50 famous memes and what they mean

Merriam-Webster defines "meme" as "an idea, behavior, style, or usage that spreads from person to person within a culture" or "an amusing or interesting item (such equally a captioned film or video) or genre of items that is spread widely online especially through social media." That definition hasn't been around forever—it hasn't even been around for five years. The dictionary editors officially added the entry along with "emoji" and "clickbait" to the formal lexicon in May 2015.

Memes have e'er come with an air of mystery, intriguing and confusing fifty-fifty the virtually computer literate. Where did they come from? More importantly, what do they mean? Even modernistic science is hopping on the meme train. A squad of scientific researchers from Academy College London, Cyprus University of Engineering, the University of Alabama at Birmingham, and King's College London came together in September 2018 to research the internet's most popular memes. Apart from assembling a definitive list of the world'southward favorite memes, the bookish study also explored the influences (both positive and negative) that memes have on different communities. Some memes are created just for fun by creative or bored internet users, simply others are made with the explicit intention of going viral to promote political ideas.

With the infinite number of memes scattered across the internet, information technology'due south difficult to keep runway. Merely when you've grasped the meaning of i hilarious meme, it has already go old news and replaced by something equally as enigmatic. Online forums like Tumblr, Twitter, 4chan, and Reddit are responsible for a majority of meme infections, and with the constant posting and sharing, finding the source of an original meme is easier said than done. Stacker hunted through internet resources, pop culture publications, and databases like Know Your Meme to find 50 dissimilar memes and what they hateful. While the almost self-replicating nature of these vague symbols tin go exhausting, memes in their essence tin can also bring people closer together—as long every bit they have internet access.

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Danganronpamemer // imgflp

Expanding brain

In 2017, when a number of posters on Tumblr and 4chan started bragging about their brain sizes, information technology speedily turned into a meme. Photos of different sized brains are paired with "smart" sounding words until they expand into a fully enlightened stage. I of the first manifestations of the "expanding brain" meme came from the who-whom-whomst progression of words that seemingly makes one sound smarter.

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Young Thug at calculator

Back in 2018 a photo surfaced of the rappers Young Thug and Lil Durk staring at a figurer screen while working on new music in the studio. The internet rapidly began finding humorous (and made) explanations for what the two were so attentively concentrating on, everything from the rappers planning an elaborate heist to playing erstwhile schoolhouse games like minesweeper.

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First Globe problems

While the "First Earth" terminology has been effectually for a while, the hashtag #firstworldproblems reached its height in popularity on Twitter in 2011 afterward Buzzfeed posted a series of memes about problems experienced by privileged people from wealthy countries. The meme almost always depicts an attractive person looking pitiful, with a caption explaining his or her First World frustrations.

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Change my mind

Later on Steven Crowder, a conservative podcaster, posted a photograph of himself in 2018 sitting at a desk with a sign saying "Male privilege is a myth: Change my mind," it was almost likewise easy for the cyberspace to begin making fun of him with memes of their own. Memes ranged from just changing the words on the sign to elaborate photoshops.

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Drake

Drake has been the subject field of several different memes throughout his long career. His 2015 unmarried "Hotline Bling" was i of the biggest songs of the year, and when the music video came out featuring Drake dancing in a brightly lit cube structure the memes began to accumulate even more. Since then the internet has memed everything from his Twitter posts to schoolhouse portraits.

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Is this a...?

The "is this a pigeon" meme first rose to popularity in 2011 later on Tumblr posted a photograph from a Japanese animated show of an android mistaking a butterfly for a dove. Most of the memes derived from the photograph use the subjects to limited modern confusions or paranoia.

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Real proper noun Google searches

"Real name Google searches" is a meme that gained popularity in 2018 using the generic google template to draw made-upwards names for popular celebrities (normally those who go past aliases). According to Know Your Meme, it first appeared showing the rapper Lil Pump's proper name as "Lilliam Pumpernickel" and simply got more ridiculous from at that place.

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Futurama Fry

"Futurama Fry" is 1 of the well-nigh relatable memes on the web. One popular meme, which began in 2011, shows the character Fry from the animated show "Futurama" with optics narrowed thinking about contradicting questions usually referring to modern times or sarcasm. Some other is a generic photograph with the same character holding cash yelling "shut up and accept my coin," used for when someone finds the description of a product on the internet particularly appealing.

