Meme forecast for 2012

What pianos will the cats of the future play for us?

By EUGENIA WILLIAMSON | December 30, 2011

When evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins coined the word "meme" in 1976 — meaning "a piece of thought copied from person to person" — he probably didn't realize that, in time, the word would come to be synonymous with cat macros, various advice animals, and Rebecca Black.

>> READ: "Top 20 Memes of 2011" by Eugenia Williamson <<

Dawkins invented the term to discuss the evolution of cultural ideas, but the term itself has evolved. From hipster mermaids to My Little Bronies (read our trip report from the 2011 My Little Pony convention here), Internet memes have become a culture unto themselves — a set of in-jokes shared by a clique of thousands.

We called in the experts to find out what memes we might expect in 2012. Tim Hwang is founder of the Internet-culture conference known as ROFLcon (the third edition of ROFLcon hits Cambridge the weekend of May 4). Brad Kim is the editor of the popular Web site Know Your Meme. Together, they fight crime. Okay, well, not really, but they did help us predict the meme trends of the not-too-distant future.

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Topics: Lifestyle Features , Internet, scumbag steve, mermaids, More

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