Memes, like most things on the internet, came from someone’s imagination. Different words can be coined from abbreviations, Latin words, new ideas, etc. In this case, the word “meme” came from the Greek abbreviation- “something imitated.” For those who don’t know what a meme is, it is a humorous image often accompanied by an equally funny message that is created to express emotions, to relate to viewers, and sometimes to make a parody of a normally meaningless picture. They were officially introduced in 1976 by a British evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins in his work The Selfish Gene and people on the internet took this to a whole other level. Animals, people, and even objects were taken pictures of to create the funny pictures many have saved on their phones. Dawkins’ work is as close as anyone could get to the origin of memes because, as I mentioned above, people on the internet created them. It is unknown who actually submitted the first meme of which many followed, but anyone could contribute to these images that make people smile daily, even you!
-Brooke Sahanaja ‘22
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