Sometimes memes offer simple, funny humor most people can enjoy, such as this Pavlov joke:. Cute animals figure prominently in harmless-humor memes, such as these adorable ducklings:. Funny memes often appeal to specific groups, such as parents:. Sibling memes are a popular meme subgroup that appeals to many people:.
Other classic and famous funny memes include:. Some memes have pointed humor. These memes put forth an opinion, argue with others, take a provocative stance, or use darker subjects, such as the above meme that takes advantage of an unfortunate headline. Other memes tackle more controversial subjects, such as the Area 51 raid plan:.
Or the flat-Earth movement:. Other darker-humored memes include:. Social commentary colors many memes, touching upon subjects such as wine drinking, a hugely popular topic on the internet. Often, memes tackle different takes on societal norms, such as memes about not wanting to have kids:. More social commentary memes include:. In some cases, a meme achieves notoriety as a conversational expression.
As in the above example, the phrase "Meanwhile in Another conversational meme tackles the challenge to "Change My Mind":. Other conversational memes include:.
World events provide endless meme fodder, with humor that's sometimes pointed, sometimes silly, and sometimes painful. As in the above meme, social isolation periods generate thousands of memes, capitalizing on the dark humor of a shared experience. The brief murder hornet scare is another example:. Brexit was a rich source of memes:. Superbowls provide endless meme fodder, as this Adam Levine halftime show meme shows:. Other current topic memes:. Our favorite TV shows provide tons of meme material, such as the above example from Game of Thrones.
Other meme-TV show favorites include The Office :. More TV shows that generate memes include:. There's an endless variety of memes, ranging from mundane, everyday topics to critical life and world events. These types of memes normally go on for almost a month or so and burn out extremely fast.
Once burnt out, these memes are hardly seen again. These types of memes normally include a situation or a celebrity, who has done or said something, and it is caught by the public. These memes are going to happen only once and they are amazing. But the sad part is that they do not come back. You just have one shot to view it and then poof! It functions almost like the simple setup of a knock-knock joke. You know what's coming next. And it ain't good.
The Occupy Wall Street movement spawned dozens of social media campaigns, images, political action, and protests. Summing up the confusing melange was an overzealous, dickish campus cop at UC Davis who decided it would be a good idea to stroll up and down a group of peacefully protesting students and pepper spray them directly in the face.
Almost immediately, the cop found himself ruining the rest of history. Just a few months after the launch of YouTube, commercial editor Robert Ryang inadvertently kicked off a movement by recutting Stanley Kubrick's The Shining into a lighthearted family comedy.
Peter Gabriel's "Solsbury Hill" clearly worked its beaming, inspirational magic; the viral success of The Shining trailer spawned countless recuts, with a few—see: Brokeback to the Future —catapulting the practice to legendary status.
The Slender Man—sometimes spelled as one word and occasionally referred to as "Slender"—is a towering, faceless humanoid who dresses in a suit and stalks lonely children. Entirely fictional, he was created in , when a user of the internet forum Something Awful submitted a doctored photo for a paranormal image contest.
The character quickly exploded in popularity and became a fixture of horror sites namely Creepypasta , inspiring countless videos, photos, and pieces of fan fiction. He is the horror meme. Casual stereotyping has fueled the internet for a long, long time. Before we had the starter packs you see today on Instagram and Facebook, we had the slightly related YouTube videos that poked fun at what certain types of people used to say. Finding out you or one of your beloved Oregon Trail wagon-mates perished via unrelenting diarrhea was the grade-school equivalent of being audited by the IRS.
OK, maybe not. As much as we love this guy, and his incredible feats, we hate to break this to him: He's basically the mall version of Chuck Norris Facts more on that below. We still love you, and you were undeniably huge, my man. Just not quite the real deal. This turn-of-the-millennium hit found second life in the irony-soaked hands of a new generation, who find that relentlessly mocking the song is much more pleasing than listening to it.
Peak "All Star" is owned by the lovable, neck-bearded Jon Sudano, who poignantly squeezes Smash Mouth lyrics into other popular songs. Smash Mouth, who performed at a COVID superspreader event in Sturgis, North Dakota, had this to say about the meme: "It's funny because a large percentage of our fans don't even know what a meme is—heck, we didn't really know either at first.
Not the sharpest tools in the shed. The phrase may date as far back as Saturday Night Live 's "Wayne's World," but it's still riotously funny to year-olds the world over and Michael Scott from The Office. Anything can become sexual, and these four words are the proof. It wasn't that long ago that former Two and a Half Men star Charlie Sheen took the word "winning" out of the sports realm and applied it to life in general.
