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Its not a meme, its a historical quotes. Unless your saying you see it as a meme, which to me a meme is silly and easily thrown away
Yeah if you're interested in origins of a phrase's meaning, I think you' better look into what a "meme" actually originally is before criticizing its useage here.
I'm using the original definition of the word meme: "a unit of cultural information spread by imitation". Meme as a word doesn't imply that it's a comedic image macro on the internet, but I appreciate that the more modern slang usage might have made that confusing for you.
In 50 years if "meme" evolves in the general dialect to have these connotations you pointed out I'll feel better about it
It started from what @fiat_lux defined.
It's ironic that you want people to recognise the roots of "eat the rich" but you're unwilling to recognise the roots and wider meaning of "meme".
Its more to do with the connotation of calling something a meme.
Maybe I am out of the loop but the description for a meme that was previously given has never occupied my mind whilst seeing a meme.
Eat the rich with the laymen's understanding of a meme does not fit the perceived definition.
Where as eat the rich and its evolution still has the same connotation as it had when first spoken, most likely due to it be a quite with historical meaning.
I am wrong with the given definition but I still see there being understandable confusion and a need for meme to evolve for it to used without confusion.
No it's really a very similar situation - meme was coined in 1976 (Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene) and was pretty widely known.
Internet memes were thus named because they are literally a subset of memes. So for people who know the wider meaning of the term it's still got the same connotations. Calling internet memes "memes" isn't problematic for us.
What's happened to you is kind of like when people say "animal" but they're only thinking of mammals. In most contexts the missing scope isn't noticeable.
Which is understandable but going after someone for not knowing about the French revolution is a lot like going after someone for not knowing about meme theory.