Memes - where the hell do they come from?

Or you could stop being a papaya and try to prove everyone wrong and realize none of us want all these newfags on our god damn chans

It has gotten to the point where cancer is now an inherent property of these sorts of things. 4chan's /b/ foremost. Frankly, I would show a little more reserve in discussing other specific ones, but even they're not safe. Not safe from the cancer of 4chan spreading anyway.

Because we can and it's free is not a meme, in my humble opinion, it's a source of endless amusement for anyone wanting to make fun of Nexon. There is a slight difference, because a meme is a source of lulz, whereas "because we can and it's free" is most often the TARGET of lulz. I don't particularly care because I get lulz either way.

You're thinking too Internet-culture-centric. "Eat my shorts" is a meme. Haven't you ever wondered where the word "meme" comes from? It's derived from the Greek god of memory mneme (who also led her name to words like "mnemonic"). In the simplest terms I can think of to verbalize, I would say a meme is merely an abstract idea which can (or HAS) spread socially to others. Try giving the wikipedia article on it a solid read.

And again, memes need not be widespread either. They can be limited to subcommunities. Even subgroups of subcommunities. Technically, memes centered around a particular website's /b/ board would be a subgroup of that site's community, nestled within the greater grouping of all chans, which itself is nested with the grouping of the Internet. I would even go as far as to say all a meme needs in order to exist is 2 people, even if it's not all that interesting a concept merely sharing thoughts between two people to create and transmit memes.