The article deals with the polycode Internet meme about cats and fish and its constituent precedent phenomena, on the basis of which subsequent transformations aremade. One of the components of an Internet meme as a polycode text (visual or verbal) or both components can be transformed simultaneously. Mostly, substitution or contamination techniques are used while preserving the spelling, punctuation, syntactic, and graphic features of the original meme. In addition to the traditional precedent name, statement, text, and situation, precedent visual phenomena are distinguished in a polycode Internet meme, which are markers of either a stereotypical or precedent situation. Visual phenomena can refer the viewer to the iconic part of other polycode Internet memes, and thus it becomes possible to speak of visual precedent phenomena. Precedent statements from Internet memes can not only undergo transformation within the Internet discourse, but also go beyond it: to function offline in advertising discourse as memes proper. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2025.