This article exists as part of the online archive for HuffPost India, which closed in 2020. Some features are no longer enabled. If you have questions or concerns about this article, please contact indiasupport@huffpost.com.

This Is Where The Word 'Meme' Comes From, And It's Not The Internet

Huh!

All this time you were posting memes of doge and chemistry cat and Tide Pods, and you didn’t realize you were sharing units of culture.

According to the highly informative YouTube channel “Today I Found Out,” the word “meme” comes from evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins. In 1976, he wrote a book called The Selfish Gene in which he attempts to establish a “unit of cultural transmission.”

Interesting!