Sorry David, but we do know where memes come from. This is one by product of Mendaciology, the computational cognitive neuroscience of lies. And, they come from the most primitive operation of the human brain which is the predication function. What we learn others learn the same way. The same rule that allows a single sentence to tell a whole story, and for that to be understood, gives us memes.
That said the old cognitive psychology literature called "memes" "prototypes." So you could say that a "meme" is a meme for a "prototype" and a "prototype is a prototype for a "meme". Just to screw with your imagination. Which is also where "memes" come from.
We also know why any meme you see, you know if others will probably see it. It is very spooky that this works, but it works because all humans organize content (their life perceptions) in the same way as new content, mostly. And it is indeed modified somewhat by the language you speak.
I could go on. But here is where memes come from ... the fundamental nature of neural processing.
(P.S. we are just a meme to a rabbit).
https://medium.com/liecatcher/natural-language-and-your-brain-237185770b00
Here is a meme that just came to my head today and I made lunch and the meme at the same time. Everybody does it. All the time. It is why we can understand each others sentences.
https://twitter.com/BobThibadeau/status/1495428256941715466?s=20&t=yG1ng1k7EKC_m97uo767NQ
Memes are a kind of lie and are inherently always a fallacy, until they are not.
For much more about memes that are intended to harmfully deceive, see @cogsec.
