Un fenomen al culturii digitale: internet-memele
A phenomenon of digital culture: the internet-memes

Summary/Abstract: Man, as a biological being, is impregnated with culture (he is a „metaphorical animal”,so a cultural animal, according to Lucian Blaga). But what makes us different (from animals) is ourability to constantly imitate. The meme (a termin traduced by evolutionary biologist Charles Dawkins)is the unit of cultural information that is transmitted, through imitation, from one person to another.Cultural transmission is analogous to genetic transmission. Not all genes that can replicate manage todo so, just as some memes in the memetic background (genome) are more successful in reproduction.Memes populate both reality and virtuality. In a digital world, memes can be reproduced with veryhigh fidelity, keeping their exact or modified shape, through life cycles, longer than genes. The internetmemes are forms of digital culture, along with modern technologies, which greatly facilitate their reproduction.The hypertext, a fundamental unit of web communication, is a space, language and way oflife in which the evolution of the phenomen on of the internet-memes is in full swing.

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