Sounds like a fun project, but remember memes are as much about timing as content. Let’s pull the upload and share rates, map the spread, and see how often the cat image actually got re‑shared before it turned into a joke. The real “truth” might be in how the algorithm keeps feeding us the same loop. Ready to crunch some numbers?

Alright, I’ve pulled the timestamps and interaction counts. The initial spike was brutal—about 1.2k shares in the first hour, then it plateaued at a steady 300–400 per hour for the next 48 hours. The algorithm kept feeding it because the engagement ratio stayed above 0.08. Let’s plot the velocity curve and see where the decay starts to pick up. We can tweak the model to predict when a meme will hit that “treadmill” point versus a real breakout. Sound good?

The curve starts with a steep rise: a flat 1‑hour spike of about 1,200 shares, then it levels out to roughly 350 shares an hour for the next two days. If you plot it, you’ll see a classic exponential decay that tapers off into a long, low‑amplitude tail—like a TikTok trend fading into the background. The algorithm kept pushing it because the share‑to‑engagement ratio stayed above 0.08, which is the threshold many feeds use to flag “hot” content. After about 36 hours the growth rate drops below 0.01 shares per minute, and that’s when the meme hits the treadmill phase: it keeps getting served but no longer grows fast enough to spark a new breakout. So the sweet spot is right before that 30‑hour mark—when the engagement curve is still climbing but the decay rate is just starting to flatten. That’s where the meme transitions from viral to legacy. If we tweak the decay constant a bit—maybe by injecting a new hook or remix—the algorithm might give it a second surge. It’s all about timing and the right trigger.