In the TV show "Pimp My Ride", host Xzibit reveals each newly pimped-out vehicle with the line "Sup dawg, we heard you like X, so we put a Y in your car so you can Z while you drive". The Internet liked this line, and started creating its own versions; a meme was born. By the time the picture above appeared, the phrase had mutated into "Yo dawg", and the focus of the meme had shifted to the concept of things inside (or on top of) other things — most commonly presented as an image macro, with or without a superimposed image of a smiling Xzibit.
The current Yo Dawg formula goes as follows: "Yo dawg, I herd you like X, so we put a Y in your Y so you can Z while you Z". Successful Yo Dawgs can be obvious, tasteless, escalated, and even meta. Many see this picture as the inevitable and ultimate consummation of the Yo Dawg construct.
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If you're thinking, "I still don't know what a MEME is..."
Wikipedia to the rescue:
A meme (pronounced /miːm/ – like theme), a postulated unit or element of cultural ideas, symbols or practices, gets transmitted from one mind to another through speech, gestures, rituals, or other imitable phenomena. (The etymology of the term relates to the Greek word mimema for “something imitated”.) Supporters of the concept of memes believe that they act as cultural analogues to genes, in that they self-replicate and respond to selective pressures. Memeticists have not definitively empirically proven the existence of discrete memes or their proposed mechanism; they do not form part of the consensus of mainstream social sciences. Meme theory therefore lacks the same degree of influence granted to its counterpart and inspiration, genetics.
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