Meme isn't new: it dates to evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins' 1976 book The Selfish Gene, where it functioned with a meaning other than its current most common one. In Dawkins' conception of the term, it is "a unit of cultural transmission"—the cultural equivalent of a gene:

2025年1月13日 · Meme, unit of cultural information spread by imitation. The term ‘meme’ (from the Greek ‘mimema,’ meaning ‘imitated’) was introduced in 1976 by British evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins in his work The Selfish Gene. Learn …

2024年11月29日 · According to many experts, the answer is "Dancing Baby", a 3D animated GIF of a baby dancing to a techno song. "Dancing Baby" was created in 1996 by John Lasseter, a animator at Pixar. "Dancing...

2020年10月8日 · How far back do memes go? What were the first internet memes? Learn more about Pepe the Frog's ancestors in this quick history.

2024年3月20日 · In 1996, the "Dancing Baby" became one of the first widespread, mainstream memes, based on a widely spread animation of a diaper-wearing baby twirling around. The meme spread through email chains and became so popular that it was even referenced in an episode of The Simpsons in 2000.

2024年3月24日 · The word “meme” itself dates back decades before the digital era, coined by evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins in 1976 as a term for transmittable ideas that propagate cultural shifts – just as genes transmit biological information.

2023年5月17日 · The first internet memes were simple and text-based, like the infamous chain emails of the 1990s. However, it was in the early 2000s, with the rise of web 2.0 and social media, that memes began to truly flourish.

2018年2月27日 · One of the earliest memes born into the world of digits and pixels was actually a baby. Well, a computer-animated baby. Baby Cha-Cha-Cha, also known as Dancing Baby, was the first meme to go viral on the internet. The meme was created in 1996 to showcase the amazing abilities of the new CGI software by Kinetix Character Studio.

2020年2月14日 · Well it may be impossible to say what is the true first meme, but for now, the first documented viral meme fitting the definition completely goes by the name “Kilroy Was Here.” The origins of this meme date back to World War II and it was a popular graffiti symbol to draw among American Soldiers on everything and everywhere.

2023年7月24日 · One of the first memes to gain widespread attention in the internet age was the Dancing Baby. Yes, it was that simple: an image, GIF or video of a computer-animated dancing baby.