Viral Memes
In class, we talked about epidemics and the spread of diseases. The S-I-R model is one of the models used to analyze how certain epidemics spread throughout a population, usually represented as a network. Each person (node) in the network is either susceptible (at-risk), infected, or recovered. If a susceptible node is adjacent to an infected node, then there is a chance that it becomes infected as well. After a certain number of rounds, infected nodes recover and can no longer catch the contagion.
It turns out that there are striking similarities between how both memes and diseases spread throughout a population. The S-I-R model captures some of the behaviors that we observe when studying the rise and fall of various memes, but a slightly different model called the viral memetic model is more accurate. The model is characterized by a very steep initial rise in the popularity of a meme, followed by a gradual decline into irrelevance.
As the included article notes, “It is interesting to see that a process as apparently random as the self-propagation of an idea through the minds of the masses can be modelled by such a simple model and fit a theoretical curve so closely.” The viral memetic model developed by the author is based on the S-I-R model, demonstrating that ‘viral’ is an apt description for memes that seem to gain popularity overnight.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0307904X11002824