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Memes are becoming a [growing / growth] part of our everyday life and popular culture, [special / especially] online. Many of us know memes as the pictures and photographs that [go / come] viral on social media sites. People use them to make [joke / jokes] or social and political observations. However, [biology / biologist] and author Richard Dawkins, the originator of the word 'meme', is unhappy with how the Internet has defined a meme [was / as] a "picture with words". Mr Dawkins [coined / coins] the term 'meme' in his 1976 book 'The Selfish Gene'. He said memes [are / be] ideas that spread from brain to brain and are replicated [much / many] times, much like genes. He told the BBC: "I'm not going to use the term Internet meme to refer to a picture with [written / writing] on it."

Memes have [defused / infused] our culture to the extent that universities now [offer / offering] degree courses on them. America's Northwestern University unveiled its Meme Studies course [past / back] in 2011. Britain's Sky News says memes have helped to make [politics / politician] more accessible to young people. One Twitter [user / used] told a Sky journalist that: "Memes helped people understand more complex [idea / ideas] , and that having politics framed in a different way makes it more [digestible / digest] ." This was obvious with how memes became a [key / lock] part of how people expressed their views [while / during] the 2016 U.S. presidential election. The vice.com website said: "Memes now have as much [powerful / power] , influence and reach as the propaganda posters of yesteryear."