Internet Meme

An Internet meme is a meme, a catchphrase or concept, that spreads from person to person on the Internet.

Generally speaking, an Internet meme is any faddish popular phenomenon on the Internet. The term may refer to the content itself, the subject of the content, or the phenomenon of its spread. It is discrete, identifiable content as opposed to more general things like a philosophy or a trend. It is spread voluntarily, rather than by trickery, compulsion, predetermined path, or completely automated means. Some people liken Internet memes to a form of art, and digital art on the net to a form of meme. An Internet meme may stay the same over time or it may mutate over time, by chance or by the aggregation of commentary, alternate and parody versions, and news about the meme.

Internet content

A typical Internet meme is simply a digital file that gets passed from one user to others using whatever formats and transmission means are readily available on the Internet (for example, email, blogs, social networks, instant messaging, and the like). Usually, what is passed is either the content itself or a link (such as a hyperlink) to where the content may be found. The content might be in text, video, image, or other format, and might consist a joke, a rumor, an amusing picture, a video clip, animation, or graphic, or an offbeat news story.

In general, content that is actually notable or useful is not considered a meme, it is simply content. Thus, though it has meme-like qualities a newsworthy story, videogame, web service, song by an established musical group, or the like, is not a meme. Some websites collect and popularize memes, or are devoted to the spread of specific memes.

Self-promotion

One common form of meme is created when a person, company, product, musical group, or the like, is promoted on the Internet for its pop culture value. Vanity sites, for example, are among the first recognized Internet memes. People use photo sharing sites like Flickr or video sharing sites like YouTube to promote themselves or their musical groups. In extraordinary cases where an otherwise non-noteworthy person or incident gains great popularity this way it is often considered a meme.

Inadvertent celebrity

Often, a person or company becomes infamous by virtue of an embarrassing video, email, or other act. These arise, for example, in the context of dating and relationships, job applications, security cameras and other hidden videos, or collections of bizarre news stories.

Hoaxes

Many memes are urban rumors, fraud schemes, slander, or false news stories that are either planted deliberately to become a meme, evolve by mistake or rumor, or that jump from an offline source to the Internet. It is common to create fake "for sale" listings on sites like Craigslist or eBay for no other reason than to amuse people. Some web services like snopes.com and the urban dictionary collect lists of such hoaxes, or offer services by which users can fact-check popular claims they find on the Internet in order to determine their source and whether or not they are true.

Wikipedia memes

People have from time to time created faked or non-notable articles on Wikipedia in order to spread a meme, either in the form of a claim or amusing story about Wikipedia (e.g. that it is prone to vandalism or misinformation), or by using Wikipedia to attempt to spread false or misleading substantive information about the subject of the article. Similar pranks occur on blogs, press release sites (where they are known as media pranks, and other popular sites that can give credence to false information because they are perceived as authoritative. Some sites welcome or ignore memes, Wikipedia editors generally remove memes to the extent they report false or non-notable information. Sometimes the meme itself is notable, even if its subject is not, and there are therefore a number of Wikipedia articles about Internet memes.

Advertising and marketing

Public relations, advertising, and marketing professionals have embraced Internet memes as a form of viral marketing to create marketing "buzz" for their product or service. Memes are seen as cost-effective, and because of their sometimes self-conscious faddishness, a way to create an image of cleverness or trendiness. Marketers, for example, use memes to create interest in films that would otherwise not generate positive publicity among critics. Political operatives use online slogans, character assassination, revelations of scandal, and other memes to shape public opinion. Used in the context of public relations the term is more of an advertising buzzword than a proper meme, although there is still an implication that the interest in the content is for purposes of trivia, ephemera, or frivolity rather than straightforward advertising and news. A standard movie trailer is not a meme, but an item of trivia could be a meme.

See also

• List of Internet phenomena
• Meme - A unit of cultural information that propagates from one mind to another as a theoretical unit of cultural evolution and diffusion.

Via Wikipedia