Memes – New Culture of Joking

Due to the growing popularity of social networks and different Internet communities a new kind of jokes, called memes has approached. Memes are also known as media viruses and present an idea, image or any other object of immaterial world which is transferred verbally, non-verbally or via Internet.

The term comes from a Greek word which can be translated as “semblance”. The name reflects the nature of this humorous phenomenon – it can replicate itself in numerous copies. The concept of memes was developed in 1976 by a British scientist Richard Dawkins. The principle of memes’ action is quite simple – somebody posts a picture with funny saying, the other users post the same picture with other phrases of their own and the meme’s popularity begins to grow.