd ] prep. 除……以外（用於否定句）
The word “meme” was coined by evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, and it first appeared in his 1976 book The Selfish Gene. The word comes from the Greek word mimema, which means something imitated. For Dawkins, a meme is merely an idea. He used the word to discuss the way in which ideas are spread through a culture and how they change along the way. He compared it to the way genes are biologically passed down from parent to child.
coin [ kɔɪn ] vt. 創造∕杜撰（新詞等） evolutionary [ ˌɛvəˈluʃənˌɛrɪ ] a. 演化的 imitate [ ˈɪməˌtet ] vt. 模仿 compare A to B 比較 A 和 B；將 A 比擬成 B
The meme made the jump to the internet in the 1990s. Internet linguist Gretchen McCulloch suggests that Mike Godwin was the first person to use it in terms of internet communication. In a column titled “Meme, Counter-Meme,” Mike Godwin stated that if an online discussion went on long enough, it would inevitably lead to a comparison to Hitler or the Nazis. This concept became known as “Godwin’s Law.”
Memes nowadays can be in the form of texts, photos, videos, or any othermedium. Some memes have inspired new words, like “rickrolling.” This is pretending to send someone a serious link, but when they click it, it leads to Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up” music video. Countless memes feature a person, an animal, or a character with a certain expression on their face. There is Grumpy Cat, Distracted Boyfriend, Screaming Marmot, and Baby Yoda. Users can edit the text on the photo to make their own joke. There are countless meme generators♦ online, so your own personalized meme is just a click away.
