Memetic Mutation

It's meme time, it's meme time; gather all your friends, it's meme time; it's meme time, it's meme time; the only cure for sadness! *clap clap*^note Full version.◊

"Most of what is unusual about man can be summed up in one word: 'culture'. I use the word not in its snobbish sense, but as a scientist uses it. Cultural transmission is analogous to genetic transmission in that, although basically conservative, it can give rise to a form of evolution."

— Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene, Chapter 11

Ah, memes. The DNA of the soul.

Sociology notwithstanding, on The Internet, a "meme" (rhymes with "cream") is usually described as a catchy derivative of some aspect of pop culture parodied and repeated over and over, essentially being a cross between a catchphrase and an inside joke. If not used carefully, it can get to the point that its origins and original meaning become muddled and completely mutilated beyond any point of recognition or humor.

Which means we don't want them in TV Tropes articles. Because we are not interested in being muddled, dated, and beyond humor.

Fandom being what it is, this also applies to characters. Fandoms are liable to spread a "meme" version of a character which is totally (oftentimes deliberately) at odds with the original depiction, such as a cheerful version of a dark or scary character, a sexy version of a character featured in a Jekyll & Hyde episode, or an unlucky-yet-annoyingly-optimistic version of a normally depressed, tragic character.

Another quirk of memes depends on where they're initially propagated. Memes often spread regardless of content, taste or sensibilities, while the original source may be the only ones who know enough about the source material to use it ironically. Furthermore, some memes reference something common, but become catchy enough to be associated with only a single new thing.

Depending on how strongly the production company is tied with fandom, sometimes a meme can escape the space it originally spread in and get referenced in the medium it parodied through Bonus Material or Popularity Power. When this is the case you get an Ascended Meme. Some forgotten or Discredited Memes are even resurrected thanks to the Popularity Polynomial.

It can be an instance of The Catchphrase Catches On, which is when a phrase or saying from fiction becomes popular as an expression used in Real Life. However, certain memes are only popular to a certain group.

For in-universe examples, see Instant Web Hit.

If you'd like to keep up with the memes of the day, go to Know Your Meme, or Teh Meme Wiki on Fandom, or The LURKMORE Wiki (NSFW), or the fine folks at Encyclopedia Dramatica (even more NSFW). These are all examples of great resources for the memes themselves and the enigmatic culture around them, but beware the interstitials. You Have Been Warned. On the other hand, if you just want to learn who starts many of these, see Fountain of Memes. These are probably the most common source of Surreal Humor.

The Trope Namer (for the word meme) is Richard Dawkins, who suggested a Mind Virus-like model of society: that cultural information is inherited and reproduced, occasionally with minor mutations, in a similar way to genetic information. It's explained in detail, in plain language, in Neal Stephenson's 1992 novel Snow Crash.

Note that Memetic Mutation cannot be played with e.g. played straight, exaggerated, downplayed, justified, because it never "gets played" intentionally to begin with, just like other Audience Reactions.^note Unless, if the authors are deliberately trying to invoke it...

When adding to one of the subpages, please write the meme, then add the explanation of the meme inside a labelnote titled "Explanation." ^Explanation This is just the example. Follow it this way.

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Memes by medium:

See also:

• Other Internet (memes by website)

• Advertising
• Anime & Manga
• Asian Animation
• Comic Books
• Comic Strips
• Fan Works
• Films — Animation
• Films — Live-Action
• Literature
• Live-Action TV
• Music
• Pinball
• Professional Wrestling
• Radio
• Tabletop Games
• Theatre
• Toys
• Video Games (includes Visual Novels)
• Web Animation
• Webcomics
• Web Original
• Western Animation
• Real Life

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Meme-related tropes and articles, and specific memes with their own pages:

Related index:

• Trope Names from Memes

See also:

