The difference is merely the essential part of meme stocks that make them meme stocks and not just a pump-and-dump scheme executed by some guy. Other than that, though, totally the same thing.
I'm on a phone, apology for lack of citation. I ran across an article that found it was mostly memers bidding the price up against each other. The short squeeze aspect did come un, but not as often and not to the extent that is commonly claimed.