I'm pretty sure the meme WAS the message. What other messages are being distributed through random meme sharing, where the recipient has to know it contains some secondary hidden message and requires the means to decode it?!
The risk, of becoming a mule, an unwitting accessory to some evil cause, was just far outweighing the rewards of sharing dumb crap with my mother, you know?
Normally would not comment just to make fun of someone but this is just a wild take, how could you be sure that HN is not full of coded messages?
If your pastime involved trading envelopes with other collectors of envelopes, and you started passing along a bunch of sealed envelopes with unknown contents, how would you feel? Or if you enjoyed well-constructed cartons, and you found yourself trafficking in sealed cartons with unknown contents? That would basically make you a shipping, receiving, and logistics provider. Anything at all could be in those parcels. Why do it? Why open up to risk?
The main point here is that there was no point to my trading in memes. It was recreation; it was optional; it was totally a lark with my boomer mom and her audience. I had no reason to look at these memes and I had no reason to forward them on. Sure, the risk was very, very low that anyone "evil" was encoding "secret messages" or "targeting" anyone I knew. But since I had no reason to engage in this activity in the first place, why not quit? Why not just distance myself? Thereby removing 100% of the risk.
I don't agree with you at all, nor do I understand how your mind works, but I very much appreciate you taking the time to respond and respect your commitment not to facilitate anything nefarious even though we disagree.