I'd like to brain whomever turned the phrase "online survey chain letter" into the word "meme".

Meme: A unit of cultural information, such as a cultural practice or idea, that is transmitted verbally or by repeated action from one mind to another

(from the American Heritage Dictionary)

A better definition is:

Richard Dawkins's term for an idea considered as a replicator, especially with the connotation that memes parasitise people into propagating them much as viruses do.

Memes can be considered the unit of cultural evolution. Ideas can evolve in a way analogous to biological evolution. Some ideas survive better than others; ideas can mutate through, for example, misunderstandings; and two ideas can recombine to produce a new idea involving elements of each parent idea.

The term is used especially in the phrase "meme complex"
denoting a group of mutually supporting memes that form an
organised belief system, such as a religion. However, "meme"
is often misused to mean "meme complex".

Use of the term connotes acceptance of the idea that in humans (and presumably other tool- and language-using sophonts) cultural evolution by selection of adaptive ideas has become more important than biological evolution by selection of hereditary traits. Hackers find this idea congenial for tolerably obvious reasons.

A Meme is an evolving idea or concept, passed from person to person, the cultural eqivalent to a biological gene.

It is not a quiz of how far you've gone in sexual adventures, what books you've read, what food you like, or any questionaire that you got in an email.

That cheapens a much more interesting, and important concept into chain junk mail.

Oh well, I'm sure it'll become as much that as lose has become loose by a majority of typists on the internet.