The repetition is what allows them to become language, though. Every meme that enters popular culture is essentially a metaphor, and, by being repeated over and over, and only changed slightly, the meaning is taught to the audience, and it evolves into an idiom.

There can be problems with description, precision, and audience knowledge, but that is true of any word or phrase. The difference is just the rapidity at which these new idioms are entering our language. As long as the author is competent, and ensures that there is enough context and relevance in the work, as is already a requirement of proper writing, restricting the use of meme language is unnecessary

...but it feels like so much more communication today is just references to other things.

Shaka, when the walls fell.

Thing is, a lot of English expressions come from Shakespeare's works, the memes of the time. Like, a lot. So communication back then was also references to other things. Now, I agree the scale is different, and now it's a massime phenomenon with internet and such.

A lot of the language you use is a reference to other things. And language evolves precisely because enough people repeatedly used a word or phrase in a new way. It seems that your main criticism of the use of memes in literature is that they "dont feel right" or that you merely dont like where things are going which isn't a solid rationale for disallowing them any more than people thinking the use of the word literal figuratively somehow makes the figurative use of the word literal "wrong."

I think it’s just not the venue for the language, it’s new and informal, it doesn’t belong in academic papers.

Memes are just the newest iteration of establishing shared ideals and interests and are also a way to establish in-group status. For example, if I posted a meme that says something like, "TFW Anos Voldigoad enters into a zect." onto an anime board; I manage to establish both an interest and in-group status to people that I have never met and will likely never meet. Memes are the inevitable result of people desiring to have in-group status and sharing their interests in the age of the internet. Sometimes, a picture, even a silly meme, really is worth a thousand words.

To be fair, I think that's what the part after the colon was for.

That certainly could happen. It doesn't seem very likely though, especially since so many different cultures already have their own versions of English, and the main two rarely agree on anything.

I mean, it seems like that's the cultural push-and-pull depicted here: Some people don't like it and make that known. If their opinion ends up prevailing and papers containing silliness end up being rejected by the major journals of their field, doctoral comittees etc., eventually the silliness may be driven out and gatekept.

We fans of harmless humour would lament as much as the guy in the OP laments now. We would presumably attempt to encourage silliness, as the guy in the OP does now.

Consensus swinging one way naturally doesn't magically mean we now have to change our opinions to fit the consensus. Right now, language evolves in our favour, and we will attempt to support and leverage that evolution because it suits us.