 "The summer of discontent: Memes, national identity & globalisation of rage")
Memes may be all the rage in these heady days of digital trending, but they’re not a new thing. Ever since Richard Dawkins coined the term in his popular 1976 book The Selfish Gene, scientists have been putting memes under the microscope.
For Dawkins, memes were discrete units of cultural inheritance (gossip, images, fashion fads, catchphrases) that, by virtue of their rapid dissemination and adoption, drive cultural evolution, just as genes propel forth our biology.
In other words, memes can change the world with “likes” and “shares”.
Global meme wars
There’s even a field dedicated to their study:
