Memes as cultural objects

Memes are cultural entities that encourage their own replication. Memes pack a powerful communicative punch with a combination of repetitious imagery and phrases. They are full of symbolic meaning. As such, they compel their replication. If they were meaningless, if they had no cultural currency, they would never become a meme.

In this sense, the selfie is very much a meme - a normative thing that we do that results in a patterned and repetitious way of representing ourselves.