Meme

A meme, in internet usage, is a piece of culture—an image, phrase, video clip, or template—that is copied, varied, and circulated until a community recognises it as a shared reference. The term was coined in a broader evolutionary-culture sense by Richard Dawkins (1976); online, it usually means a remixable joke or format.

Templates and exploitables

Many memes are templates: a fixed layout into which users drop new captions or labels. An exploitable invites endless object-labelling variants. The iceberg chart is one such exploitable ranking template; tier lists and other chart memes play a similar role.

Documentation

Sites such as Know Your Meme attempt to date early examples and track spread. Primary evidence remains the original posts (timestamps, archives, platform IDs).

See also

• Iceberg chart
• Internet culture
• Object labeling
• Viral chart

Sources

• Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene (1976) — origin of the term meme in cultural evolution.
• Know Your Meme format entries (tertiary; verify against primary uploads).