What is Memetics

Memetics is a topic I have only stumbled upon in the last week or so. So, I am not an expert by any means. Nonetheless, the word itself perked my interest, so I dived into its meaning.

Memes are defined as ultimately being units of culture. Specifically, as units of cultural exchange. Memetics is then the “theory of the evolution of culture based on Darwinian principles with the memes as the unit of culture.”

Much like how genetics are the link of biological evolution theory, memes act to progress culture through imitation, remixing, liking, and sharing.

Culture evolves, and memes have an impact on this process as units of cultural exchange.

This is a great explanation from a Redditor,

]“Internet memes are a great way to see how this works – a meme is just an image, but it captures a lot of cultural information in it, which we can use as a shorthand to describe a mood or respond to a question (or just have a giggle at). These memes mutate over time too, if you think of […]; two astronauts staring at the Earth, one about the shoot the other – this was originally a Flat Earth meme (first astronaut says ‘wait, it’s flat’, the other says ‘Always has been’) but it’s been modified in lots of ways to make different jokes. The image is the meme, the picture and the punchline (Always has been) are the same, but the joke itself mutates as the meme is updated and transmitted by others (akin to genes replicating), sometimes falling flat (disadvantageous mutation) or maybe overtaking the original in popularity (advantageous mutation).”

Memetics deals with the evolution of culture through memes. But it is also fun to think about the evolution of memes from a design perspective. Not only have social media platforms become more robust, individuals’ ability to create intricate multimedia content from a pocket-sized device has skyrocketed.