I was going to repost the sock to prove a point

No, they didn't take it down. It's still on the site.

Here's the link:
imgflip.com/i/1jt4yp

And here's another similar one the same user posted a few days after that:
imgflip.com/i/1k17ye

The next one didn't get many upvotes. If he was cheating, wouldn't he have given the next one a lot of upvotes, too? It's pretty serious to accuse someone of cheating if you don't know they're doing it. If you go through MnMinPhx's profile, you'll see memes with different amounts of upvotes (some high, some low). That's not evidence of cheating.

I was surprised to see a sock on the front page too, but that doesn't mean anyone cheated to get it there.

Check the Hot list , why is it always the same 5 or 6 people ?

Maybe you should check it. It isn't always the same 5 or 6 people.

I made a meme a few weeks back about the memes I had seen on the front page by users not on the Top 100 leaderboard.

imgflip.com/i/1jk0ut