Rob Walker has a 2010 article in The New York Times, “When Funny Goes Viral”, about the ramifications of internet memes. It’s well worth reading and not merely because it mentions artist Arthur Beecher Carles.
Any discussion about internet memes – beyond participating in them by passing them along – is inevitably a discussion about marketing. Meme circulation is an obvious laboratory of persuasion, a testing process that exposes otherwise hidden ways the network connects us, revealing the strength of certain circuits and what causes them to fire.