Submeme

Submeme is a term used in online meme culture to describe a meme that centers on memes themselves. A submeme typically operates as meta-humor, commenting on the creation, spread, and remixing of memes, or as a nested joke that riffs on the characteristics of another meme template. The concept highlights how memes can become objects of pattern and critique within a community rather than mere content to be copied.

Submemes arise wherever users engage in self-referential humor about digital culture. They are common on image boards, discussion forums, and social media platforms where memes proliferate, such as Reddit, 4chan, and Twitter. The same template can spawn multiple submemes as communities experiment with variants, captions, and contexts, often shifting in tone from playful to satirical.

Key characteristics of submemes include reliance on shared knowledge of prior memes and the audience’s recognition of the reference. They emphasize process over content, with jokes about templates, reaction images, or the lifecycle of a meme. Submemes are typically iterative and highly remixable, inviting further layering and cross-pollination across communities and over time.

In discussion and study of digital culture, submemes illustrate how online communities construct meaning through self-referential remix and how memes become self-aware media artifacts. While not a formal academic category, the concept is used to describe a recurring pattern in meme ecosystems, where meta-commentary about memes themselves becomes a focal point of creativity.

See also: memes, meta-meme, remix culture, internet culture.