While we tend to think of memes as this entirely modern phenomenon. This is sort of true, particularly because it’s pretty hard to even imagine what the memes might look like without the internet. However, there are a few arguments to be made that it’s older than that.

For example, most people go back to Richard Dawkins 1973 definition of a meme, but it’s important to remember that he wasn’t exactly making memes, just describing the entire idea. A number of theories have been thrown around, for example, the BBC was exploring this 1921 cartoon as something so easily meme’able and recognizable, that a modern person can get it immediately.

It’s shockingly simple (which, one might notice, is pretty normal for a popular meme), just two frames of roughly the same person. It’s just another take on the “expectations versus reality” sort of template, but in just a few minutes, most of us can probably already think of a variety of captions to make it a proper 21st century meme.

Most meme researchers, who have a pretty enviable job, tend to see memes as directly related to the internet. After all, the concept is simple, an image, perhaps some text that conveys an idea, joke or emotion that is immediately understandable. Some memes can be very niche, other’s have widespread appeal.

But an important part is that they are replicable. Remember, it’s not some painting or piece of art, a unique touch might actually be detrimental. Memes need to be able to be mass produced, as if in some digital factory. This is just one of the reasons why we don’t really have memes without the internet.

If you tried to, say, print out memes, you would quickly run out of money from the thousands in printing fees. The paper would get diluted, it would get destroyed by the elements, you might tire before it reaches the right people. But online? You can get an image in front of thousands, if not millions in the blink of an eye with the same amount of energy it would take to get a pic in front of one person.

At the same time, digital memes are a lot easier to create, modify and adjust. Pick a meme you like, Google it plus the word template and you have a veritable meme mint to supply your friends with content for days. Nowadays, we might think of it as pretty easy, but this is only because we are so familiar with the concept. We’ve also, arguably, dumbed memes down to make them a lot more accessible.

Take some of the first memes for example. Star Wars fans might remember Admiral Ackbar’s famous exclamation of “It’s a trap” as Imperial forces show up behind the Rebel fleet. This is, incidentally, not a spoiler, as we are told of this plan pretty early in the film. If you’ve seen the film, you can probably hear the line in your head. Now just add a caption or add this image to something else and you have a versatile and easy to get meme. While it has all the hallmarks of a modern meme, there is some evidence of “it’s a trap!” memes back in the 2000s.

A more esoteric example might be “all your base are belong to us.” This is not a mistake, this is simply the line from a 1989 Japanese arcade game Zero Wing which appears to not have had any English proofreaders. Most people quoting it these days never played the game and might not even know its origin. But this is the magic of memes, ideas like this can be communicated far and wide without people needing the context.

Interestingly, the still popular “can I haz cheezburger” (asked, of course, by a cat) is almost a decade younger, originating in 2007. The internet and cats have always been close and natural allies, so it was only a matter of time until they came together. Given that ancient Egyptians were already obsessed with them, it’s pretty easy to see how this could have happened.

These memes might seem pretty dusty at the moment, but this is partially just because new memes are made almost every single day. Hours after, for example Kamala Harris announced that she was running, there were multiple variations of memes about her and her campaign. Memes have simply become a comfortable and accessible way to spread ideas to people to the degree that many people might almost see it as the default method.