“Memes have always been kind of like a virus. Whenever you learn a new word, you can think of it as coming into contact with a parasite. Either your guard is up and you reject the word, or it breaks through your defenses and you become a “host,” using and replicating the word for it to reach a larger population. Then there’s the uncanny similarity between how we talk about the ways that words and diseases spread: We say they move through social networks in a “viral” manner, hence the phrase “gone viral.” Many linguists even use epidemiological models to show the spread or lifespan of ideas.”