You’ve thought of a hilarious joke, wrapped it in precisely casual internet slang, and slapped it in blocky white font over a poignant picture.

Why Does a Meme Go Viral, and Can We Predict It?

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2024-11-23 16:30:04

You’ve thought of a hilarious joke, wrapped it in precisely casual internet slang, and slapped it in blocky white font over a poignant picture. You post it and sit back to watch the likes roll in, but they never come. Meanwhile, other memes are taking off. They’re launching careers in comedy and becoming the not-so-secret weapon of presidential campaigns. Billionaires are investing in meme farms and someone calling themself “Roaring Kitty” has become a millionaire on the back of meme stocks.

Internet memes are undeniably a cultural and political force to be reckoned with and as their influence has grown a burgeoning field of research has sprung up to understand them. For this Giz Asks, we asked several experts: Why do some memes go viral, and is it possible to predict that virality?

Professor at Indiana University studying online abusive behavior and co-author of the paper “Dissecting the Meme Magic: Understanding Indicators of Virality in Image Memes.”

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