Comment by OmarShehata

memes are not "on the side of reality". memes are on the side of whatever resonates. What resonates is what aligns to your model of reality (which is shaped by the ideology you're inside).

There's no clear distinction between propaganda, advertising, and what you call "meme-ing". Companies can and do create campaigns that look organic, that do takeoff as people feel they are organic (and then they become actually real as people take them further than what the company is pushing)

For example: Barbenheimer was a meme that got people to watch two movies in one weekend (not a typical behavior for most people). Was that an organic meme, or a marketing campaign?

(If anyone is curious, I keep trying to write a good intro to this rabbithole, see my writeup on the New York Times explaining how a psyop works, which itself very significant for them to be spelling it out like this: https://defenderofthebasic.substack.com/p/new-york-times-is-... )