From ED:

The word meme is a term coined by Richard Dawkins in his book The Selfish Gene. Originally used to describe packets of cultural information, it was adopted by the internet to describe viral lulz or frunz. Its original meaning is no longer used except by sociology majors.

The word meme is commonly used by people who aren’t very special because it is in fact shorter to write the word “meme” than to write out “internet phenomena” or “something that will wind up on G4 tomorrow for all of the nerds to fap all over”. It is well known that the only people that care about internet memes are sad ****s with no life. In the real world, the meme is known by its true name, “idea.”

Sometimes bloggers refer to memes as a word game or short quiz taken and posted as comment bait. The more comments a user receives about their results the higher the chances are of that thing spreading. Then most often memes are taken by ****ing idiots and totally ****ed up and or overused which eventually leads to the death of a meme, but here is an example of the lifespan of a meme.

A meme is born.

The meme becomes popular local to its origin.

Compounded overuse causes the meme to be burned into collective memory and distributed across the internet.

The meme reaches the bottom of the internet.

In some cases the meme has gone even lower and surfaced IRL.

Those that gave birth to the meme are filled with regret.

The meme lives on, spreading, and becoming moar and moar dumbed down for a mbum audience, so that over time it bears little or no resemblance to the original.

The meme then must be tossed into the fires of Mount Doom by a rather unsuspecting hobbit for its evil to be banished.

Three to five years later it spontaneously resurfaces, makes its way to uncyclopedia, slashdot tags, and occasionally appearing on old media where if it has told no lies throughout its lifetime it finally becomes a real meme. During the final throws of an internet meme’s slow and painful death its visited by old friends and family who, upon seeing the agony the meme is suffering simultaneously facepalm and hope the whole mess would just end already so they can clean out its room and have a place to put all the gym equipment. Goodnight sweet prince!!!11!121111eleven

The meme is put on Snorg Tees and Facebook bumper stickers.

HORRAY CTRL C

7 VIBRATING DOLDOES is now a meme.