So… what even is life?
It sounds like a big philosophical question, but the more you think about it, the fuzzier the answer gets. Is it DNA? Breathing? Consciousness? Lately, I’ve started thinking of life not as a thing, but as a process — one rooted in information.
Genes are information. They don’t have goals or intentions. They just persist, replicate, and sometimes evolve. That’s it. But from that basic behavior, we somehow got people, language, and yeah, internet memes.
If life is about information that spreads and adapts, then maybe some of the things we make — videos, posts, memes — are also part of that same living system.
Let’s take a step back.
You upload a video. Someone watches it. It sticks in their head. They share it, tweak it, or turn it into something new. It gets picked up by more people. The idea changes as it spreads.
That’s not just "like" a virus. That is a virus — but made of ideas, not molecules.
Here’s a side-by-side view that helped me connect the dots:
So, in a way, we’re not just users anymore. We’re carriers. We’re the host that content uses to grow and evolve. Sometimes, we even improve it along the way.
Honestly? Kind of.
A lot of what we think we’re creating is actually remixing or transmitting someone else’s idea. That doesn’t mean it’s bad or lazy. It just means we’re part of a much bigger system than we usually realize.
And if life really is just information that replicates, then your latest post, your favorite meme, or that song stuck in your head — they’re all part of it too. They’re alive in a different way. And you’re helping them survive.
