meme
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meme
A piece of content, often an image, video, or text with a humorous character, that spreads quickly across the internet and is copied and modified by users.
Das Bild von der mürrischen Katze wurde zu einem weltberühmten Meme.
The picture of the grumpy cat became a world-famous meme.
meme
In cultural theory, a unit of information such as an idea, a melody, or a fashion that is passed from one person to another through communication and thus spreads within a culture.
Nach Richard Dawkins sind Religionen komplexe Systeme aus kulturellen Memen.
According to Richard Dawkins, religions are complex systems of cultural memes.
In the context of the internet, a meme is often 'geteilt' (shared), 'gepostet' (posted), or 'erstellt' (created). When a meme becomes very popular, you say it 'geht viral' (goes viral).
Hast du das neue Meme über die Konferenz schon gesehen? Ich habe es sofort geteilt.
Have you seen the new meme about the conference yet? I shared it right away.
This meaning of the word comes from internet culture and is mainly used in everyday language and digital media. In formal or academic texts, it is less common unless the topic is internet culture itself.
Die Politikerin versuchte, mit einem Meme junge Wähler zu erreichen.
The politician tried to reach young voters with a meme.
You can recognize the cultural-theory meaning from the context. It appears in academic texts about sociology, evolution, or communication theory. The biologist Richard Dawkins is often mentioned as the originator of the concept.
Dawkins beschreibt ein Meme als kulturelles Gegenstück zum Gen.
Dawkins describes a meme as the cultural counterpart to the gene.
