meme definition

A meme is any unit of cultural information, such as a practice or idea, that is transmitted verbally or by repeated action from one mind to another.

Memetics, the study of memes, remains a controversial field among many scientists and skeptics. Memetics originated when Richard Dawkins reduced the process of biological genetic evolution to its most fundamental unit: the replicator (or gene). Dawkins, in a search for parallels and other things that he might classify as replicators, suggested that the information and ideas in brains — culture, for example — could function as replicators as well.

A meme (IPA: /mi:m/) is defined within memetic theory as a unit of
cultural information, cultural evolution or diffusion that propagates
from one mind to another analogously to the way in which a gene
propagates from one organism to another as a unit of genetic
information and of biological evolution. Multiple memes may propagate
as cooperative groups called memeplexes (meme complexes).