• Pennomi@lemmy.world
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    11 hours ago

    Unfortunately the word “meme” has come to mean “any image shared over the internet”.

    • Rhaedas@fedia.io
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      10 hours ago

      The origin of the word meme, as well as the concepts before the coining of the term by Richard Dawkins, are all neutral to the subject or purpose. A meme can easily be hate speech if it’s spread as any meme is. It’s true that its use in popular culture now mainly means something that has spread on the internet (not just an image), but that’s only because the internet is the fastest way for anything to travel through large populations.