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Weird flex but OK

The phrase "weird flex but OK" is used when someone brags about something that others would find awkward or just plain irrelevant. The phrase began showing up on the cyberspace in 2017 and has continued to exist used in response to awkward boasts. One of the most popular uses of the meme was during the recent Brett Kavanaugh hearings after he used his high schoolhouse virginity as an argument.

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Evieliam // Wikimedia Eatables

This is fine

Taken out of a 2013 webcomic strip chosen "On Fire," this image showing a man-like dog enjoying his coffee while his house is called-for down has seemingly go more and more relatable every twelvemonth. The epitome is rarely contradistinct, but attached to troubling or hard-to-grasp news.

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Unsplash / Bence Boros and Twitter / @joshwillhall

FBI agent

Jokes most "big brother watching" are onetime, but in early 2018 the cyberspace was more paranoid than e'er earlier thanks to the internet-fueled thought of FBI agents watching people through their webcams. The memes aren't always critical, either; near of them depict the agents either protecting or existence friendly with their subjects.

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Kermit

The iconic green puppet has stolen the hearts of millions on the "Muppet Show" since the 1950s, only the net meme sensation didn't begin until 2014. Most notable memes include Kermit sipping on some tea with passive ambitious text followed past "simply that'due south none of my business," also as some other with a hooded Kermit formatted to testify skilful vs. evil thoughts.

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Cats

From "I need dis" to "Nyan Cat," in that location actually isn't one subject that emcompasses the net's love of memes better than cats. Since the early 2000s when "Keyboard Cat" first made an appearance on YouTube, people have been posting funny images of felines paired with hilarious text.

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Squinting adult female

Also known as the "squat and squint" meme, the photo showing a squinting woman staring at something in the distance actually came from an outtake of a Instagram shot that went viral in March 2018. Since then, the movie has been applied to whatever circumstance that the poster finds unbelievable.

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A Star is Built-in

When the first trailer for the highly anticipated motion-picture show starring Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga came out in 2018, excited fans took screenshots and made them into memes. The most popular ones came from funny adaptations of Cooper'south line "I simply wanted to have another look at you" and Gaga'south belted solo from the vocal "Shallow."

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AndreDThompson // Twitter

Aroused Patrick

Also known as "evil Patrick" or "savage Patrick," this meme takes a still of the character Patrick from "Spongebob Squarepants" with a menacing expect in his optics from a 1999 episode. Twitter got a hold of information technology around Feb 2018 and started using the image forth with an explanation of bad behavior or motives.

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PaulFaire/TheThings // TheThings.com

By age 35...

Following a 2018 MarketWatch commodity that implied an unrealistic amount of savings one should take in their 30s, people on Twitter began responding to the article by sharing all the other things you should ideally have by age 35 (from the hilariously true to the ridiculous). Advice on avocado toast, Pokemon, and drawers full of miscellaneous chargers followed.

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Don't say it

The "don't say information technology" meme details the relatable conversations people have between themselves and their brains, from bringing upwardly awkward conversations topics to resisting "that'south what she said" jokes. The first tweet with the meme showed upwards in 2010, merely later resurfaced in 2017 and showed an inner struggle between whether or not to start a conversation with a taxi commuter.

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MILOSLAVvonRANDA // WW Interweb

Handshakes

The 1987 film "Predator" starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and Carl Weathers contained within it what could be the manliest handshake of all time, and in 2007 it began gaining traction on YouTube. After multiple videos and fan fine art paying tribute to the handshake became popular in the following years, object labeling memes using the handshake as a background to agreements began to arise in 2018.

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Elon Musk

In that location accept been several memes revolving around the tech entrepreneur Elon Musk throughout the years, especially post-obit his Twitter request for "dank memes" in October 2018. One of the most popular Musk memes uses an epitome of the billionaire smoking during a podcast interview.

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Mocking Spongebob

"Mocking Spongebob" uses an image from a 2012 episode of Spongebob Squarepants to brand fun of another person'south opinion on the internet. The earliest uses of this meme came in 2017 on Twitter, chop-chop gaining traction and becoming one of the near pop (and effective) means to insult someone online.

