“Meme:  an idea, behavior, style, or usage that spreads from person to person within a culture

I know very little about meme theory, but I am familiar with internet memes. Wikipedia says that: “A meme acts as a unit for carrying cultural ideas, symbols, or practices that can be transmitted from one mind to another through writing, speech, gestures, rituals, or other imitable phenomena”. As I was reading Orientals this week, I began to think about the idea of stereotypes as pervasive cultural memes. They are embedded in the history and structure of American society and culture, giving them the power to survive and mutate for long periods of time. At times we see the resurgence of centuries old stereotypes, and like memes they are able to reproduce and change as they are disseminated.