An emergent concept is a slight variation on consensus reality that is accepted as plausible. The hallmarks of an emergent concept, as opposed to other memes (urban myths, or viruses of the mind) are that EC are increasingly accepted as truth or possibility, based upon other empirical or anecdotal evidence in the mind of the believer or society (in its subsets) as a whole.

EC can be viewed as fad, or common causal reality building. EC have no relationship to truth or fact, but are simply engines bringing individual concepts of truth into the mainstream.