In this work, we investigate the role and evolution of a particular kind of cultural meme, namely template images that undergo modifications or get some text overlapped, conventionally referred to just as memes. While Dawkins’ model of cultural evolution is nowadays considered insufficient to comprehend the complex cultural phenomena of information transmission 8, 9, 10, 11, its evolutionary pattern still represents a valid basis for describing fundamental features of memes diffusion. Cultural memes represent a unit of cultural information transmitted and replicated writing posts, sharing personal videos, expressing “likes” are examples of this concept. Online communication can be read through the lenses of Dawkins’ cultural memes 7, whose definition applies to almost all online information vehicles. In this scenario, multimedia content such as videos, photos, and pictures represents an essential portion of online communication, especially within social media platforms.

Online interactions, indeed, influence social dynamics by favoring the formation of homophilic groups around shared narratives and attitudes and thus bursting group polarization 4, 5, 6. Social media radically changed the way we consume information and interact online 1, 2, 3. Notably, the creation of new memes is accompanied with an increased visual complexity of memes content, in a continuous effort to represent social trends and attitudes, that parallels a trend observed also in painting art. We observe an exponential growth of the number of new created templates with a doubling time of approximately 6 months, and find that long-lasting templates are associated with strong early adoption. The grouping of memes is the cornerstone to trace the growth curve of these objects. A combination of a deep neural network and a clustering algorithm is used to group memes according to the underlying templates. In this work, we study the evolution of 2 million visual memes published on Reddit over ten years, from 2011 to 2020, in terms of their statistical complexity and entropy. A fundamental question is whether they present culturally and temporally transcendent characteristics in their organizing principles. Memes are an emerging aspect of the internet system of signification, and their visual schemes evolve by adapting to a heterogeneous context. On the Internet, information circulates fast and widely, and the form of content adapts to comply with users’ cognitive abilities.

Time for change memes 2017