Susan Blackmore Interview with Wired

In the 1970s, Richard Dawkins coined the term "meme" in his book The Selfish Gene to refer to aspects of human culture and how they evolve in a way that's analogous to how genes evolve. Since then, the study of memes has become an evolving meme itself.
A meme is an idea or thing that is passed from person to person and is either adopted for its usefulness or other purpose -- in some cases becoming a wildly popular idea that can't be stopped -- or abandoned to die a quick and ignoble death. A meme can be a song or snippet of a song, a dance, an urban legend, an expression or behavior, a product brand or even a religion.

British scholar Susan Blackmore theorizes that the evolution of memes occurs outside of human beings' capacity to control it.