Like the gene is the unit for genetic transmission, the meme is the unit for cultural transmission or a unit of imitation. We know that we receive information from various sources but the question here is: what are the evolutionary principles explaining the spread of ideas and cultural phenomena?

When the analogy is drawn further, it is stretched to include two terms: we all know that we have a gene pool, and the genes are passed through the process of reproduction. By analogy we extend it to the domain of memetics and we say there is a meme pool and through a process of imitation memes move from one brain to another in the same way as the genes by the process of gene reproduction are transmitted to another bodies. This is how Dawkins articulates the process of transmission:

“Just as genes propagate themselves in the gene pool by leaping from body to body via sperms or eggs, so memes propagate themselves in the meme pool by leaping from brain to brain via a process which, in the broad sense, can be called imitation.”