Open social media and amusing images or short videos copying the same dance appear one after another. Memes, which we casually consume every day, have become a common language supporting communication in digital space.
Yet the word predates the internet and is rooted in evolutionary biology. Let us examine in order how memes emerged, how they spread explosively, and where they collide with society and law.
Where Did the Concept of the “Meme” Come From?
Evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins first introduced the word “meme.” In his 1976 book The Selfish Gene, he boldly applied the mechanisms of genetic self-replication, mutation, and natural selection that drive biological evolution to the abstract realm of human culture.
He proposed that information transmitted from person to person through conversation and observation—including traditions, customs, knowledge, language, fashion, and even false rumors during disasters—spreads through hypothetical agents replicating themselves like genes.
To name this new replicator, Dawkins combined the Greek root mimeme, meaning “to imitate,” with the English words memory and gene, coining “meme.”
Japanese translations include terms meaning “imitator” and “idea gene,” and the concept has been accepted as an analytical tool for objectively understanding cultural phenomena. Its insight—that information from a small beginning changes through imitation and spreads regardless of judgments of good and evil—anticipated the later information society.
The idea that culture travels and evolves in gene-like units did not appear suddenly. German biologist Richard Semon referred to the possibility that memory traces could pass across generations in his 1904 book Die Mneme.
In 1975, anthropologist F. T. Cloak presented a theory that immense cultural systems persist through people mutually imitating fragmentary “cultural instructions.” In 1985, Robert Boyd and Peter Richerson proposed Dual Inheritance Theory.
It mapped the coevolution of cultural evolution through memes and biological evolution through DNA as each constrains and acts upon the other. Beginning as a metaphor, the meme has grown into an important interdisciplinary framework for understanding human cultural evolution.
How Memes Multiply Explosively in Digital Space
Memes once passed through physical imitation and oral tradition. The internet gave them an entirely new ecosystem and an explosive capacity for self-replication.
Modern internet memes are highly modular and easy for users themselves to alter.
Many combine a common base image or video format with variable overlaid text. Research groups examples using the same base image as one meme regardless of text and quantitatively tracks where the format emerged and the routes by which it spread.
This ease of modification transformed memes from content merely consumed into something like an open-source project developed by everyone.
Why do only certain formats among countless images go viral? Precise psychological mechanisms operate beneath the process.
The greatest factors are desires to connect with others, belong to a group, and share common experiences. Successful formats such as Distracted Boyfriend and Wanted Posters share an ability.
They visually express inner conflicts many people unconsciously experience in daily life but struggle to articulate. Users identify their own situations and emotions, then insert personal context as text to make an original version.
This combination of personal identification and collective creativity developing a format across a community drives expansion beyond language barriers. When we share a meme, we may think we are sending an amusing image, but at a deeper level we perform a social act that confirms our position and proves participation in a community.
Short Video and Gen Z “Co-Creation”
Memes once centered on bulletin-board ASCII art and image macros built from stills. Today, their ecosystem has shifted decisively toward short video on TikTok and YouTube Shorts.
A reported survey of about 450 people by Z-SOZOKEN, a think tank specializing in Gen Z, says young people now place extreme emphasis on “time performance” in consuming content.
In an information-saturated environment, a desire not to make a mistake or waste time reportedly makes them reluctant to invest immediately in unknown long-form content.
As an adaptive strategy, they first judge within a roughly 15-second clip whether something is interesting and investigate the full version only when it passes that test. Short video functions as an entrance to all forms of content.
Official accounts and television stations have responded by routinely creating clips that lead viewers to full programs.
In this short-video ecosystem, users do more than passively consume. They copy easy phrases and dances, use popular music and filters, rearrange them, and repost new videos through derivative creation and remixing. Gen Z strongly acts as content co-creators, and participation and co-creation themselves have become the largest engine behind modern chains of explosive attention.
Networks and Algorithms Determine Spread
Research is gradually quantifying how memes move and amplify across networks. A study said to analyze memes about former German chancellor Angela Merkel found that success depends heavily on the behavior of influential nodes early in the network.
