Awesome Memetics 
A curated list of resources, tools, papers, and projects related to Memetics — the study of memes as units of cultural transmission and evolutionary dynamics.
Contents
- 📚 Theory & Foundations
- 🧠 Academic Papers
- 🧮 Computational Memetics
- 🧪 Experiments & Simulations
- 🔧 Tools & Libraries
- 📊 Datasets
- 📎 Related Fields
- 🎙️ Talks & Lectures
- 🧭 Influential Figures
- 📦 Repos to Watch
📚 Theory & Foundations
- The Selfish Gene – Richard Dawkins (1976), coined the term "meme" as a replicator in cultural evolution.
- Thought Contagion – Aaron Lynch (1996), mathematical treatment of memetic spread.
- Viruses of the Mind – Dawkins’ essay exploring memes as parasitic cognitive entities.
- The Meme Machine – Susan Blackmore, expands on Dawkins with memetic theory as a framework for consciousness and culture.
- Memetics: A Systems Metaphor – Journal article on systems thinking and memetic analysis.
🧠 Academic Papers
- Memetics – Does It Provide a Useful Way of Understanding Cultural Evolution?
- What is a Meme?
- Modeling the Spread of Memes – Analyzes information propagation on networks.
- Memetics and Social Contagion Theory – Comparative framework for diffusion models.
🧮 Computational Memetics
- OpenMeme – Framework for simulating memetic evolution.
- MemeSim – Meme similarity analysis using NLP techniques.
- Diffusion Models in Memetics – Code and models for simulating virality.
- MemeTracker – Project tracking quotes and phrases in the media landscape over time.
🧪 Experiments & Simulations
- NetLogo Memetic Evolution Model
- Replicator Dynamics Simulation
- Agent-Based Cultural Evolution – Not meme-specific but extensible.
🔧 Tools & Libraries
- LangChain – Chain cultural content generation and analysis workflows.
- Memespector – Annotate and analyze image memes.
- Tweepy – Track meme propagation on Twitter.
- FastText – Semantic similarity detection for meme classification.
📊 Datasets
- Dank Learning Dataset – Text/image meme dataset.
- Memotion Dataset – Annotated meme emotions.
- Know Your Meme Scraper – Crawl KYM entries and metadata.
- Reddit Meme Corpus – Download memes from subreddits with tagging.
📎 Related Fields
- 🧬 Cultural Evolution
- 🕸 Network Theory
- 🧪 Epidemiology of Ideas
- 🤯 Cognitive Psychology
- 🧠 Memetic Engineering
- 📈 Information Dynamics
- 🎯 Influence Operations
🎙️ Talks & Lectures
- Susan Blackmore: Memes and “Temes”
- Daniel Dennett: Dangerous Memes
- Cultural Evolution: Kevin Laland Lecture
- Memes as Cultural DNA – Kurzgesagt
🧭 Influential Figures
- Richard Dawkins – Evolutionary biologist, author of The Selfish Gene.
- Susan Blackmore – Psychologist and memetics theorist.
- Daniel Dennett – Philosopher of mind, explores memetics in cultural evolution.
- Aaron Lynch – Mathematician and memetics theorist.
- Robert Aunger – Author of The Electric Meme.
📦 Repos to Watch
- facebookresearch/fastText – Used in meme semantic classification.
- huggingface/transformers – For large-scale NLP meme analysis.
- projectMeme/projectMeme – Meme generation and mutation platform.
- memetic-computation/meme-algorithms – Optimization via memetic algorithms.
Contributing
Pull requests welcome! This list thrives on thoughtful contributions. Please keep it focused on memetics as a scientific and analytical field rather than purely entertainment memes.