Meme (pronounced 'meem'): [Source]

A contagious information pattern that replicates by parasitically infecting human minds and altering their behavior, causing them to propagate the pattern. Term coined by Richard Dawkins in the book 'The Selfish Gene'.

Meme is the mind analogy of 'gene'. Individual slogans, catch-phrases, melodies, icons, inventions, and fashions are typical memes. An idea or information pattern is not a meme until it causes someone to replicate it, i.e. to repeat it to someone else. All transmitted knowledge is memetic.

If a scientist hears, or reads about, a good idea, he passes it on to his colleagues and students. He mentions it in his articles and his lectures. If the idea catches on, it can be said to propagate itself, spreading from brain to brain.

Memes, like genes, vary in their fitness to survive in the environment of human intellect. Some reproduce like bunnies, but are very short-lived (fashions), while others are slow to reproduce, but hang around for eons (religions, perhaps?).

Other Links:
Memes.org
Memes.net


Snippets:
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Photomodel: Monica Bellucci: Pictures | Bio | Matrix Reloaded
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Other Supermodels
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Video: Rand McNally: Southern Africa Safari (1995): Botswana, Zimbabwe, and Zambia
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CD: Paul Simon: Graceland (1986)
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CD: Michelle Branch: The Spirit Room (2001)
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