User:Ynassereddeen/Meme

Memetics
Main article: Memetics The discipline of memetics, which dates from the mid-1980s, provides an approach to evolutionary models of cultural information transfer based on the concept of the meme. Memeticists have proposed that just as memes function analogously to genes, memetics functions analogously to genetics. Memetics attempts to apply conventional scientific methods (such as those used in population genetics and epidemiology) to explain existing patterns and transmission of cultural ideas.

Principal criticisms of memetics include the claim that memetics ignores established advances in other fields of cultural study, such as sociology, cultural anthropology, cognitive psychology, and social psychology. Questions remain whether or not the meme concept counts as a validly disprovable scientific theory. This view regards memetics as a theory in its infancy: a protoscience to proponents, or a pseudoscience to some detractors.

Internet culture
Main article: Internet meme

See also: List of Internet phenomena

An "Internet meme" is a concept that spreads rapidly from person to person via the Internet. They can spread from person to person via social networks, blogs, direct email, or news sources.

In 2013, Dawkins characterized an Internet meme as one deliberately altered by human creativity, distinguished from his original idea involving mutation "by random change and a form of Darwinian selection."

Internet memes are an example of Dawkins' meme theory at work in the sense of how they so rapidly mirror current cultural events and become a part of how the time period is defined. Limor Shifman uses the example of the 'Gangnam Style' Music video by South Korean pop-star, Psy that went viral in 2012. Shifman cites examples of how the meme mutated itself into the cultural sphere, mixing with other things going on at the time such as the 2012 U.S. presidential election, which led to the creation of Mitt Romney Style, a parody of the original Gangnam style, intended to be a jab at the 2012 Republican presidential candidate, Mitt Romney.

Meme stocks
Main article: Meme stock

Meme stocks, a particular subset of Internet memes in general, are listed companies lauded for the social media buzz they create, rather than their operating performance. Meme stocks find themselves surging in popularity after gaining the interest of individuals or groups through the internet. r/wallstreetbets, a subreddit where participants discuss stock and option trading, and the financial services company Robinhood Markets, became notable in 2021 for their involvement on the popularization and enhancement of meme stocks. One of the most commonly recognized instances of a meme stock is Game Stop, whose stocks saw a sudden increase after a Reddit-led idea to invest in 2021.