Unsurprisingly, his antics quickly spread to bros the world over and Donald Trump. Parodied by such comedy stalwarts as Stephen Colbert and Arrested Development , this video of a kid wielding a ball fetcher like a lightsaber exploded onto the pre-YouTube internet, repurposed by any and every internet user with video-editing skillz.
The bittersweet twist is that viral fame took its toll; after suffering emotional damage, Star Wars kid slapped the cyberbullies who leaked the video with harassment lawsuits. Shepard Fairey's reproduction of an Obama portrait quickly became one of the most iconic images of the presidential election.
It wasn't long before several parodies, imitating the style and minimalist message, spawned. This one doesn't require that much unpacking.
Dick Butt is a drawing of a penis with a mouth, nose, and eyes who also happens to have another penis emerging from its rear end. This second penis does not have facial features. It's a dick with a butt. Hence, Dick Butt. It came from a webcomic by artist K.
Green and was popular on 4chan, YouTube, Reddit, and other places that you might assume would find Dick Butt hilarious. Either you think Dick Butt is funny or you're probably not reading this explanation anymore. Vladimir Putin has been the subject of countless memes over his seemingly eternal reign heading the Russian oligarchy. While "Shirtless Putin" memes—featuring him riding eagles , shootin' guns, and engaging in other real-life and photoshopped badassery—have been Westernized riffs on his over-the-top and well-staged acts of masculinity, the people of Russia have used an image of Putin as a gay clown to protest the regime's harsh stance on LGBTQ rights.
This meme and all memes of Putin, really were promptly banned by the Kremlin—meaning they clearly got under his skin, proving not all memes have to be vessels for Dick Butt jokes. Animals make excellent internet fodder, and "Philosoraptor," a popular image meme where a quizzical dinosaur thinks deeply absurd thoughts, is the perfect example of what even an extinct creature can accomplish.
Where did this Jurassic meme hatch from? While you'd think this particular joke was cooked up on a web forum, Philosoraptor actually debuted as a T-shirt sold on the website Lonely Planet by a designer named Sam Smith.
Yep, that's right: Novelty clothing can still be funny. WIlliam Shatner's entire existence has morphed into a meme, from the vocal modulation to appearing on Shit My Dad Says, and you can't argue with the results.
He's continued to make bank as a octogenarian actor, with this angry Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan scream echoing through the annals of history. Not long after the release of Oliver Hirschbiegel's film, Downfall— about Adolf Hitler's final days in his Berlin bunker—YouTubers turned the climax into a subtitled burst of absurdist comedy.
In the real version, actor Bruno Ganz fumes with German fury over a failed assault. But in many of the viral parodies that followed, he kvetches about trivial pop-culture matters, everything from late-night show politics to Taylor Swift.
A beautiful experience to behold, one complemented nicely by Bear, whose commentary made him sound like he was scared, happy, and on the verge of an orgasm. The video was a meme creator's dream, immediately spawning songs and catchphrases , and changing the world forever.
It's fun to watch other people have fun. That's the driving philosophy behind many of the memes, especially the ones that popped up online in the early '00s like "Numa Numa," which emerged from a video of New Jersey resident Gary Brolsma dancing like a mad man to "Dragostea Din Tei" by Moldovan pop trio O-Zone i.
Brolsma's joyful lip sync inspired countless tributes, parodies, and sequels, but nothing beats the original for pure, unhinged joy. It's hard to think that when Ice Cube was shooting Friday , his classic stoner comedy, he had any idea that a throwaway line like "Bye, Felicia" would go on to become a popular dismissive catchphrase—much less the source for countless GIFs, Twitter put-downs, and even the title of a VH1 show. But that's how the internet works.
Once people latch onto a piece of culture, it takes on a life of its own. This particular phrase went from the movies to the internet and then back to the big screen: Friday director F. Gary Gray incorporated the line into his N. Remember how fun it was to watch Kip Dynamite score a huge win? This meme was like that, but on steroids. The cuteness mixed with the often idiotic quips made this macro one of the most-used of its kind.
And for good cause—whenever you needed a dose of optimism, Success Kid was there to remind you about how good or dumb life could be. Whether you saw it first on Myspace, in Zoolander , or on the cover of Little Feat's Down on the Farm , you know damn well what this pose is. Heck, you might've even duck-faced a few times yourself. Never forget. While this meme has faded into obscurity, it deserves a slot on this list for being one of the first memes to thrive on the internet.