• Know Your Meme

• Ad of Win
• Angry Marines Ruby Quest
• Atheist Professor Copypasta: A copypasta meme concerning an Urban Legend about a Straw Atheist college professor.
• Bowsette
• Candle Jack: A meme in which anyone who says the name of a particular Freakazoid! villain gets abducted mid-sentence.
• Caramelldansen Vid
• The Catchphrase Catches On: When a famous catchphrase or other quote gets repeated outside its original context.
• Character Catchphrase: A quotation that a fictional character is famous for frequently saying.
• Confucian Confusion
• Creamsicle
• Creepypasta: Horror fiction stories circulating on the Internet, frequently told in a first-person perspective as if reporting events that really happened.
  • Jeff the Killer: A wide-eyed, pale-faced Serial Killer who was a fairly notorious creepypasta character.
  • The Most Dangerous Video Game: A common creepypasta story is to have the narrator recount their experience playing a cursed video game that features disturbing content and threatens to harm the player.
  • SCP Foundation: A creepypasta site which evolved into an expansive fictional universe, centered around a top-secret organization which captures paranormal beings and objects.
  • The Slender Man Mythos: Probably the most famous of all creepypasta characters, Slender Man is a Sharply-Dressed Humanoid Abomination who inspired numerous different adaptations and imitators.
  • Zalgo: A recurring Eldritch Abomination entity which corrupts other characters and written text.
• Discredited Meme: When a tired old joke or meme stops being funny.
• Fan Nickname: A nickname that fans of a work give to one of the characters.
• Fauxtivational Poster: A parody of a motivational poster, featuring pictures or captions that aren't really inspirational.
• Fluffy Pony
• Forced Meme: An obvious attempt to create a new meme backfires or falls flat.
• Fountain of Memes: A character who tends to inspire memes.
• Good Bad Translation: A translation of a work with errors that provoke enough amusement that it is accepted in its own right.
• Hitler Rants: Parody videos consisting of edited clips with fake subtitles from the German World War II film Downfall (2004), featuring Adolf Hitler (played by Bruno Ganz) furiously complaining about various weird subjects (often highly anachronistic to the original movie's historical setting), or getting into all kinds of absurdly ridiculous and random situations.
• Iconic Outfit
• Image Macro: Stock pictures with humorous captions.
• Inglip
• Inspector Spacetime
• Instant Humiliation: Just Add YouTube!: A character gets humiliated from an embarrassing video of them getting posted online.
• The Internet Is for Cats: Cute and funny photos or videos of cats (or other animals).
  • LOLCats: Image Macro memes of cats with captions written in broken English.
• The Internet Is for Porn: All kinds of erotic content can be found online.
• Interrupting Meme
• J'accuse!
• The Man Your Man Could Smell Like
• Meme Acknowledgment: When the creator of a work references a meme based on their work.
  • Ascended Meme: When a meme ends up becoming officially canonized by the work it is derived from.
• Memetic Hair
• Memetic Personality Change: Fanon alterations to a character's personality.
  • Memetic Badass: A fictional character (or a real person) is made out to be way more awesome than they actually are.
    • Chuck Norris Facts: Jokes about Chuck Norris being an unstoppable mighty being.
  • Memetic Bystander
  • Memetic Loser: A fictional character is made out to be more pathetic than they actually are, usually due to a humiliating defeat.
  • Memetic Molester: A fictional character is interpreted on the Internet as some kind of sexual predator due to statements, mannerisms, and actions that can be seen as creepy and perverse.
  • Memetic Psychopath: A nice character or ineffectual villain is interpreted on the Internet as an insanely violent jerk due to a Jerkass Ball moment.
  • Memetic Troll
• Navy Seal Copypasta: A copypasta meme associated with Internet Tough Guys trying to make up badass credentials.
• Obnoxious Entitled Housewife: From the late 2010s and onward, the term "Karen" has become commonly used to refer to annoying women (or occasionally men) who behave like this stereotype.
• Only in Florida: The "Florida Man" meme comes from a lot of weird news stories concerning the crazy criminal antics of local people from Florida.
• Play-Along Meme: Fans jokingly play along with an in-universe narrative or lie.
• Rickroll: The music video for Rick Astley's song "Never Gonna Give You Up" was often used to troll people through misleading links.
• Rules of the Internet: A list of Internet customs originating from 4chan.
  • Rule 34: There is online porn based on just about anything imaginable.
  • Rule 50: There is crossover fanfiction between any two different works of fiction.
  • Rule 63: There are Gender Flipped versions of all fictional characters.
• Sans Gaming
• Signature Scene
• Signature Transition
• SpongeBob Edited: Videos where the original audio is replaced with sound bytes of swearing or other expletives for comedic effect.
• Stay in the Kitchen
• Surreal Memes
• Tendies Stories
• There Are No Girls on the Internet: The assumption that all women on the Internet are just men pretending to be women.
• Tropers Do It Without Notability
• TV Tropes Will Ruin Your Life
• The Ugly Barnacle
• Voice Clip Song
• Virgin vs. Chad: A comparison meme in which two characters, the "Virgin" (a pathetic wimp) is contrasted with the "Chad" (a cool badass), with the Virgin and Chad being used to represent many different kinds of people or concepts.
• Watch It for the Meme: After seeing a particular meme, you decide to check out the original media source out of curiosity.
• Wrongfully Attributed: A popular misquote which distorts what the original person/character actually stated.
  • Beam Me Up, Scotty!
• X Called; They Want Their Y Back
• YouTube Poop: YouTube videos consisting of random clips, images and audio edited together to create all sorts of bizarre scenes.

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