You ask ‘wouldn’t it be better’ if there were less memes
The community, through it’s posting, voting, and reposting, has chosen Memes regardless of whether it’d be better.
A lot of answers in here say “that’s how the fediverse works, people post what they want and engage with what they want, what they don’t want they can unsubscribe or block to curate their own feed, to avoid seeing parts of what the collective is sharing/talking about when using memes”.
What you’re describing requires unilateral control over what content various communities will engage in. It doesn’t matter if that’s what people like, so much as it’s what people continue to choose. If they like it, great. If they don’t, they’ll either curat their feed and not have a clue what you’re talking about regarding memes on the Frontpage, or they aren’t bothered or even like the memes on the Frontpage and aren’t looking to seek out more nuanced discussions and serious threads.
I don’t know. My assumption is that they’re easier to put together than well thought out titles and clear discussion lines, and there’s a certain level of inherent ‘safety’ in posting a picture/meme that does a lot of the heavy lifting for you for a joke. Not that I don’t like them, just that that’s my read of why they choose them over discussion