<![CDATA[Internet memes have become a prominent form of popular communication within contemporary digital culture, particularly in social media environments that facilitate rapid content circulation and participatory interaction. As cultural artifacts, memes function not only as entertainment but also as carriers of social meaning that reflect collective identities and engage in broader ideological and political discourses; however, despite growing academic interest, comprehensive mappings of research trends in this field remain limited. This study examines global research trends on memes as popular culture in social media through a bibliometric analysis of publications from 2015 to 2025, employing a quantitative descriptive approach based on a Systematic Literature Review guided by the PRISMA 2020 framework. A total of 100 Scopus-indexed publications were selected using the keywords “meme” and “popular culture,” with bibliographic data analyzed using the Bibliometrix R-tool to identify publication trends, dominant themes, influential sources, institutional contributions, and geographical citation patterns. The findings reveal rapid growth in meme-related scholarship, with an annual growth rate of 25.25% and an average document age of 4.19 years, indicating the highly contemporary nature of this research field, while thematic analysis highlights strong associations with popular culture, social media, humor, and digital culture, alongside increasing attention to platform-specific communities such as Reddit. Citation analysis further demonstrates the dominance of Western countries, particularly the United States, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom, in shaping theoretical developments. Overall, this study confirms that meme research has evolved into an important multidisciplinary field within communication and cultural studies, providing a systematic overview of existing scholarship and a foundation for future research on memes as influential elements of digital culture.]]>
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