I find it fascinating how the word meme came to be so specific and yet so vague. Now you have 'memes' as in image macros, 'memes' as in 'funny images,' sometimes 'memes' as in snowclones, 'memeing' as essentially a synonym of 'shitposting,' and occasionally, 'memes' in the traditional sense (pretty much a general term for things that spread virally.)

On 4chan, it started with image macros, reaction images/gifs, demotivational posters, etc. and at some point, all of those just became what 'meme' has come to mean, and if you say the word meme without context people just assume image macros, a la meme generators.

I suppose there's nothing wrong with this, since all of those things do indeed tend to be memetic, but it made so much more sense early on than it does now.

> 'memes' in the traditional sense (pretty much a general term for things that spread virally.)

The original meaning:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme

The word meme was “coined by British evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins in The Selfish Gene (1976)[11][16] as a concept for discussion of evolutionary principles in explaining the spread of ideas and cultural phenomena. Examples of memes given in the book included melodies, catchphrases, fashion, and the technology of building arches.[17]”

Actually, the word "meme" was used in a small fraction of academia before Dawkins popularised it, in a meaning similar, but not quite the same, as Dawkins' meme. I'm positive I've read a paper from some Dutch university about that. [Citation needed]

I couldn't help but dig a bit, and I managed turn up a couple of papers [1] [2] that suggests that the pre-Dawkins meme was variously called "mneme" (which spelling is closer to the Greek root of the word), and completely different things. The Dutch connection seems to be the Leiden school of linguistics [3].

[1] https://semioticon.com/virtuals/imitation/van_driem_paper.pd...

[2] https://vtechworks.lib.vt.edu/bitstream/handle/10919/42774/b...

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Leiden_school

Edit: Formatting and typo

I think it's a little bit of a generational thing.

I was aging out of SA before 4chan even really got going (not maturing out, since I'm not that mature; just being done with college, moving on to professional school; not spending as much time on forums/etc). I never spent any real time looking at 4chan.

I of course know what image memes are, but if you just said meme to me with no context then I still think of it as the Dawkins 'Selfish Gene' idea.

There was a miniature Eternal September moment in 2010-2011 when image macros hit mainstream sites like Facebook. Months of "haha look at this funny meme! It's called a 'bad luck Brian'!" used out of context.

It pushed thr chans/SA deeper and darker. Honestly I'm surprised it isn't more recognized as an inflection point.