When it was the last time you saw a meme? You probably don’t have to go too far in time to remember it. These images, usually accompanied by humorous texts, are real complex cultural phenomena that develop, change and spread quickly online. The concept of “memes”from the Greek mímēma which means “imitation”, was formulated for the first time by the scientist Richard Dawkins In the 1976 To describe how cultural ideas are transmitted and transformed, a bit like it happens with genes in DNA. With the advent of the web, the fun “digital memes” took a direction and evolving through the direct intervention of people and platforms that facilitate its sharing. Today we know that these viral content not only represent a fundamental part of online communication, but also spread through a highly centralized process, where a few platforms, such as Redditact as real “cultural fuels”. It is no longer enough to look at a single community to understand its origin: you have to map the entire network to reconstruct how and where a content originated and why it has reached virality.
The memes were born before the World Wide Web
The concept of meme As a replicable and adaptable cultural element it is therefore born well before Www (world Wide Web), since he was theorized by the geneticist Richard Dawkins In the 1976 in the book The Selfish Genebut it is only with the network that this concept has turned into a traceable phenomenon, observable and scientifically designed. The first expressions of this digital scale phenomenon date back to the 80s, with emoticons, and evolved in the 90s with content such as the “Dancing Baby”, broadcast more than anything else by e-mail and online forum. Over time, formed like i Rage Comics (caricatured and stylized images, generally digitally made) or image macro (images with superimposed text, often in capital and clearly visible) have begun to dominate the scene, helping to define the typical aesthetic of modern memes.
The evolution of technology favored this dynamic: the arrival of YouTube in 2005 opened the meme road in video format, like the famous Rickrollingwhile social networks such as Twitter (today X), Facebook and Instagram have The rhythm of diffusion of content is speeded. Today, the creation of a meme is facilitated by online tools such as the so -called “meme generators”, but their virality still depends on very precise social dynamics.
Where the most viral memes come from
Two main theories try to explain where the most viral memes come from: a support that emerge from marginal communities And then they are adopted by the mainstream platforms, the other attributes their birth to community intermediatewhich act as a bridge between the suburbs and the center of the network.
To investigate this issue, the researchers of the Stanford University, Durim Morina And Michael S. Bernsteinconducted the first study aimed at identifying the origin and diffusion of visual memes. Using techniques of artificial vision And Advanced scrapingthey traced millions of memes in English through different online communities, trying to trace where they had been published for the first time.
Contrary to the most common hypotheses, the results showed that the most viral memes They are mainly born in central communities of the network, like Redditand subsequently spread to other platforms. Although occasionally some of the most viral memes come from the “suburbs” of the web, the daily production of content is dominated by the mainstream platforms. In particular, 10% of communities with the highest centrality originate 62% of the visual memes spread on the web.
Bernstein, in commenting on these results, reported:
Our analysis has shown that some memes can still come from the outskirts (of the Internet), but day by day, most of the contents we see is published for the first time on a mainstream platform.
This study opens up new perspectives for media research, suggesting that the Online culture is strongly centralizedand asks questions about the actual role of the subcomunities in cultural creation. The researchers hope that future works also explore the Creative process behind memeswondering how social networks can better support smaller communities. Bernstein added:
Our next work will concern the creation of memes, but I think it is also important to evaluate whether we are satisfied with the centralization of the culture of the Internet. A large audience is obtained by posting on Reddit, Tiktok and so on, but the subcomunities play an important role in our culture and it is not clear whether our projects for social media are supporting this aspect in the best possible way.
