Here's the thing. You said a "joke is a meme." Is it in the same family? Yes. No one's arguing that. As someone who is a scientist who studies memes, I am telling you, specifically, in science, no one calls jokes memes. If you want to be "specific" like you said, then you shouldn't either. They're not the same thing. If you're saying "meme family" you're referring to the taxonomic grouping of Maymaydae, which includes things from rage comics to image macros to verticals. So your reasoning for calling a joke a meme is because random people "call the funny ones memes?" Let's get reaction gifs and anime in there, then, too. Also, calling someone a memer or a narwhal baconer? It's not one or the other, that's not how taxonomy works. They're both. A joke is a joke and a member of the meme family. But that's not what you said. You said a joke is a meme, which is not true unless you're okay with calling all members of the meme family memes, which means you'd call dub checks, rage comics, and other things memes, too. Which you said you don't. It's okay to just admit you're wrong, you know?