meme

A meme is a cultural object like the mini-skirt, the computer virus, or the belief in ghosts, that can be replicated or passed on, and which in the processes of transmission evolves and seems to have a life of its own. The term was coined by the zoologist Richard Dawkins in his book The Selfish Gene (1976): it has affinities with gene (the unit of biological selection), memory, and mimesis or imitation. Dawkins's idea is that processes of evolution can occur given any entities that can be replicated. In the abstract, the process does not require that the entities involved are biologically defined. It is controversial whether the idea assists or obstructs attempts to understand cultural change through time.