“When you plant a fertile meme in my mind you literally parasitize my brain, turning it into a vehicle for the meme’s propagation in just the way that a virus may parasitize the genetic mechanism of a host cell.”
Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene, 1976
https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/spam-spammed
I’ll bow to their judgement that it’s a meme, but I was thinking of visual memes. This one probably wins as far as internet memes in general goes.
You made me look up the origin of the word meme
“When you plant a fertile meme in my mind you literally parasitize my brain, turning it into a vehicle for the meme’s propagation in just the way that a virus may parasitize the genetic mechanism of a host cell.” Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene, 1976