memetic

English

Etymology

meme +‎ -etic, by analogy with gene → genetic

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /məˈmɛtɪk/, /mɪˈmɛtɪk/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

• Homophone: mimetic (some accents)

Adjective

memetic (comparative more memetic, superlative most memetic)

1. Of or pertaining to memes; pertaining to replication of concepts.
   • 2012, Michele Zappavigna, Discourse of Twitter and Social Media‎^[1]:

     The term internets […] is an example of memetic usage that functions as a high profile in-joke.

   • 2015 July 7, Mark Galeotti, “'The west is too paranoid about Russia's information war'”, in The Guardian‎^[2]:

     But let’s not assume that all of the innuendo and debate is a product of the Russian info-war, or that the Kremlin is a grandmaster of the memetic chessboard.

   • 2018, Whitney Phillips, Ryan M. Milner, The Ambivalent Internet […] , John Wiley & Sons, →ISBN, page 122:

     Within different communities, groups, or dyads, the same memetic media could be deployed as a long-standing community in-joke, dadaist absurdity, or even as fighting words (or images, as the case may be).

   • 2021, Lisa Nakamura, Hanah Stiverson, Kyle Lindsey, Racist Zoombombing‎^[3], Routledge, →ISBN:

     Gamergate, “the Fappening” (or Celebgate), and the subsequent Comicsgate are examples of campaigns that deployed active memetic warfare in racialized and gendered ways to attack and drive away a constructed enemy.

Derived terms

• antimemetic
• memetic algorithm
• memetic computing
• memetic engineering
• memetic hazard
• memetic kill agent
• memetic warfare

 

Related terms

• mimetic

Translations

pertaining to memes, replication of concepts

• Finnish: memeettinen
• French: mémétique (fr)
• German: memetisch
• Italian: memetico
• Sicilian: mimèticu (scn)