It wasn't always this way. Comedy has deep, deep roots as a channel for speaking truth to power. Only in recent decades does it seem we've discovered that you can flip the parity on both aspects and run it in reverse.

Totally agree with your larger point, btw.

It's the other way around. Psyops are just memes. You should view everything communicated to you as a meme - a complex, semantically rich packet of information that implies the content and the intent arising from the agenda and context of the communicator.

Everything from a simple wave hello by random passersby to pseudonymous manipulative poasting by nation state actors in service to secret purpose is a meme. Understand the actors or you will never be able understand the memes.

AI is, for now, a tool. It's a powerful tool, a potent force multiplier, but there is no agency there. AI labs and governments and big tech companies have agendas and the ways in which they manipulate the output of AI tools is a meme modifier, so you should understand the ways in which different entities want to change the output of the tools you use, in order to correct for anything that deviates from your own intent and understanding.

Psyops are just a particular configuration of meme scale within a culture; if your model of the world is correct and has reliable predictive power, you can correct for things that attempt to warp reality. Understanding how and why different entities warp their communications, whether it's intentional or endemic, is crucial to a reliable model.