What are memes? We explain the popular format

Memes are an integral part of online culture. The concept originated in the English-speaking world and managed to spread worldwide. We explain the still-hot concept.

Memes are a veritable Internet phenomenon, and there's no end in sight.

The Internet continues to unearth its own creations; online humor in particular has become increasingly distinctive. Memes are an ideal example of this.

What are memes and how are they structured?

To understand memes, this info helps:

• A meme is always based on an image, sometimes several images.
• These images are often screenshots from movies. These are posted in a completely different reference, provided that the content of the image is transferable in a certain way. This is done with humorous means such as sarcasm, irony or black humor.
• In addition, the text content is important: This can come in the original from the screenshot or be added manually. This expands and refines the level of meaning.
• The overall construction of image and text thus becomes a meme, which draws its humor from the use in completely different contexts.
• In the meantime, GIFs are also used.

The number of established, widespread memes is hardly manageable; classics are, for example, Boromir from The Lord of the Rings, the dog "Doge" or the alien expert Giorgio A. Tsoukalos from the History Channel. The dissemination used to be mainly via sites like 9gag.com, today social media is the most important channel.The pronunciation of meme, by the way, is "miem" - the German variation meme is hardly used.