The Influence Of Memes In American Culture

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Meme, a term coined by evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins in 1976 is a word that describes an element of a culture or system of behavior that may be considered to be passed from one individual to another by non-genetic means, especially imitation. Although memes weren’t the same almost 40 years ago, Dr. Dawkins was onto something. A meme today is a humorous image, video, piece of text, etc. that is copied (often with slight variations) and spread rapidly by Internet users. Memes have quickly become a cultural artifact of the American culture as they provide humor, inspire creativity, and connect people at alarming rates. Dr. Limor Shifman, a professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem explains, “Memes, since at least the 1990s have …show more content…
Memes or ‘media viruses’ as Mr. Dawkins calls them “might be [from] an event, invention, technology, system of thought, musical riff, visual image, scientific theory, sex scandal, clothing style or even a pop hero — as long as it takes to catch our attention” (18). Moreover, memes can essentially be made from anything. Memes have quickly become another outlet of media as they deliver much of the same content in different forms. Furthermore, in Spreadable Media, Henry Jenkins explains, “the ‘consumers’ are becoming producers” (153). Memes can be created by anyone and people who used to only consume what the media portrays can now produce and distribute their own thoughts and ideas and spread them throughout the web; which also explains why memes go viral as often as they do. Jenkins also articulates, “simplified versions of these discussions of ‘memes’ and ‘media viruses’ have given the media industries a false sense of security at a time when the old attention economy has been in flux” (20). Matthew Crawford says, “Attention is a resource — a person has only so much of it.” Memes and typical media outlets now have to share attention and sometimes work off of each other in order to successfully reach their target
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