When did the word meme first start in common usage?

The Word "meme" was first coined by British evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins in his 1976 book "The Selfish Gene." He used it to describe an idea or behavior that spreads within a culture, analogous to genetic evolution. Although the term gained some academic traction, it became widely popular in the late 1990s and early 2000s with the rise of the internet and online culture, particularly to describe viral content.