this post was submitted on 18 Apr 2024
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Antique Memes Roadshow
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These weren't even what we called "memes" back then (closer to twenty years ago).
These were image macros or caption images. A meme back then was usually a phrase or saying like Over 9000 and other crap like that.
But whether we called them memes or not, by definition they were. The Selfish Gene came out in 1976, where Dawkins coined it as "a unit of cultural transmission, or a unit of imitation".
Memes live in our head and propagate throughout society which is just an emergent phenomena of memes...I loved the selfish gene it's a great book and Dawkins is the man.