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Roll Safe

In 2016 a British mockumentary starring actor Kayode Ewumi called "Hood Documentary" was uploaded onto YouTube past BBC. Soon subsequently, people on the net began using a screen-grabbed image of Ewumi pointing to his temple like he had a good idea to reversely joke about bad decisions and poor thinking.

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Kyle MacLachlan // Twitter

Give thanks u, next

When Ariana Grande released her single "Thank U, Next" about her ex-boyfriends in early 2019, fans quickly began creating memes out of the lyrics. Aside from just using the title phrase to demonstrate being over something and moving on, the internet also used the lyrics to compare 3 things that taught them love, patience, and pain to mimic the chorus.

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Let'due south get this staff of life

People on the internet use the "Allow's become this bread" meme ironically (usually it is slang for earning money) to brand fun of people or themselves for trying as well difficult to earn coin. In 2018 the meme exploded into everything from mockeries of the gluten-intolerant to references to Olive Garden.

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Surprised pikachu

A screen-grabbed image of Pikachu looking surprised from an episode of "Pokemon" caught the attention of Twitter in tardily 2018. For the next few months, the image blew up when people started using it every bit a meme for doing something with an obvious outcome.

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Warren Baker // The Blogging Baker

Condescending Willy Wonka

The meme uses an paradigm of Gene Wilder's 1971 Willy Wonka character to say something patronizing or mock someone. Starting time used on Gizmodo and Tumblr as early as 2011, the image has go a common condescending response online.

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Pink Diamond // Pinterest

Jason Momoa sneaking upwardly on Henry Cavill

Jason Momoa and Henry Cavill began a friendship while filming "Justice League" in 2016, and when a photo was taken of Momoa sneaking up on Cavill on the cerise carpet the same year, it quickly went viral. On the last day of 2017, a Facebook account posted a meme using the image, labeling Momoa as "2018." The meme gained popularity throughout the following months equally people labeled the two as unlike things creeping upward on each other.

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Exhausted Spongebob

In notwithstanding some other Spongebob Squarepants meme, "exhausted Spongebob" uses an image from a 1999 episode where the character is leaning against a stone, naked and out of breath. Twitter began using the screengrab equally an attachment to tweets around March 2018 almost being tired.

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Classical art memes

There is a lot of unique classical art out there, and then of course the internet has to find the about hilarious and wacky pieces to turn into memes. While fine art-related videos and other online art parodies can be traced dorsum to 2004, the more recognizable memes gained popularity starting in 2013.

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World'southward most interesting homo

Most people will recognize the "globe'south most interesting man" (played by actor Jonathan Goldsmith) from the Dos Equis beer commercials that began in 2008. The meme commonly uses the image of Goldsmith as a well-dressed gentleman with an adaptation of his catchphrase "I don't always X, but when I do, I Y" and began to gain popularity as early as 2010.

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Guy blinking nervously

One of the most popular memes of 2017, "guy blinking nervously" is unremarkably used in GIF class to demonstrate bafflement and being defenseless unaware. The GIF initially came from a prune of a video producer when his co-worker said something inappropriate accidentally.

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Hard to swallow pills

The "difficult to swallow pills" meme uses two stock photos from WikiHow that were first posted to the internet in August 2017. It didn't take long for a Redditor to photoshop the image of the pill bottle to read "difficult to consume pills" and use it every bit a meme to illustrate a difficult truth.

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Who would win?

The cyberspace has taken the childhood game of "who would win" to a whole new level with this meme. Used to pose hypothetical battles between ii opposing subjects, the "who would win" meme is said to have begun in 2014 when a 4chan user posted the meme using ii video games as opponents.

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How I sleep knowing...

The classic rhetorical question "How do you sleep at night?" was the inspiration for this meme. The more modernistic rendition shows a moving picture of a person or animal sleeping soundly with different versions of the words: "How I sleep knowing..." This commonly refers to something that near people feel guilty well-nigh or worry about (and therefore lose sleep over).

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Kardashians

Ever since the show "Keeping Up with the Kardashians" first aired in 2007, people vicious in love with watching the family unit'due south antics. 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 (normally of a meltdown or overreaction).

