meme — English Dictionary

meme
Pronunciations (2)
  • /miːm/
  • miːm

Noun

  1. Any unit of (originally cultural) information, such as a practice or idea, that is transmitted verbally or by repeated action from one mind to another in a comparable way to the transmission of genes.

    Synonyms
    Examples

    Examples of memes are tunes, ideas, catch-phrases, clothes fashions, ways of making pots or of building arches.

    More examples (1)

    For most of the population, the media system is, I think, a different one. It's not just the case that it tries to entertain them. It tries to entertain them through memes, which will intensify attitudes that support the interests of elites.

    Related memes tend to form mutually supporting meme-complexes such as religions, political ideologies, scientific theories, and New Age dogmas.

    More examples (1)

    The original Hobson and Jobson stock comic characters have died out as a meme, as has the application of their names to the Muharram in India.

  2. Media, usually humorous, which is copied and circulated online with slight adaptations, such as basic pictures, video templates, etc.

    Usage
    • Internet
    Examples

    He posted a meme that went viral within a few hours on social media.

    He stuck memes on the wall to campaign for the position of President.

    More examples (8)

    Not everyone saw the comparison to Nazis as a "meme" - most people on the Net, as elsewhere, had never heard of "memes" or "memetics." But now that we're living in an increasingly information-aware culture, it's time for that to change.

    I do...but my journal is a mess. It's mostly filled with memes and my bitching about a house I am building.

    The idea was to append Keyboard Cat to the end of a blooper video to "play" that person offstage after a mistake or gaffe, like getting the hook in the days of vaudeville. The meme became popular, Ashton Kutcher tweeted about it to more than 1 million followers, and more than 4,000 such videos have now been made.

    This latest Internet meme is shocking. But most shocking of all is the person who started the meme isn't a person at all, but a cat who seems to have no regard for people's safety.

    Harlem Shake meme: the new Gangnam Style? [headline]

    Social networks produce inside jokes at a relentless pace. The best, worst, stupidest and funniest of those jokes become memes, and either you get them or you don’t.

    Haha, memes are funny! Until they totally become racist. Pepe the Frog lived a very normal meme life right up until online trolls turned him into a green thing of hate in 2016. It got so bad his creator symbolically killed him off in 2017.

    He said that NFT sales had helped establish memes as a sophisticated art form and “serious pieces of culture.”

  3. A specific instance of a meme, such as an image macro or a video, often with humorous superimposed text.

    Usage
    • Internet
    Examples

    This meme generator lets you make your own memes by adding a caption to existing images, or by uploading your own image.

    I'm always posting memes on the groupchat.

  4. Something which is deceptive; a trick, a ruse.

    Usage
    • Internet
    • Derogatory
    Examples

    It's a meme degree, you know. Good luck getting a job from that.

    I can't believe I fell for the bulking meme.

  5. Something not to be taken seriously; a joke.

    Usage
    • Internet
    • Derogatory
    Examples

    It's a meme degree, you know. Good luck getting a job from that.

    Jogging is a meme.

  6. A work produced and shared in response to a prompt or suggestion within an online group.

    Usage
    • Internet
    Examples

    kink meme

    anon meme

Verb

  1. To create and use humorous memes.

    Usage
    • Internet
    • Intransitive
    Examples
    More examples (1)

    Yesterday afternoon four kids went to the hospital for injuries resulting from memeing in front of a local cafe. Faith Hilling, Taylor Swifting. These are things that will get you killed!

    One axiom commonly seen on /pol/ is "The Left Can't Meme"; in other words, left-wing meme jokes aren't funny.

  2. To turn into a meme; to use a meme, especially to achieve a goal in real life.

    Usage
    • Internet
    • Transitive
    Synonyms
    Examples

    Scott Greer, a deputy editor of the Daily Caller, tweeted, “Cernovich memed #SickHillary into reality. Never doubt the power of memes.”

    David Moyes succeeding Slaven Bilić as West Ham United manager is being memed into existence by the internet, Football Burp understands.

    More examples (2)

    “Succession’s language is so specific, unique and captivating that nearly every line is worthy of being ‘memed’, even if it’s just somebody saying ‘fuck off’ or ‘bad tweet!’” she says.

    In my experience the films that typically get memed are either really terrible (Madame Web), so huge that they’re everywhere (Barbie), or have a cast stacked with familiar faces so the memes cast a wide net for potential sharing.

  3. To joke around.

    Usage
    • Internet
    • broadly
    • Intransitive
    Examples

    actually, it wasn't my mental functioning. i'm just meming.

    More examples (1)

    “[P]ewdiepie is, once again, doing exactly what neo-nazis want,” Kotaku reporter Nathan Grayson commented on Twitter in response to the incident. “[W]hether he’s just meming or he ascribes to these values, it doesn’t matter. [W]hat matters is that he normalizes these ideas as jokes on THE platform where kids increasingly get their first exposure to the world at large.”

    Some of his fellow fascists thought he was just “meming and pranking”; others dismissed it as “some autistic phase.”

Noun

  1. Granny; nana.

    Usage
    • Informal
    Examples
    More examples (1)

    When my parents got a divorce my dad washed his hands of my mom and me. He just pretended neither she nor I existed. If it weren't for my Meme, I would have lost all contact with the Atwood family after the divorce.

    Then there was my Meme, my father's mother. She was one of the most wonderful, loving, craziest, funniest people I ever had in my life.

Noun

  1. a cultural unit (an idea or value or pattern of behavior) that is passed from one person to another by non-genetic means (as by imitation)

    Examples

    memes are the cultural counterpart of genes

Word forms
memesmemesmemeingmemingmemedmemed

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