Yet the identities of both were inevitably pursued and eventually discovered. At a certain level of virality, you cannot stop motivated people on the internet from piercing your veils. In the case of that woman from Blair’s flight, her legions of “fans” are digging day and night to find more information, to meet the female lead of this summer’s hottest rom-com. They want to know what happens next. They want to make her finish the story. Go on a date; now kiss; now get engaged; tell us what it was like. We need to know more. More. More.

The world floods into your life anyway. What had been private is now uncontrollably crowdsourced. Your consent becomes a trifling detail in a story about you that suddenly belongs to everyone else. It doesn’t matter otherwise.

Memes and the Law The original content creator, meme creator, and subject of the image/meme may all have conflicting ideas about the value of the meme, which can often lead to legal disputes. Know Your Meme must sometimes take down posts due to cease-and-desist letters from copyright holders due to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Similarly, the DMCA was used to quash parodies of the German World War II movie “Downfall.” In 2010, the movie’s production company, Constantin Films, started pulling these parodies from YouTube, to which meme creators had little recourse. However, Constantin Films did not sue anyone, so it is unknown whether the parodies might have been considered fair use. When memes or the subjects of a meme are used for commercial purposes without permission, the meme creator may sue, as the effect of the commercial use on the market value of the original meme usually prevents a finding of fair use. In 2013, the owners of the cats featured in the “Nyan Cat” and “Keyboard Cat” memes won a lawsuit against Warner Bros. and 5th Cell Media for respectively distributing and producing a video game using images of their cats.

The purpose of the use, The amount of the work to be used, The effect of the use on the market for or value of the original work, and The nature of the copyrighted work.