Ever since humans started finger painting on cave walls thousands of years ago, communication has been shown to be a key factor in humanity’s growth as a species. Because of this, we developed new and faster ways to communicate with each other. From letters to telegrams and all the way to today, where we use a novel form of communication: memes.

Memes are difficult to define. Even if you could define what a meme is, there are so many subcategories that change up the typical meme format, so it’s really hard to pin one definition to them.

When most people look at memes, they think that they are just funny little pictures on the internet—in most cases they are. This stigma is usually held by the older generations. However, there are also plenty of cases of memes being used to spread important messages and feelings to other people.

Memes are quickly becoming millennials’ and Gen Z’s favorite form of communication. From tasteful satire to political motifs, social media has become flooded with all sorts of memes coming from the younger generations.

So it’s obvious that a lot of young people are using memes in their everyday life, sometimes just to react to things that happen around them, but why? Why send memes instead of writing out a text message?

Many people don’t think that something as simple as a picture with a few funny words can be a method of communication, but it’s because of this simple delivery that a meme can spread so quickly and be understood. However, the question still remains: how does something as simple as a distorted picture of Garfield stay in our mind for so long?

According to Richard Dawkins, the evolutionary biologist who first coined the term “meme”, it’s because memes are kind of like a virus.

Essentially, memes are thoughts that want to get stuck in as many peoples heads as possible, and stick around as long as possible. This can be used to explain why memes are used so often; they are simply so catchy that we can’t help but use them in conversation.

Because memes are mostly comedic, it can be easily forgotten that they can deliver a multitude of messages. A lot of politicians have tried to use memes in order to capture the youth.

One example is Donald Trump who, during the 2016 election, stoked a culture of memes by reposting his personal favorites on Twitter.

This spread his image around on social media and caused more people to make more memes about him, continuing the cycle. He created a self sufficient advertisement strategy where he didn’t have to do anything but repost.

Looking at all of the above, it’s hard to deny that memes and their virality are a good way of spreading a message quickly. It’s only a matter of time until the meme becomes what text messages were to the older generation.