Protomemes: Pre-Internet Analogues to Current Memes

This essay serves as a study of the pre-internet analogues to the modern internet meme, as well as the origins and cultural transmission thereof. I would like to take a deeper look into the history of this kind of cultural phenomenon and how these “proto-memes” arose, spread, and translated between cultures before the internet facilitated all of these functions. This would then be contrasted to how this occurs currently. There are many studies that examine the cultural impact and workings of internet memes, but markedly fewer that take a look at what came before them and how this aspect of culture evolved. It is reasonable, and accurate, to determine that the internet has been a monumental factor in the meteoric rise of memetic culture, but every culture must have had their own equivalent humor in the form of inside jokes and shared humorous stories. These can and have taken several different forms, such as critique of Napoleon’s height, political cartoons, and even graffiti. I will be taking a look at cultural movements and trends in several pre-internet cultures, including Ancient Greece, Britain, and 20th century America. I will then be examining the origin, spread, and cross-cultural impact that these trends had in comparison to what can be expected of internet memes in the current day. Several of the aforementioned cultural trends are things that are recognized today and managed to spread surprisingly well given limited communication. As expected, the internet makes it much easier to create, share, repurpose, and spread memes than ever before. However, many of the proto-memes from older civilizations are still recognized and discussed today, meaning they have withstood the test of time miraculously well and likely better than any modern memes ever will.