A Brief History of Internet Memes

Brace yourselves, a memes timeline is coming.  Catchy to the point of being contagious, a meme is any idea, behavior or style that spreads from person to person within a culture — a tune, for example, or a catchphrase. Web culture re-appropriated it to mean a joke or piece of media that goes viral, mutating as it goes.

As a condescending Willy Wonka might say: “Oh, so the Internet hijacked your meaning? You must be one important word.”