"What is a meme?" you ask! Ah yes, the meme. Well, the more scientific definition is

"an idea, belief or belief system, or pattern of behavior that spreads throughout a culture either vertically by cultural inheritance (as by parents to children) or horizontally by cultural acquisition (as by peers, information media, and entertainment media)"

Basically, it's a socio-cultural equivalent of genes. In more common terms, a meme is an item of pop culture propogated via word of mouth. Usually some sort of news, video, website or phrase that spreads across the internet via YouTube and blogs.

Meme videos on YouTube often reach millions of views and are of no intrinsic creativity, but something about them is contagious enough for people to send the video to their friends. The videos become famous for being famous. Most young people will probably recognize the likes of Rick Roll, lolcats, All Your Base, Star Wars Kid, Chocolate Rain, Sneezing Baby Panda and many others. These videos and websites in themselves are ridiculous, but for some reason vastly entertaining.

Some of the latest memes have risen out of pop culture and news including "Imma Let You Finish," stemming from Kanye West's interruption of Taylor Swift at the VMA's; and "Balloon Boy" from the Balloon Boy Hoax. To become a meme is a great badge of honour despite possible embarrassment. The Star Wars Kid's family filed a $250,000 lawsuit against the students who distributed the original video. However, the father of "David After the Dentist" has said he has no regrets about filming his son under the influence of nitrous oxide after a trip to the dentist. The video has even been mashed-up with Christian Bale's on-set meltdown and it remains one of my favourites.

The meme is the new internet superstar status to aim for and there's no telling who the next meme could be kittens, balloons, badgers, who knows!? The wide array and randomness of these phenomenons just shows the variety of human interest, or the low standards of entertainment created by the over saturation of YouTube.

See how these advertisers appeal to the internet audience by adapting memes to their commercial. I have no idea what this commercial is for, but I still love it.



Update: Com Hem is a Swedish based Internet/Cable provider


Photo via sororityintern