But what are memes, really, from the perspective of a general theory of meaning? Rather than treating memes as a separate class of cultural replicators, this post argues that memes are best understood as a subset of meaning instances: actualisations of meaning potential that exhibit high re-instantiability in cultural systems. This reframing allows us to situate memetics within a relational, stratified, and instantiational model of meaning — one that integrates insights from Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL), theories of individuation, and the dynamics of cultural memory.
1. From Memetics to Meaning: Shifting the Frame
The original Dawkinsian conception of memes was framed in analogy with genes: cultural units that replicate via imitation, undergo variation, and are subject to selection. While this heuristic proved generative, it also left memetics vulnerable to criticism for its lack of grounding in a coherent theory of meaning.
A better way forward is to see memes not as discrete, gene-like entities, but as meaning instances — instantiations of meaning potential that succeed in achieving re-instantiability across cultural contexts. Memes, then, are not outside the semiotic system; they are emergent products of it, shaped by the same dynamics that govern all meaning-making.
2. Memes as Meaning Instances with High Reselection Potential
In SFL, meaning arises through the instantiation of structured meaning potential — a network of semantic options that is actualised in context. Each actualisation is a meaning instance, and some of these instances acquire high salience within a culture. Memes are just such instances: they crystallise a relation between meaning and context in a way that prompts repetition, transformation, and sharing.
What makes a meme successful is not merely its form, but its fit with the evolving cultural system. Memes tend to:
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Resonantly instantiate meanings already latent in collective potential,
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Achieve recognisability through semiotic patterning,
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Trigger value-weighted responses that prompt re-instantiation,
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Form their own instantial systems (e.g. meme templates, hashtags, tropes).
Memes are not reducible to their words or images; they are units of meaning in motion — stratified semiotic events that circulate within collective memory and undergo variation through instantiation.
3. Memory, Instantiation, and the Reselection of Meaning
As we’ve argued elsewhere, memory is not the retrieval of a past state but the systemic capacity to reinstantiate a performance. In this sense, memory is a semiotic process: a dynamic reselection of past meaning potential in new contexts. Cultural memory, then, is not a static archive but a selection pressure on the evolution of meaning.
Memes flourish within this system because they are tuned to the rhythms of cultural memory. Their success depends on how well they activate shared systems of value and expectation. They must balance redundancy (to be recognisable) and novelty (to be interesting). In doing so, they serve as probes into the active regions of collective meaning potential.
4. Individuation and the Circulation of Cultural Form
From the perspective of individuation — the relation between collective meaning potential and the differing meaning potentials of individual meaners — memes occupy a particularly interesting position. They originate from specific instantiations (individuals producing a meme), but quickly move into a shared symbolic resource space, where they become collective semiotic tools.
This circulation is not trivial. It involves:
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The de-individuation of certain meaning instances (they become group property),
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The formation of instantial systems that can be drawn upon and transformed,
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The potential for memes to shape collective identity, especially through myth-like repetition.
Memes thus contribute to the social semiotic infrastructure of a culture — not merely reflecting meanings, but helping to structure how meaning is made.
5. Rethinking Memetics: A Semiotic Account
What does this reframing achieve?
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It grounds memes in a relational, stratified ontology of meaning.
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It sees memetic activity as part of the instantiation cycle within a social semiotic system.
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It identifies memory, individuation, and context as key selection pressures in memetic success.
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It dissolves the false dichotomy between biological and cultural replication by treating meaning — not imitation — as the unit of analysis.
Crucially, it allows us to locate memes within a general model of meaning, rather than outside or parallel to it.
Conclusion: Memes as Meaning in Motion
In the end, memes are not a special category of cultural life, but rather an especially visible subset of how meaning circulates, adapts, and evolves within a culture. When viewed through the lens of systemic-functional semiotics, memes become meaning instances subject to the same pressures of selection, instantiation, and individuation that shape all meaning-making.
What makes memes special is not that they are unique, but that they are highly traceable semiotic events — revealing, through their form and function, the evolving contours of collective memory and shared potential.
In short: memes are meaning in motion — and understanding them means understanding meaning itself.
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