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Originally Posted by david starling
How did they end up being called "memes"? Sounds like the " Me Generation" x2.
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The word was first coined in 1976. A definition that captures it's essence better than the attempts that I've seen recently on the forum is, " An element of a culture that may be considered to be passed on by non-genetic means esp. imitation."
The book was written in the late 90s. The author speaks about newsgroup taking shop by the name "alt.memetics". Online articles showing up during that time include 'The New Meme', 'Meme, Counter-meme', 'Memetics: a system of metabiology', 'Memes, metamemes and politics', and 'Cryonics, religions and memes' to list a few.
There's a modern day group of persons who speak about memes in the same way that I'd imagine that these groups did. It's on a fringe website and the group is referred to as the "bureau of memetic warfare"
Memes didn't just crop up in 2010.