If indeed memes are evolving as “the language of the Internet,”

User-generated versions of an Internet meme may serve as a way to have it all: on the one hand, users who upload a self-made video or a Photoshopped image signify that they are digitally literate, unique, and creative; on the other hand, the text that they upload often relates to a common, widely shared memetic video, image, or formula.

The three key attributes of virality, according to these authors, are (1) a person-to-person mode of diffusion; (2) great speed, which is enhanced by social media platforms; and (3) broad reach, which is achieved by bridging multiple networks.

A simple explanation for the extensive memetic reactions that such photos generate is that they tend to capture people in a somewhat ludicrous posture—in particular, it is the ungainly positioning of their bodies that makes people look funny.

According to Ryan Milner’s illuminating analysis, these meme genres tend to focus on a small core of subjects associated with winners and losers in social life. He tags them as “Fail,” “What the fuck,” and “Win” memes.

As I will elaborate in the next section, this attribute aligns with a common social logic: in an era marked by “network individualism,” people use memes to simultaneously express both their uniqueness and their connectivity.

Treating memes as cultural building blocks,

First, we should think of the viral and the memetic as two ends of a dynamic spectrum rather than as a binary dichotomy. In fact, purely viral content probably does not exist—once a photo, or a video, reaches a certain degree of popularity on the Web, you can bet that someone, somewhere, will alter it.

There are two types of preferred users for seeding: “hubs”—people with a high number of connections to others; and “bridges”—people who connect between otherwise unconnected parts of the network.