What Is a Meme? Meaning, Origin & Examples (2026)

A meme is any joke, image, phrase, or short video that spreads rapidly across the internet, getting copied, remixed, and reposted by huge numbers of people until it becomes an inside joke the whole internet is in on. Memes are how online culture communicates in shorthand — a single image or phrase can carry a whole joke, opinion, or reaction that would take a paragraph to spell out otherwise. Here's where the term actually comes from, how a meme spreads, and which formats defined the last two years.

The Origin of the Word "Meme"

The word "meme" predates the internet by decades. Evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins coined it in his 1976 book The Selfish Gene, defining a meme as an idea, behavior, or style that spreads from person to person within a culture — the cultural equivalent of a gene copying itself. Dawkins wasn't talking about internet jokes; he meant things like catchphrases, fashion trends, or melodies that spread by imitation.

The internet meme as we know it today — an image, video, or phrase that gets copied and remixed with new captions or context each time it spreads — took shape on message boards and early social platforms in the 2000s and exploded once image macros (a photo with bold caption text overlaid) became easy to make and share on Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit.

How a Meme Actually Spreads

A meme usually starts as one specific post — a clip, a screenshot, a turn of phrase — that's funny or relatable enough that people start reusing it in new contexts, swapping in their own captions or situations while keeping the recognizable core intact. That repetition-with-variation is what separates a meme from something that just goes viral once: a meme becomes a format other people keep reusing, not a single post everyone just watches or shares.

TikTok, Instagram Reels, and X (formerly Twitter) are where most memes now originate and spread fastest, since a sound, gesture, or caption format can be copied by millions of accounts within days. A meme's lifespan can be a few days (a reaction to one week's news) or several years (formats like "distracted boyfriend" or "This Is Fine" are still reused a decade-plus later).

Major Meme Trends of 2025-2026

Meme culture moves fast, and a few formats defined the last couple of years:

• "6-7" (also written "67") — a phrase with no fixed meaning, paired with a hand gesture of both palms turning up and down alternately, roughly meaning "so-so" or "could go either way." It grew out of Philadelphia rapper Skrilla's December 2024 song "Doot Doot (6 7)." Skrilla himself has declined to explain what it means ("I never put an actual meaning on it, and I still would not want to"), and theories range from a reference to 67th Street in Philadelphia or Chicago to a Philadelphia police radio code — none confirmed. The trend exploded after an edit paired the song with NBA player LaMelo Ball, who's listed at 6'7". Dictionary.com named "six-seven" its 2025 Word of the Year.
• SYBAU — an acronym for a dismissive, profanity-laced way of telling someone to stop talking, used sarcastically or as a joke rather than a literal insult. It went viral in TikTok comment sections in mid-2025 and spread from there to X and Instagram, often paired with a reaction image (sometimes called the "SYBAU guy") and emoji like 💔 or 🥀.
• "Bombastic side eye" — a reaction meme built on the side-eye expression (looking sideways in suspicion or disbelief), captioned "bombastic side eye, criminal offense side eye." It originated on TikTok in January 2023 and has stayed in steady rotation as a reaction format since, still widely used to react to something absurd or suspicious.

Every one of these follows the same pattern as older formats: a short phrase or gesture becomes recognizable, then gets reused across millions of unrelated posts with the same tone but a new target each time.

Types of Memes

• Image macros — a photo with bold caption text on it (the classic top-text/bottom-text format).
• Reaction memes — an image, GIF, or short clip used to express a feeling in response to something else (confusion, disbelief, secondhand embarrassment); use the GIF creation guide when you want to animate your own reaction.
• Audio/sound memes — a specific audio clip or song snippet that gets reused as the soundtrack for unrelated videos, common on TikTok and Reels.
• Copypasta — a block of text copied and pasted repeatedly, sometimes with small edits, often as a joke or ironic tribute.
• Format memes — a recurring structure (like "expectation vs. reality" or a two-panel comparison) that anyone can fill in with their own content.

If a reaction meme will be reused in chat, export a separate square version using the Discord emote dimensions or Twitch emote size guide instead of relying on the crop made for a social post.

The Cultural Impact of Memes

Memes aren't just jokes — they're a fast, low-effort way to signal a shared reference or reaction, which is why they spread so quickly among people who follow the same online spaces. Memes have also shaped real-world events: they've been used to comment on political issues, mock public figures, and rally support around causes, since a meme can spread an idea further and faster than a traditional news post.

They're also commercially significant. Brands and creators lean on trending meme formats to make content feel current, and understanding which format is peaking (and which has already gone stale) is now a real skill for anyone posting on social media.

FAQs

What's the difference between a meme and something that's just "viral"?

Going viral just means a lot of people saw and shared one specific post. A meme is a reusable format — other people copy the structure (the phrase, the image, the gesture) and apply it to their own new situations, so it keeps spreading in new versions rather than being reposted as-is.

Who invented the word "meme"?

Evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins coined it in his 1976 book The Selfish Gene, to describe any culturally-transmitted idea or behavior — not originally about internet content at all. The internet later adopted the word for the image/video jokes we call memes today.

How long does a meme usually last?

It varies widely. Reactive, news-based memes can burn out within days once the moment passes. Format memes with broad, flexible use cases — like "distracted boyfriend" or "This Is Fine" — have stayed in circulation for a decade or more because they can be recaptioned for almost any new situation.

What made "6-7" go viral in 2025?

It started as a lyric in Philadelphia rapper Skrilla's December 2024 song "Doot Doot (6 7)" — its exact meaning is disputed (theories include 67th Street in Philadelphia or Chicago, or a police radio code, but Skrilla himself won't confirm one) — then spread on TikTok paired with a hand gesture and edits referencing NBA player LaMelo Ball (6'7" tall). Its appeal was that it's essentially meaningless — a shared inside joke anyone could use in almost any context — which Dictionary.com recognized by naming "six-seven" its 2025 Word of the Year.

Do I need permission to use a meme in my own posts?

Meme formats themselves (the joke structure) aren't owned by anyone, but the underlying photo, video, or audio clip a meme is built on can still be copyrighted or show a real person. For casual social posts most creators don't enforce this, but if you're posting for a brand or business, stick to formats you have the rights to use, or create your own version with your own image.

Understanding what a meme is comes down to recognizing the pattern: a short, funny, reusable piece of content that spreads because people keep reapplying it to new situations. If you're making your own meme-style posts, Instasize's photo filters and image resizer make it quick to prep an image for whichever platform you're posting to.