meme plague n.
The spread of a successful but pernicious meme, esp. one that parasitizes the victims into
giving their all to propagate it. Astrology, BASIC, and the other
guy's religion are often considered to be examples. This usage is
given point by the historical fact that `joiner' ideologies like
Naziism or various forms of millennarian Christianity have
exhibited plague-like cycles of exponential growth followed by
collapses to small reservoir populations.