The Atlantic analyzes the rise of that dumb Harlem Shake video and how much its viral nature owes to professional media fixers (pretty much everything).
The Atlantic, an established magazine, uses some street language to show that it's not part of the problem. The article's title is "How Memes Are Orchestrated by the Man." Wait, I thought you were The Man!
YouTube became the people's iTunes a few years ago* but whatever underground associations that might have had are long gone. According to the Atlantic "Google's YouTube, not Apple's iTunes, is now the dominant force in music. Nearly 2 billion music videos are viewed on YouTube every day."
Ha, ha, "viewed": a song is posted in its entirety with a still photo as visual accompaniment.
The rise of dumb memes via big-media pump-priming isn't really something artists need to be concerned with, except that new media blurs art, commerce, little guys, and big guys. When you read about the gaming for dollars such as the Atlantic describes you should be happy to be in a niche market for elite weirdos. Maybe you can get some ideas, or be negatively inspired, by how the pros are working the Net these days.