Memetic analysis of parody in advertisements

In Memetic Theory, a meme is treated as a unit of imitation. Every piece of information can be called a meme if it is replicated through imitation. The forms of memes are tunes, ideas, and catch-phrases. Memetic Theory analyses parody in advertisements. Parody is widely referring to linguistic phenomena of imitating other‘s words. From the perspective of memetics, parody is the sequence of imitating existing memes with partial changes. The formation of parody is because of the spreading of memes. By memetic analysis, this chapter shows that parody in advertisements is mainly the imitation of idioms, proverbs, phrases, sayings, literary texts, famous slogans and some common types of texts.