Where are these mysterious views coming from?

Not like these memes need more views, but, for reference:

"You kill one evil Iranian general, and everybody loses their minds!" imgflip.com/i/3l3qgk
"Bring our troops home? Start WWIII? He keeps us guessing!" imgflip.com/i/3l5c5u
"Why war with Iran is a non-starter, in one map." imgflip.com/i/3la6vi

Especially curious to me is the first two memes are reacc memes, posted as comments to other memes, and they seem to have more views than the OP meme, which doesn't make much sense to me.

Creations can be shared outside Imgflip on other social media sites by using the Imgflip share button. I think the view counter tracks the total number of times the image is served.

Some creations have a really high number of views, like this one: imgflip.com/i/f40on

Hmm, what community does Imgflip post to on reddit? I don't have many to share with, so mine only go on Imgflip streams, that's one big reason I tend to not get many views or upvotes. Never realized they could be shared to reddit as well...

I think cross-posting Imgflip creations is allowed on any subreddit. Imgflip hosts the image and serves it to Reddit, viewable in the post there.

I tried cross-posting a few of mine to two different subreddits, it looks like you have to post the BBC Code on Reddit (what is a click to show link here) for it to work. I don't use Reddit very often, they actually got removed there ^^

Cross-posts could be disapproved/removed/deleted on either or both sites if it is against either site's rules. I don't think action against a post displayed on one site has an effect on the same post displayed on the other site.

How does a meme get the "by a Redditor"?

Is it a function that was removed?

Cross posting between Reddit and Imgflip where the image is displayed on both sites is allowed.

If the image creator only has an account on Reddit and cross posts on both sites, you will see "Made by a Redditor" on the image page here and their Reddit username will be displayed on the corresponding Reddit post. If the image creator has accounts on both sites and cross posts, the Imgflip username will be displayed on the image page here and the Reddit username will be on the post there.

When scrolling through "New" in the fun stream, you may occasionally notice a meme with lots of views, like hundreds or even thousands of views. Sometimes those are creations that are cross posted here and on Reddit. When you click on the image in "New" and go to the image page where you can comment, that's where the username may change from anonymous to "Made by a Redditor".

I see

Thanks for explaining, Andrew

You're welcome. Your question prompted me to try cross-posting a few of mine as an experiment, so thank you too.

I have another question, unrelated to this one

Might be better to ask on one of mine somewhere :)

It's much like the whole Hong Kong thing with China recently, and the massive use of this meme during that time. It was meant as a joke, and I myself only made two memes about supporting Hong Kong, but I'm honestly quite sure I'm now on China's watchlist and banned from entering the country (as is everyone else who ever made a meme supporting HK)... as if I was ever going to go to China anyways. (If I could afford that, I'd go to Japan instead.)

Interesting. I’d have also supported the HK protestors if I were memeing when that story broke.

In this case, my memes have been pretty anti-war (though not “pro-Iran” by any stretch) so, who knows, maybe I wouldn’t be banned from traveling there. If and when the U.S.’s own travel ban to Iran gets lifted.

Yeah, but the point was you're probably /at least/ on a watchlist in Iran by now, maybe in the US too.

Likewise, you're now probably also banned from China, lol. ;-P

Tensions are high it's not hard to understand why anything with the keyword Iran would be scrutinized thousands of times a day by Iran.

Makes sense

You would say the same thing if you were on reddit a couple days ago. World War Three is the first meme of the decade so it’s logical it would end up on most meme sites.

I figured it out I think — if you Google “Iran analysis ImgFlip” or similar terms some of these memes (as well as memes by others) appear near the top. I guess search engine views count as views in ImgFlip as well.

Cool to know some of my content is reaching a broader audience, especially on an issue this important.