The Wikipedia definition of a meme is “an idea, behavior or style that spreads from person to person within a culture.” The word meme is a shortening (modeled on gene) of mimeme that was coined by the British evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins in The Selfish Gene (1976) as a concept for discussion of evolutionary principles in explaining the spread of ideas and cultural phenomena. Today we consume Internet memes on the daily thanks to animated gifs, the craft of taking adorable cat photos and sites like I Can Has Cheezburger and Know Your Meme.

YouTuber hatinhand searched far and wide and spent countless hours finding the original sources for the Internet’s most popular memes. See for yourself where the phenomenon of Internet memes originate ….