Can someone help me out with the difference between tropes and memes, perhaps with examples of each? I’ve been having these interesting conversations with my older son about Internet-based, popular culture memes. A lot of what he describes as memes, I would have called tropes. But I don’t really know what I’m talking about and the usual dictionary definitions are not helping me much. In practice, what do “we” mean, inside the academy and out, by these terms?