Meme

A meme is a cultural unit — most commonly an image, phrase, video clip, or format — that spreads through internet communities by copying, remixing, and mutation. The concept originates with biologist Richard Dawkins, who coined the word in 1976 to describe cultural ideas that replicate like genes. Online, memes have become the primary currency of internet humor, argument, and community identity. They're how online communities process news, mock politicians, define in-group values, and argue about ideas at speed.

What it means

A successful meme carries meaning in compressed, instantly recognizable form. The "Distracted Boyfriend" format doesn't need a caption to communicate "tempted by something new while ignoring the reliable option." Pepe the Frog, Wojak, and dozens of derivative formats have become visual shorthand for entire emotional states and political positions. In communities like Gab, memes serve as both entertainment and editorial commentary — a way of saying what a thousand-word post might say, more memorably and with wider reach.

Platforms have faced difficult questions about meme moderation: because memes carry cultural meaning that automated systems can't reliably parse, they're easily misclassified. The same image can be innocent or offensive depending entirely on context — and removing memes has become a form of cultural censorship in itself.

How it works on Gab

Gab is one of the richest meme communities on the social web, in part because it doesn't remove political and cultural memes the way Twitter and Facebook have. Memes circulate freely, get remixed, and spread organically. The absence of algorithmic suppression means a genuinely funny or resonant political meme can reach a large audience without being throttled.

Related terms

Shitposting is the high-volume, low-effort meme strategy. Copypasta is the text equivalent. Based and red-pilled are concepts that spread primarily through meme culture.