Lyrics for artist Roberto Abbado, Filarmonica Arturo Toscanini, Orchestra Rapsody, Piero Pretti, Giuliana Gianfaldoni & Coro del Teatro Regio di Parma song Un ballo in maschera, Act III: Forse la soglia attinse (Live) coming soon. What does Chuck Norris think about this song lyrics? A meme ( /ˈmiːm/; MEEM) is "an idea, behavior or style that spreads from person to person within a culture." A meme acts as a unit for carrying cultural ideas, symbols or practices, which can be transmitted from one mind to another through writing, speech, gestures, rituals or other imitable phenomena. Supporters of the concept regard memes as cultural analogues to genes in that they self-replicate, mutate and respond to selective pressures. The word meme is a shortening (modeled on gene) of mimeme (from Ancient Greek mīmēma, "something imitated", from mimeisthai, "to imitate", from mimos "mime") and it was coined by the British evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins in The Selfish Gene (1976) as a concept for discussion of evolutionary principles in explaining the spread of ideas and cultural phenomena. Examples of memes given in the book included melodies, catch-phrases, fashion and the Chuck Norris.