Have you ever found yourself trying to complete a task like homework and and then digressing into a quagmire of memes, instead?  Me, too.

But have you ever found yourself asking, what exactly constitutes a meme? Where did this curious internet sensation come from? 

A meme, according to Oxford English Dictionary, has two definitions.  The first is “an element of a culture or system of behavior passed from one individual to another by imitation or other non-genetic means.”  The second definition is the one we are more familiar with: ”an image, video, piece of text, etc., typically humorous in nature, that is copied and spread rapidly by Internet users, often with slight variations.”

To further understand, we must discuss the man who first described the phenomenon of the meme — English ethologist, evolutionary biologist, and author Richard Dawkins.  He coined the term meme in 1976 in his book called The Selfish Gene.  

He described a meme as “a cultural idea that self-replicates and spreads among the people.”   Dawkins fathered the meme and interestingly correlated the meme to genetics.  He stated that memes are like genes, in that a meme can mutate, experience mutation, become extinct (“dank,” as memers call it), or evolve with society through time as seen above in the slideshow.  The modern meme that we know and love did not exist until the last two decades, when the Internet and social media became mainstream outlets of ideas and humor.   

Now that we have an understanding of what defines a meme and where it came from, I ask you to explore some of the most popular memes I have above from the last two decades that have stood the test of time and are worth a look.  You will see how memes have evolved, beginning as basic drawings and morphing into an array of gifs, complex visual and sound productions, and pure cleverness.  

The meme is a perpetual machine, constantly evolving.  It’s demise is nowhere in sight as technology continues its march.  In the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey, mankind is constantly evolving; so too with the noble little meme.  

Finding decent G-rated memes was rather difficult, so I hope you enjoyed the chronological story of the meme I’ve curated for your viewing pleasure in the slideshow above.