I mean the letter A itself is a meme, transparent background or not.

You can even trace its evolution back thousands of years.

Alright man. Let’s say, hypothetically, that I tell you “everything in the universe is matter”

Then I proceed to tell you what matter is, that it’s made of protons, electrons, and neutrons, which are further comprised of subatomic particles.

Then I explain how this theoretical approach is applicable to anything and everything and how incredibly useful it is to think of stuff in this way. And how its basic composition allows for many different configurations and interactions of matter. Incredibly hot plasma caused by nuclear fusion in stars. The insane density of neutron stars. And how this is the most correct model we have to date.

Now you may respond in one of a few ways:

You can say “huh, that’s really neat” and move on. Or maybe learn more about it.

Or you can say “that’s really cool, but I only care about the stuff that we can see on earth” which is totally reasonable and which is what many people are doing in this thread.

You could also say “that’s dumb, only the stuff we can see on earth should be called matter” which is similar to the preceding response, but is not reasonable at all and is what OP is doing.

Or you could say “that’s dumb, if everything is matter then the term is meaningless” which is just an arbitrary semantic application of a phrase which, for some reason, you and OP are treating as a universal maxim and completely leaving out all context and nuance pertaining to the situation. Syndrome can say “when everyone’s super, no one will be” in the Incredibles because that is a difference of degree, while this is a categorical difference.

I explained that a meme is any piece of information that can be transmitted with or without modification, because that is the definition. If you want to stop there and say that “if everything is a meme, then nothing is” that’s your prerogative. But I am not over-intellectualizing, you are under-intellectualizing.

That is the working definition we have and it’s useful because all the rules of evolution that apply to genes also apply to memes, and so it tells us a lot about how humans interact with and exchange information. It would not work if the definition were any different. If you want to change the definition to eliminate things you don’t like, or that don’t fit within a specific community, I guarantee you will leave out things that you would say are memes unintentionally.

If you don’t want lazy text screenshots in a meme community, that’s fine. But that does not mean they are not memes.

You are asking an interesting philosophical question, I feel a little out of my depth trying to answer.

But yes, I believe every meme is an idea, every idea is a meme, and there is a 1:1 relationship. The word "meme" is just an idea that is viewed through the lens of evolution.

Now as for the second question- should a screenshot of Twitter be allowed on this "meme" sub? - I don't have a strong opinion, but I lean towards no

It is not worthless at all. Studying cultural changes through the lens of evolution is very useful and enlightening. That's why I referenced the books that go into this in depth.

I would argue your narrow definition of "meme" is worthless because we already have a term for what you are describing - they are called "image macros".