Internet memes come from the original concept of memes as an element of culture passed on from person to person.

From Wikipedia’s “internet meme” article.

Didn’t you know? Screenshots of social media posts are memes now 🙃

!politicalmemes@lemmy.world suffers from this but it’s 1000% worse there.

It’s a meme because it first makes you laugh, and then it makes you think.