Highly connected, central early adopters such as journalists and major media joining early and adding new edits to images can trigger explosive spread.
A large-scale data analysis reportedly presented by Stanford researchers at CSCW 2022, based on about 900,000 observations, revealed an interesting paradox.
Memes from large, popular communities with many posts and active members are more likely to spread at all, but tend to travel a shorter distance into different communities.
Inside jokes optimized within a homogeneous group may be consumed intensely there but remain difficult for outsiders lacking the context. Truly global memes therefore require semantic openness that does not rely too heavily on one context and lets diverse people insert their own meaning.
Platform recommendation algorithms form the artificial environment that ultimately determines meme survival.
Services such as TikTok continually refine algorithms because they directly support the business model. A sequence of irrelevant videos reduces viewing time and how often the app is opened.
To avoid departure, the For You feed analyzes minute behavioral data in real time and naturally inserts videos likely to attract interest. Viral success in this environment is measured by unforgiving metrics.
Can the opening three to five seconds present a strong hook? Does the theme remain consistent and retain completion rate? The greatest booster is whether likes, saves, and shares arise naturally and frequently after viewing.
Once those reactions exceed a threshold, the algorithm pushes a video far beyond its followers. Many modern meme phenomena are less pure word of mouth than algorithm-driven trends created where platforms' desire to maximize time spent meets the human urge to imitate.
How the Shape of Humor Changes between Generations
Responses to memes vividly reflect divisions in generational values. Other generations mainly enjoyed professionally constructed sketches and comedy passively on television and spread trends by word of mouth. Gen Z inhabits a different ecosystem, with a strong preference for irreverence, irony, and self-deprecation.
Openly exposing one's laziness and weakness and turning complaints or everyday observations into ironic humor creates powerful empathy.
Behind this may lie both a reaction to modern demands to look perfect and a release valve for an uncertain future.
Official accounts addressing this generation are also said to gain more empathy from casual language and light self-deprecation than polished rhetoric. That requires sophisticated balance to avoid words that cause a disastrous controversy.
Most notable is how the definition of humor itself has widened among younger people. Some speak of youth leaving comedy, but it is better understood as an era of a comedy gradient: enjoyment has diversified and is consumed casually according to personal enthusiasm.
Other generations meet humor chiefly through mass media such as television and radio, while Gen Z centers social media and short video. Content has shifted from program-length work to roughly 15 seconds requiring a hook in the opening moments.
Humor has likewise moved from carefully constructed stand-up with a punch line toward irony, self-deprecation, and transforming everyday negatives into laughter. Trends travel through memes and derivative creation beginning in short video rather than mass distribution and word of mouth.
The range of humor forms a seamless gradient, from people who attend theaters and passionately follow the M-1 comedy competition to those who lightly consume international memes arriving through social media.
For them, polished stand-up, an accident during game streaming, and a foreign meme without understandable context are equivalent items on the same table. Gen Z's humor is participatory and empathetic, completely synchronized with the process of meme mutation and spread.
The Pitfalls of Meme Marketing
Memes' overwhelming spread and strong ability to create empathy among young people attract brand managers. Skillfully using a popular format may generate explosive engagement without a large advertising budget.
Casual commercial use by companies, however, can deeply damage a brand. Memes inherently depend on a particular community's internal context, irony, and raw informality.
A controversy involving major beer manufacturer Company A in October 2024 illustrated the danger. It began with a vertically read newspaper television listing—“You are a future superstar”—placed by a broadcaster in connection with coverage of a sports draft.
The clever wordplay attracted attention on social media and created a favorable trend of vertically read memes. Company A joined it, posting an image from its official account with the sentence “My hands are shaking.”
Reading selected characters vertically hinted that a new commercial starring a popular actor and actress would begin the day after next. The post immediately received fierce criticism, and the next day Company A deleted it and apologized for an inconsiderate expression.
Why did a simple commercial announcement cause such outrage? The core problem was inadequate research into the borrowed meme. The phrase “My hands are shaking” had spread when a member left a popular idol group at former major talent agency Company B. A shaken fan posted it on social media alongside a vertical-reading interpretation of the member's blog.
