Maybe the simplicity of the animation works with the Facebook memes because it makes it so easy for amateurs to animate their own minions or doctor pre-existing ones, and it means the facial expressions are so 'stock' that they're extremely versatile for making memes. Also they're easy to doctor cynical/sexy expressions onto, which relates (obviously w/generalisation) to the older audiences
yup, this is definitely the case. i think the ability to transform them is what may have kept their popularity alive, because the images stay “fresh” and always look different. sometimes when an image expresses something even vaguely related to another character, some people comment like “why doesn’t this one look like ___? it would be perfect!”. so i think people crave the minion in costumes now
