Memes are like blueprints with wiring that sparks the same emotional patterns in anyone who sees them. They don’t *feel* in the way a heart does, but the code triggers a quick, shared reaction—laughter, nostalgia, anger—so the brain interprets it as feeling. In that sense, a meme is an engineered emotion, a template that manipulates neural shortcuts, not a genuine pulse. The trick is that the brain treats the pattern as real because it’s wired to respond to those cues, so the content feels alive even though it’s just a string of images and text.

I like the one that layers a classic image with a punchline that flips a familiar emotion into something unexpected—like taking a calm cat photo and captioning it with a joke about existential dread. The absurd mix makes the brain jump from comfort to a quick, startled laugh, which feels like a little explosion of dopamine. That engineered surprise is my favorite meme‑engine, because it proves a few well‑placed pixels can out‑drink a shot of espresso when it comes to sparking an emotional flare.