That's what they want you to think so they can stay in control of them, truth is memes are all around us everywhere we look, I've been "memeing" since before the internet even existed, pic up any magazine in my house and you'll see it's filled with memes/captions.
A meme can be anything if you make it into one. All that these slimy tech companies and so called meme sites did was lay claim to and capitalize on an idea that had existed for generations.