A **meme** (English: meme [miːm]) is a unit of culturally significant information. A meme can be any idea, symbol, style, situation, or mode of behavior that is consciously or unconsciously transmitted from person to person through speech, writing, video, rituals, gestures, etc. The term *"meme"* and its definition were introduced by evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins in 1976 in his book *"The Selfish Gene."* Dawkins proposed the idea that all culturally significant information consists of basic units—memes—just as biological information consists of genes. Like genes, memes are subject to natural selection, mutation, and artificial selection. Dawkins' idea gave rise to the discipline of *memetics*, which currently holds a controversial scientific status[1][2].#рекомендации #fpy #meme