Dawkins initially defined meme as a noun that "conveys the idea of a unit of cultural transmission, or a unit of imitation". [21] John S. Wilkins retained the notion of meme as a kernel of cultural imitation while emphasizing the meme's evolutionary aspect, defining the meme as "the least unit of sociocultural information relative to a selection process that has favorable or unfavorable selection bias that exceeds its endogenous tendency to change". [41] The meme as a unit provides a convenient means of discussing "a piece of thought copied from person to person", regardless of whether that thought contains others inside it, or forms part of a larger meme. A meme could consist of a single word, or a meme could consist of the entire speech in which that word first occurred. This forms an analogy to the idea of a gene as a single unit of self-replicating information found on the self-replicating chromosome.

Shifman, Limor (26 March 2013). "Memes in a Digital World: Reconciling with a Conceptual Troublemaker". Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication. 18 (3): 362–377. doi: 10.1111/jcc4.12013. Trivers, R. L. (1972). Parental investment and sexual selection. In B. Campbell (Ed.), Sexual selection and the descent of man (pp. 136–179). Chicago: Aldine. Labov, William. 1986. The social stratification of (r) in New York City. In Michael D. Harold & Byron Allen (eds.), Dialect and language variation, 304–329. London: Academic Press https://doi.org/10.1016/B978–0-12–051130–3.50029-X. 10.1016/B978-0-12-051130-3.50029-X Search in Google ScholarThe Harvard researchers—Diana Tamir, a grad student in psychology, and Jason Mitchell, her adviser—performed functional MRI scans on 212 subjects while asking them about their own opinions and personality traits, and about other people’s. Neuro­imaging of this sort can reveal which parts of the brain are being activated; in this case, the researchers found that the mesolimbic dopamine system—the seat of the brain’s reward mechanism—was more engaged by questions about the test subject’s own opinions and attitudes than by questions about the opinions and attitudes of other people. The system has long been known to respond to both primary rewards (food and sex) and secondary rewards (money), but this was the first time it’s been shown to light up in response to, as the researchers put it, “self-­disclosure.”

It’s not selfish to love yourself, take care of yourself, and to make your happiness a priority. It’s necessary. #selfishquotes The new sense of meme made its Merriam-Webster debut in 2015, defined in full as "an amusing or interesting item (such as a captioned picture or video) or genre of items that is spread widely online especially through social media." The Evolving Use of 'Meme'Pike, Kenneth (1967) [1954]. Language in Relation to a Unified Theory of the Structure of Human Behavior (Reviseded.).

Aaron Lynch attributed the robustness of religious memes in human culture to the fact that such memes incorporate multiple modes of meme transmission. Religious memes pass down the generations from parent to child and across a single generation through the meme-exchange of proselytism. Most people will hold the religion taught them by their parents throughout their life. Many religions feature adversarial elements, punishing apostasy, for instance, or demonizing infidels. In Thought Contagion Lynch identifies the memes of transmission in Christianity as especially powerful in scope. Believers view the conversion of non-believers both as a religious duty and as an act of altruism. The promise of heaven to believers and threat of hell to non-believers provide a strong incentive for members to retain their belief. Lynch asserts that belief in the Crucifixion of Jesus in Christianity amplifies each of its other replication advantages through the indebtedness believers have to their Savior for sacrifice on the cross. The image of the crucifixion recurs in religious sacraments, and the proliferation of symbols of the cross in homes and churches potently reinforces the wide array of Christian memes. [40]

The concept of memes is derived from the principles of universal Darwinism; that whenever information is copied with variation and selection, that information is a replicator and inevitably evolves. The core definition of a meme is ‘that which is imitated’. Genes are the first replicator; memes the second replicator that emerged when human ancestors became capable of imitating sounds and actions. Criticisms of memetics include claims that they do not exist, that the analogy with genes is false, that the units cannot be specified, that there is no clear equivalent of the germ line in biology, and that the sources of variation are intelligently designed rather than random. Reasons for rejecting these criticisms are discussed. For memetics, memes are selfish replicators that evolve for their own benefit, while other theories of cultural evolution look to biological advantage, providing very different accounts of the origins of the large human brain and language. Imitation is observed in song birds, cetaceans and great apes but animal cultures may arise through forms of social learning other than true imitation and are not memetic. Overimitation in children as compared with other great apes may be important in providing memetic advantage. The possibility of a third replicator, technological memes or tremes, is briefly considered.

Denisova, Anastasia (2019). Internet Memes and Society: Social, Cultural and Political Contexts. New York: Routledge. pp.13–26. ISBN 9780429469404. Salingaros, Nikos (2008). "Architectural memes in a universe of information". Theory of Architecture. Umbau-Verlag. ISBN 9783937954073.Tooby, J., & Cosmides, L. (1992). The psychological foundations of culture. In J. Barkow, L. Cosmides, & J. Tooby (Eds.), The adapted mind: Evolutionary psychology and the generation of culture (pp. 19–136). New York: Oxford University Press. Biological evolution is a change in the statistical distribution of biological (phenotypic or genetic) traits within a population (or a set of populations). Whether and how this statistical distribution changes can be explained in terms of two sets of factors (and of the interactions between them): transmission factors and selection factors. Let us consider them in turn. Organisms are causally connected with their descendants by means of what are sometimes called "inheritance channels". These channels are transmission factors. Genetic transmission is the most important of these channels but -- as I have argued elsewhere (Mameli 2004) -- it is not the only one. These causal connections between the generations are responsible for the extent to which (and for the way in which) organisms resemble their offspring. Thereby, such causal connections affect the extent to which (and the way in which) the statistical distribution of a trait in a given generation depends on the statistical distribution of that trait (or some related traits) in the previous generation. Explanations of changes in the distribution of traits that appeal to selection factors, in contrast, refer not to the features of inheritance channels but to the way biological traits affect the chances that organisms have of surviving and reproducing. Selection occurs when a trait increases in frequency because it makes the organisms that possess it more likely to do things that result -- through reproduction -- in the existence of other organisms with the same trait. As Bill Wimsatt has pointed out, the distinction between transmission factors and selection factors is in some cases blurred (Wimsatt 1999), but in general it provides a theoretically fruitful way of analysing biological change.