Memes started as niche internet humor and have become one of the top modes of communication today. They are in your group chats, on your office Slack, and even in advertisements.
But most memes also disappear as quickly as they evolve.
In 2008, a meme could stick around for almost two years. Today, that same meme would be considered ancient history in about four months, researchers tracking meme lifespans using Google Trends data found.
A 2021 study that tracked popular memes on Reddit over a decade found that as the internet produced more content, meme diversity actually shrank.
This is because only the loudest and most shareable formats survive long enough to be seen.
The study noted that this is “evidence of an increase in competition and a decreasing collective attention span.”
The memes that stick are the ones that feel universal.
Research shows that emotionally charged content gets shared two to three times more than neutral content. Humor-based memes also spread faster and last longer because of the positive reinforcement they create.
Studies also found that memes featuring people or characters with clear emotions — positive or negative — are far more likely to spread.
Relatability drives instant audience connection. A meme about the universal struggle of Monday mornings goes viral because many people share the experience.
One reason people love memes is that our brains crave simplicity.
Memes reduce cognitive effort by combining visuals and short text. And that’s exactly why visual memes, like the ones in this list, work so well.
Research shows that the brain can process and identify meaningful details in an entire image in as little as 13 milliseconds.
“The fact that you can do that at these high speeds indicates to us that what vision does is find concepts. That’s what the brain is doing all day long — trying to understand what we’re looking at,” says Mary Potter, an MIT professor of brain and cognitive sciences and senior author of the study.
With a visual meme, the punchline lands instantly. Research shows that the ones most likely to be reshared have clear subjects, strong emotions, and minimal text.
For most of us, reposting or sharing a meme with our friends has become a daily ritual. But this simple habit actually carries a lot of meaning, even if we don’t consciously put in the effort.
Since some memes perfectly capture our exact mood, anxiety, or random intrusive thoughts, sharing them with friends signals that we are not alone in feeling that way.
Research shows that sharing memes is a really good way to feel more connected to our social circle. At the same time, it allows us to express our deepest and most specific feelings through a simple image.
