The Origin of a Meme

In English class recently, we've discussed origin stories. Stories like, "World on the Turtle's Back" and "Genesis" that helped the people who read these stories understand the origin of our world. So with all this talk about origin, it got me to think "How does a meme start?". At that point I turned to the Google to find out. After a bit of looking around, I found that there are several different ways a meme can start. So here are a few ways a meme originates.

What is a Meme?

In case you are unfamiliar with memes, a meme is kind of like a running joke on the internet. Memes are usually something relatable and humorous, and can even describe a certain "feeling". Some memes last longer than others and some are more popular. Hopefully this makes sense if you were unfamiliar with memes in the first place.

Real Life Events

The first potential cause for a meme, is a real life event. Take for example the most recent meme, Ken Bone. During the second presidential debate, many people on Twitter began making memes related to one of the audience members who asked a question. Why him? You may ask, and that's the thing, is memes from real life events usually happen when people notice something funny or out of the ordinary, and then meme-ify it. So in this case, Ken Bone's mustache and red sweater seemed to draw a lot of attention to it.

Another example of a real life event was during the Super Bowl 49 halftime show featuring Katy Perry. It was during this performance when the millions people watching witnessed "Left Shark". At one point during the show, Katy Perry was singing with two dancers at each side of her wearing shark costumes. The one on the left, however, seemed to be a bit confused since the way it was dancing was completely out of sync with the other performers on stage, and it was hilarious. This is another example of people noticing something out of the blue and creating a meme out of it.

A Viral Video

Viral videos aren't usually a reason for a meme, but it does happen occasionally. One that got a lot of views and attention is the  "Leeroy Jenkins" video from 2005. In this video, a group of people playing a game known as "World of Warcraft" were planning out an attack on a boss. However, one of the players in the group was AFK (away from keyboard) and didn't hear his group's plan to take down the boss. When he got back to his computer, he ran straight into the room while yelling his name "LEEEEROOY JENNNKKIINSS!". This ended up killing his entire group and ruining their plan to kill the boss. Now, "Leeroy Jenkins" is a meme to describe someone running in without planning. And this is how it is with many viral videos, they have something comedic and relatable which spawns a new meme. (The part where he runs in starts at 1:23).

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Websites

Now this origin is pretty broad, but there's multiple websites that are known for creating new memes. You may have heard of sites like ""Reddit" and "4chan", which are forum sites, allowing people to discuss various topics. Both of these websites have been the origin for memes like Pepe the Frog, Dat Boi and various other memes. Why these memes get so popular on these websites is unknown to me. But it could be that since the people discussing it share similar interests, they all find it funny and create memes from it.