Observe, that today memes do not require the host to be alive. One could boast of a diet on YouTube, die of it a few days in and the videos would happily live on.
In your example at least the recipient is alive, but in fact I wonder if one could argue that with machine learning models training on web data, a meme can now perform an entire reproductive cycle without a human in the loop.
If not now, in the future yes. I believe I've discussed just that possibly on HN. The creation of a virtual social media around a person that drives them to extreme or insane positions. Just imagine a set of bots that gives a very positive response to oddly coloured cats. At first you post 'normal' cats with odd patterns, but then then you find that unnaturally coloured cats get an even better response. Could we actually see a person dying their white cat cyan for fake internet responses and positive affirmations that are completely disconnected from human reality? I believe yes, and that its probably already happened.
Same with memes found in books. The host being alive has not been a requirement...ever?
The videos age as well though. They aren't necessarily always in their prime, so its impact does tend to get reduced over time. so not "happily living on".
They may as well grow in popularity over time as they get shared and liked and pushed to others by recommender algorithms.
I did think about that, in the scenario described by TP, I am putting faith that the claims made by a popular lifestyle video will be scrutinized and thus debunked.
Oh yes, the high level of discourse in the YouTube Comments section. ;)
The host is the culture, not any one individual.
The culture is the environment, the host is "any one individual".