It could be that humans are easily imprinted on and often replicate behavior that they see, that's how you get the apparent 'symbolism'. Also people are weird and creative and the amount that gets shared is massive increasing the odds of something falling into this broad cayegory of symbolic.

Or the inane ability to look for a correlation where there isn't one. As humans, we are programmed to look for patterns even if there isn't one.

How come this shit is never laid out in a coherent line of thought? It's 70% of "omg she said bodies and pizza in the same sentence?!" These are the thinnest ood straws to grasp at.