From neighborhood walls to the digital space
The need to continue expressing and stamping our culture’s personalities and idiosyncrasies are innate to every generation. It’s why street art became so popular. But, now that we have the internet, the process of discovering and adopting new things has been accelerated tenfold. One of those “things,” was a new format of expression that quickly gained popularity: Memes… Latin Memes, funny Spanish memes, political memes, and so on. At this point, it’s tempting to say there’s a meme for everything.
Memes of all cultures and genres are everywhere, but what’s the origin of their name? “Memes” received their name from a theory developed by a scientist named Richard Dawkins in his 1976 book, The Selfish Gene. In his research, Dawkins concluded that memes replicate and circulate in the same way as genes, because they are the minimum unit of information that can be transmitted and, in his interpretation, is the way in which cultural transmission is done. According to the Dawkins’ hypothesis, following the logic that supports the evolutionary process: “Memes spread through human culture as genes do through genetic heritage.”
Despite the word “meme” originating in the ’70s, we can see how modern-day memes have managed to make this cultural conversion. They follow the same communication code: critical, analytical, and fun, by adapting and making it our own. Thus building and spreading our own Hispanic memes!