Meme
Remember that summer when the internet was one Distracted Boyfriend after another\u2014that flannel-shirted dude rubbernecking at a passing woman, while his girlfriend glares at him? Everyone had their own take\u2014the Boyfriend was you, staring directly at a solar eclipse, ignoring science. The Boyfriend was youth, seduced by socialism, spurning capitalism. The Boyfriend could be anyone you wanted him to be.\xa0\xa0\xa0\nWe think of memes as a uniquely internet phenomenon. But the word meme originally had nothing to do with the internet. It came from an evolutionary biologist who noticed that genes weren\u2019t the only thing that spread, mutated, and evolved.\nWant to stay up to speed with all thing\xa0Science Diction?\xa0Sign up for our newsletter.\nGuest:\xa0\nGretchen McCulloch is an internet linguist. For some fun, check out her book, Because Internet, and her podcast Lingthusiasm. She\u2019s also appeared on Science Friday.\nFootnotes And Further Reading:\xa0\nFor an academic take on memes,\xa0read\xa0Memes in Digital Culture by Limor Shifman.\nRead\xa0The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins.\nCheck out\xa0the first time the word meme appeared in an internet context, in Mike Godwin\u2019s 1994 Wired article called \u201cMeme, Counter-meme.\u201d\nCredits:\xa0\nScience Diction is written and produced by Johanna Mayer, with production and editing help from Elah Feder. Our senior editor is Christopher Intagliata, and we had story editing help from Nathan Tobey. Our theme song and music are by Daniel Peterschmidt. We had fact-checking help from Michelle Harris. Special thanks to the entire Science Friday staff.