A company removed an expression born from a fan's profound distress from its context and used it for unrelated profit. This provoked strong anger, especially from that fan community. Moreover, in 2023, when the sexual-abuse scandal involving Company B's founder became a social problem, Company A had quickly announced before competitors that it would stop using Company B's talent in advertising.
The double standard of conveniently using only a meme from fans of the same agency intensified the criticism. A producer of alcoholic drinks also faced harsh comments that casually using a phrase about shaking hands lacked compliance awareness.
The response added further fuel. Formulaic apologies saying a post was deleted because of an inconsiderate expression and regretting that people felt uncomfortable are often mocked online as the “offense formula.”
They obscure which act was wrong and whose feelings were harmed and can imply transferred responsibility: if you happened to feel uncomfortable, we apologize.
The more a company presents itself as understanding online culture, the greater the disgust when it responds without transparency. Corporate use of memes demands high literacy and ethical care, investigating their origin, derived contexts, and whether they come from a particular person's tragedy instead of merely following surface trends.
The Boundary between Copyright and Human Rights
Memes' greatest problem is that their formation fundamentally conflicts with current law. Many arise through unauthorized copying, alteration, and redistribution of existing images or video owned by others.
Under Japanese copyright law, saving an image as a first step may implicate the reproduction right in Article 21; adding text or combining it, the adaptation right in Article 27; and posting the completed meme for the public on social media, the public transmission right in Article 23.
Quotation under Article 32 is one of few exceptions. Lawful quotation must satisfy strict requirements: the creator's own work remains primary and the quotation subordinate, the two are clearly distinguished, quotation is necessary, and the source is identified. A typical meme that uses another person's image across the whole frame and overlays a short text satisfies almost none, circulating in a gray area close to black.
The United States, where internet memes emerged, has the more flexible doctrine of fair use under Section 107 of the Copyright Act, providing a legal breakwater for meme culture. Legality is judged through four factors together.
First is purpose and character, including commercial or noncommercial use. Recent analysis especially emphasizes transformative use, which adds new expression or meaning and serves a different purpose. A meme turning a simple photo into parody or social criticism is a typical example more likely to receive protection.
Second is the nature of the copyrighted work, with more artistic works receiving stronger protection.
Third is the amount and substantiality used. Memes use an entire image, weighing against them, but this does not automatically defeat fair use when the amount is necessary for parody.
Fourth is effect on the market or value. Memes are often low-resolution and consumed in a different context, so they are frequently considered unlikely to compete with the original market.
Noncommercial meme use by individuals is often effectively overlooked because of these doctrines and the poor economics of enforcement. The moment a company uses one without permission for commercial purposes, infringement risk becomes visible.
In a prominent example, the creators of Nyan Cat and Keyboard Cat sued game developers and others over unauthorized use in the popular Scribblenauts series. The case ended in 2013 with a formal license and settlement. Other unauthorized commercial uses have reportedly produced findings of copyright and trademark infringement and substantial damages.
Even material circulating like free stock has firm copyright at its source, and an identifiable person adds portrait and publicity rights. Using memes in corporate marketing is like walking through a minefield of intertwined rights.
Beyond property rights, memes' speed and anonymity make them fertile ground for abuse, defamation, and privacy violations. When a person's mistake or baseless prejudice becomes a meme with a catchy phrase, it remains nearly permanently as a digital tattoo.
In Japan, the Ministry of Justice's Human Rights Bureau and Legal Affairs Bureaus and the National Police Agency's Cyber Police Bureau provide systems of relief for these violations.
When abuse spreads, an important first response is preserving screenshots as evidence showing the site name, URL, time, and content. If a Legal Affairs Bureau reviews a consultation and finds a human-rights violation, it has authority to directly request deletion from platforms or providers.
Private services include a defamation hotline operated by the Safer Internet Association. Yet removing a problematic meme from one account cannot match the speed at which other users alter and reupload it from countless accounts. Memes remain on the most difficult digital boundary between free expression and censorship, cultural creation and violations of human rights.
How should we coexist with this powerful cultural replicator and control its side effects? Multidimensional adaptation is required, from legal systems and platform design to individual literacy.
