https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/zm884j/where-do-memes-come-from-researchers-studied-reddit-4chan

Researchers at University College London developed a new way to measure how memes are made and spread. What they found won’t surprise anyone who’s peered into the darker parts of the internet in the last few years: The most toxic, yet most effectively spread, memes are first shared of two places, the subreddit r/the_donald and 4chan’s “politically incorrect” forum, called /pol/.

The researchers said they studied multiplatform meme ecosystems, with a focus on “fringe and potentially dangerous communities.”