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"Today" days old

"Today days old" is used equally a response to any random realization. It first came from posts request "How quondam were you when you lot realized 10?" with someone responding: "I was today years old." This can be a fact both well-known or more than obscure.

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Pepe

Pepe the frog is a fictional character that first appeared in a 2005 comic, and has gone through multiple transformations since then. Starting out as a positive meme known as "experience good frog" in 2008, Pepe was edited into a more sorry or angry meme a few years after. By 2015, 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 2016.

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Crying Michael Jordan

Taken from an image of the famous athlete'southward emotional speech during his 2009 induction into the Basketball Hall of Fame, this meme is ordinarily used to convey a fan'due south disappointment when his detail squad loses or performs poorly. The meme has been around since offset appearing on MemeCrunch in 2012 and gained an official fan page on Tumblr in 2015. Jordan has reportedly found the unabridged fad pretty funny.

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*Slaps roof of auto*

"Slaps roof of car" tin be traced back to a 2014 tweet of a ridiculous auto salesmen conversation overheard and started bravado up in 2018 afterward being paired with an illustrated stock image of a automobile salesman showing off a machine. The meme has seen many photoshopped variations, but unremarkably utilizes the phrase "This bad boy can fit so much Ten in information technology."

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Awkward little girl

Too known every bit "Side Eyeing Chloe," this meme can be used in pretty much any awkward situation. The original photograph came from a video of a little daughter giving an unimpressed and hesitant await afterwards being told about a surprise trip to Disneyland in 2013.

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Krusty Krab vs. Chum Bucket

Just nearly every "Spongebob Squarepants" fan knows about the intense rivalry betwixt the Krusty Krab and the Chum Bucket restaurants, merely the onetime usually reigns supreme. The meme uses photoshopped images of both drawing restaurants in lodge to project 2 rivals, such as sports teams and Television shows.

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Havokimin // College Sense of humor

Elf on the shelf rhyming

The "Elf on the Shelf" tradition began when parents would put an elf doll in the pall during the vacation flavor and tell their children that it was watching them be naughty or nice. Toward the cease of 2017, information technology became popular to mail images of funny things that rhyme sitting on meridian of other things that rhyme using the phrase "Yous've heard of elf on the shelf, now get gear up for X."

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One does not simply...

Fans of "Lord of the Rings" won't need an explanation for this meme. Actor Sean Edible bean played Boromir in the movies, and ane of his famous lines, "One does non simply walk into Mordor," became the inspiration for a meme that plays on the phrase. Edible bean himself fifty-fifty admitted to seeing a large influx of the memes online during a 2015 interview.

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I am a man/woman looking for....

After a 2017 tweet that posed a questionnaire using the classic dating template "I am a man/woman looking for a homo/woman" about Carly Rae Jepsen, a meme was built-in. Since then, it has become popular to utilise the format to make funny declarations.

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Success kid

One of the most popular memes of all time, "success child" uses a 2007 photograph taken of a little male child with a clenched fist and determined expression. It is near always used to display small successful moments or "wins" that happen to someone throughout a normal twenty-four hour period like getting an extra chicken nugget in a fast-food meal.

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OverlyAttachedGirlfriend.com

Overly attached girlfriend

"Overly attached girlfriend" began in 2012 when a Redditor took a screenshot of an image he institute comical from a video of a daughter singing a rendition of Justin Bieber's vocal "Boyfriend." It chop-chop began making its rounds on the internet, using captions portraying her as a stereotypical overly attached girlfriend.

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Donald Trump yelling at lawnmower boy

The net just couldn't help itself later images surfaced of a footling male child mowing the lawn at the White Firm completely ignoring Trump. The kid was apparently so focused on the job that he didn't observe Trump when he came out to greet him, forcing Trump to yell loudly over the sound of the lawnmower and making for some neat meme fuel.

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Left get out 12

The "Left exit 12" meme uses a serial of screen grabs from a 2013 YouTube video showing a motorcar drifting dangerously into an exit ramp. People began photoshopping the exit sign (exit 12) to say comical things that one might swerve off the highway in club to get to.

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