Makes a Meme Instead: A Concise History of Internet Memes (original) (raw)

The aim of this research paper is to investigate the ontology and history of the Internet meme (a piece of content spreading online from user to user and changing along the way) from the 1980s to the early 2010s. After looking at the question of defining the Internet meme, I will analyse the evolution of the phenomenon from social, cultural and technological perspectives, such as chaos theory, the new aesthetics, generative systems, as well as trace the origins of certain elements of the Internet memes from a media-archaeological aspect. Originally written for the course 'Software Studies: Codes and Images' in the New Media and Digital Culture Masters programme at Utrecht University. It was selected for publication in the seventh edition of the university's New Media Studies Magazine: https://studenttheses.uu.nl/handle/20.500.12932/19016 The Portuguese translation of this paper was published in the book 'A cultura dos memes: aspectos sociológicos e dimensões políticas de um fenômeno do mundo digital' (lit. 'The meme culture: sociological aspects and political dimensions of a phenomenon of the digital world') edited by Victor Chagas of Fluminense Federal University, Brazil. DOI: https://books.scielo.org/id/ptm2d