At the end of the day, whether a meme will become successful or not is a game of chance. Yes, you can try to manipulate the time of day that you post it, touch on topics that you know people will talk about, and edit it in a way that seems the most visually appealing, but none of these are guarantees for stratospheric virality. Like with most jokes, there is a chance that somebody else will see it and just say it louder, and then they get all the dubious glory. The algorithm and the people who follow it are fickle, but sometimes that proves to be a good thing. It makes it feel special when you see a meme that hasn’t left its niche, or even better, is just about to make it big. Then you can boast you knew about it before anyone else. You can put that on your resume.