The archived and delightfully '90s website started by University of Illinois student Nehal Patel as a simple joke, featured Mr T. It just goes to show you, the internet has always had an affinity for well-placed genital humor. Hopefully, it always will. Who would've thought that a random screengrab from Futurama 's "The Lesser of Two Evils" would become so meme-orable ahem? Probably not Fry, but here he is anyway, still being used as a macro stand-in for suspicious moments and confusion.
Earwormy passages? Easy dance moves? Absurd imagery? All of the above? We've already tried, and failed , to figure out exactly why Psy's "Gangnam Style" is so popular and immortal.
But having surpassed 4 billion views, Cho Soo-hyun's cheesy horse trot-filled music video has proven it will live on in internet history books for the rest of time. Just accept it. South Park has given the world its fair share of iconic moments, but nothing sums up the internet era of late capitalism better than this gem, taken from an episode in which underpants gnomes steal underwear in order to turn a profit.
How do they make a profit? Through a simple three-phase plan, the second phase of which is simply "? In time, some form of the punchline "Profit" became a golden response to any example of poor planning or a dumb idea destined for failure. No president inspired more online invective and praise than Barack Obama, largely because he was America's first true president of the internet age.
A meme for all political leanings, "Thanks, Obama" has defied constitutionally mandated term limits and continues to govern the meme-verse. Queen of the Macros, the Ermahgerd meme emerged from an immediate collective understanding that "ermahgerd gersbermps " is exactly how the subject of this macro would pronounce, "Oh my God, Goosebumps. Say it out loud and try not to laugh. We can't do this meme more justice than Vanity Fair has already done in its profile of the woman in the photo, so read that.
Not because of the ambush. But because fans the universe over were stoked for another everlasting catchphrase, one they'd be able to use years later, as a reaction to pretty much anything remotely sketchy, on one of those crazy, crazy dot com things. In , while playing the character R.
The screengrab of that moment is now, and forever, your best-worst source of advice. What time is it? It's Peanut Butter Jelly Time. Before this was a goofy Family Guy gag , this delightfully silly meme started on forums as a piece of Flash animation where a chipper banana dances around as "Peanut Butter Jelly Time," a track from the Buckwheat Boyz, blares in the background. Don't question it. Submit to the banana. The meme uses an image of Gene Wilder's Willy Wonka character to say something patronizing or mock someone.
First used on Gizmodo and Tumblr as early as , the image has become a common condescending response online. Twitter began using the screengrab as an attachment to tweets around March about being tired. There is a lot of unique classical art out there, so of course the internet has to find the most hilarious and wacky pieces to turn into memes. While art-related videos and other online art parodies can be traced back to , the more recognizable memes gained popularity starting in The GIF initially came from a clip of a video producer when his co-worker said something inappropriate accidentally.
They have all been the subject of a huge number of memes, with some of the most popular ones using screen shots from the show usually of a meltdown or overreaction.
Pepe the frog is a fictional character that first appeared in a comic, and has gone through multiple transformations since then.
By , what was initially intended to symbolize a peaceful way of life by the artist became twisted by several hate groups causing the image to be added to the Anti-Defamation League's database of hate symbols in Taken from an image of the famous athlete's emotional speech during his induction into the Basketball Hall of Fame, this meme is usually used to convey a fan's disappointment when his particular team loses or performs poorly.
The meme has been around since first appearing on MemeCrunch in and gained an official fan page on Tumblr in Jordan has reportedly found the entire fad pretty funny.
The original photo came from a video of a little girl giving an unimpressed and hesitant look after being told about a surprise trip to Disneyland in The meme uses photoshopped images of both cartoon restaurants in order to project two rivals, such as sports teams and TV shows.
Bean himself even admitted to seeing a big influx of the memes online during a interview. Since then, it has become popular to use the format to make funny declarations. The internet just couldn't help itself after images surfaced of a little boy mowing the lawn at the White House completely ignoring Trump.
The kid was apparently so focused on the job that he didn't notice Trump when he came out to greet him, forcing Trump to yell loudly over the sound of the lawnmower and making for some great meme fuel. People began photoshopping the exit sign exit 12 to say comical things that one might swerve off the highway in order to get to. Written by: Katherine Gallagher. Republish this story. Distracted boyfriend. Expanding brain.
Young Thug at computer. First World problems. Change my mind. Is this a?
0コメント