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

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.” Professor of communications studies at Northwestern University and author of the upcoming book All Your Meme Are Belong To Us: Internet Cultures in the Global South . Chair of the Department of Communication at the College of Charleston, whose internet culture research examines everything from funny GIFS to large-scale propaganda campaigns.

Professor of literature and creative writing at Dartmouth University and creator of the first college course on the rise of meme culture..