Is effort the only defining factor for meme quality? Not even close. In fact, it’s on the lesser side of the important factors. But I’ve been seeing people say that memes are so effortless on the front page (and some of them really are and need to be called out), but people need to know that despite this, too much effort can be the thing that kills the meme as well.
Also, just because those are the 3 main points on the graph doesn’t mean there aren’t parts in between. There are absolutely points in between, but I wanted to keep it simple. It is a line graph after all. There are middle grounds to all of these.