Kids these days don’t even know what memes are. For them webcomics and social media screenshots, even plain political ones without a shred of humor, are just memes. Everything is a meme now…
If we use the original definition of the word “meme”, which is “a unit of cultural transmission” then yes literally everything is a meme.
It was coined to be analogous to the word “gene”. One of the similarities is that the borders of genes and memes are fuzzy: when you split a gene in half, you get two genes. Both genes and memes are nested inside of themselves like a Russian doll.
The misdefinition of “meme” as “image macro on the internet” was ill informed, and is thankfully going out of style.
The term was originally coined by Richard Dawkins in his 1976 in, “the Selfish Gene”.
The main problem with that definition of the word is that it’s really hard to use. It requires both the speaker and the listener to be comfortable with the fungibility of data and code.
YOU ARE THE ONE WHO IS A MEME!!!11!ONE
Remember when memes were “motivational posters” and were mainly kittens in fields
When memes were more a feeling
Used to love the chuck Norris memes till i found out hes a MAGA dirtbag
Chuck Norris? Nope! Chuck Testa!
You thought that deer was alive? NOPE
You forgot shriek
Punch the keys, for God’s sake!
Yo dawg, I heard you like memes
That is not dead which can eternal lie.
Troll face is timeless and still makes its rounds.
If those are the past, what I think of as classics must be fucking paleontology.
ALL YOUR BASE!
tom_hanks_aging_facemorph.jpg
Matt Damon aging actually. Tom Hanks died during the final battle scene.
Damn you’re right.
Wanna feel that meme happen to you in real time? When Saving Private Ryan released on July 24 1998, Matt Damon (born October 8 1970) was 27 years, 9 months, 16 days old.
From the release of the movie to today (October 4 2025) is 27 years, 2 months, 10 days. We have almost reached the point that someone born the day the movie came out will be older than Matt Damon was when the movie premiered.
Time comes for us all.
Let us sit upon the ground and tell sad stories of the death of memes…
Once upon a time there was a website called “meat spin dot com”…
I hear if you stay for one more spin it takes you to goatse.
No Advice Dog or Can I Haz Cheeseburgers?
Just yesterday I was at a cat cafe with two of my kids. My 9y/o is with me as we are petting a British “blue” shorthair and I tell it “you CAN haz cheesburger.” He laughs and is like “dad, what is that?” And I realize that that meme is practically ancient history for him. So I pull out the phone and show him the kernel of all he finds funny today.
No Grumpycat?
After the rage comic fire, Wojack rises from the ashes.
