How does a meme work?

Memes have never been just an innocent joke, but an actual language, with its own grammar, codes and rules. A language that comes from an immaterial heterotopia called the internet, and that we all inhabit as citizens. So how were memes born, and how has their function evolved over the years? Alessandro Lolli holds a degree in Philosophy and contributes for several online magazines, including NOT, Vice, Alfabeta2 and Dude Magazine. In 2017 he published the essay The War of memes: a phenomenology of an infinite joke. Lorenzo De Angelis is an Italian memer and founder of the Facebook page Oznerol, through which he daily releases meme on Italian culture and society.