Normally the good jokes are also somewhat smart, even though they are not "serious". A joke about Texas being big is not very smart, IMHO. Is also not very original, as it's not the first one I've seen in this vein. And above all, it's specially stupid to end it with a remark about "The European mind cannot comprehend this", because Europeans know a lot more about the US than the US people know about Europe.

IOW, it's not that it's struck a nerve, it's that it was legit bad.

PS: Oh, and, the fact that it appeals to Europeans, it seems like it appeals on Europe as a whole, which makes it doubly stupid, because then individual members of the EU/continent are like USA states, and then each member/state has routes as long as the one in the original meme.