MemeLords! I'm sure you've heard of them. These people are well-known for creating and spreading memes. Everyone has at least one Memelord in their circle of friends who utilises memes to fill their social media statuses or stories, and they are a source of enjoyment for some of us.

A meme is a humorous image, video, or piece of text that is shared and circulated among and by internet users. These have become highly popular, particularly among young people, and have evolved into a means of communication. If it weren't for them, the internet would be a far less fun place for some.

"Most of the time, I get my news through memes shared by people I follow on Instagram, Facebook, and Snapchat. Most of the time, these are the first things that break the news to me. For me, life would be sad without memes," one guy wrote in a tweet.

Memes transmit information, are copied and passed down from one person to the next. Photos/net.

"How are you going to find out who wins the football game, for example?" he continued. "It's probably memes mocking the losing team, right?"

However, another Twitter user disagreed, saying, "Nope. For me, I think they exaggerate sometimes. They might be entertaining, but they can also be quite provocative and inappropriate,” she explained.

This plainly demonstrates how some people believe memes are overrated, while others can't imagine living without them. Some people, however, may be intrigued as to how the concept of 'Memes' came to be.

'Meme' comes from the Greek word 'Mimema,' which means 'Imitated.' Richard Dawkins, a British evolutionary biologist, coined the phrase in his book The Selfish Gene in 1976. 

He created the term "memes" to describe the cultural equivalent of genes. It's a theory that describes how ideas and concepts, ranging from fashion to music, take on a life of their own inside a society as they spread and mutate from mind to mind.

Memes were conceived by Dawkins as a cultural equivalent to biological genes, and they were regarded in the same way as "selfish" genes. He assumed they were in charge of their own reproduction and hence pursuing their own ends. Memes, he claims, transmit information, are copied, passed down from one person to the next, and have the power to evolve and change (mutation).

Since then, memes have been debated and understood in a variety of ways, including as fundamentally destructive, neutral, or positive. Memes have been equated to mental parasites or viruses by some academics. The main argument is that once a meme is instilled in the human mind, it is more likely to be misunderstood or misused.

Some jokes may be amusing to some, but they may be offensive to others, reinforcing their various traumas or painful experiences. Beneficial memes, on the other hand, such as those that support human health, survival, and so on, were not fully dismissed.

However, as memes grew in popularity in the early 21st century, they became even crueller and were spread at an unprecedented rate. It has been proven that they are even altered by individuals for cynical motives, and that tracking the origins of a meme is difficult owing to its great shareability.

This is why Dawkins and other scholars regard internet memes to be a different representation of the meme concept.

In her article "The Role of Memes Teen Culture," Jennifer L.W. Fink argues that they are quite detrimental from the perspective of a worried parent watching her sons react to sarcastic comments regarding important situations.

Her sons' engagement with memes that make jokes of things like Covid-19 and wars, among other things, saddens her. She claims that as a result of this, they may not take anything seriously. She is concerned that it will cause them to believe false information about various topics and, as a result, adopt racist or sexist viewpoints, among other things.

In her article "Why do Memes Matter?" Iris Duong, on the other hand, says that memes serve as an expression of people's opinions and emotions.

"Memes can be formed by appropriating scenes or lines from TV shows and movies, which are then taken out of context, remixed with other content and have new meanings attributed to them in a funny and relatable manner,” she said.

It is then hard to conclude whether memes make the internet a better or worse place. What are your thoughts?