The Chill GuyA Memetic Analysis

A meme is a unit of cultural transmission, analogous to a gene, that replicates itself as it spreads from mind to mind.

Significance: First formal definition of memes

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

Significance: Practical examples of meme manifestation

Just as genes propagate themselves in the gene pool by leaping from body to body via sperm or eggs, so memes propagate themselves in the meme pool by leaping from brain to brain.

Significance: Explanation of meme transmission

Memes are stories, songs, habits, skills, inventions and ways of doing things that we copy from person to person by imitation.

Significance: Modern interpretation of meme concept

We humans are meme machines: we are selective imitation devices that copy and spread successful memes.

Significance: Human role in meme propagation

A meme is an information-packet with attitude - an idea that is self-promoting.

Significance: Evolutionary perspective on meme behavior

Memes succeed in the environment of human culture not because they are true, but because they are good at getting themselves copied.

Significance: Meme survival mechanics

Cultural evolution can be understood as a system of inheritance, variation, and selective retention.

Significance: Mathematical framework for meme evolution

Cultural transmission is fundamentally transformative rather than replicative.

Significance: Alternative view on meme transmission

Cultural change may proceed in a Darwinian manner, but with its own rules and tempo.

Significance: Unique aspects of cultural evolution