l famous memes and what they mean

Merriam-Webster defines "meme" equally "an thought, beliefs, style, or usage that spreads from person to person within a civilisation" or "an amusing or interesting item (such equally a captioned motion-picture show or video) or genre of items that is spread widely online specially 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 most computer literate. Where did they come from? More importantly, what do they hateful? Even modern science is hopping on the meme railroad train. A squad of scientific researchers from University College London, Republic of cyprus University of Technology, the Academy of Alabama at Birmingham, and King's College London came together in September 2018 to enquiry the internet's nearly popular memes. Apart from assembling a definitive list of the world's favorite memes, the academic study as well explored the influences (both positive and negative) that memes accept on different communities. Some memes are created just for fun by creative or bored cyberspace users, merely others are made with the explicit intention of going viral to promote political ideas.

With the infinite number of memes scattered beyond the internet, it's hard to go along track. Only when you've grasped the meaning of ane hilarious meme, it has already become old news and replaced by something equally as enigmatic. Online forums similar Tumblr, Twitter, 4chan, and Reddit are responsible for a majority of meme infections, and with the abiding posting and sharing, finding the source of an original meme is easier said than done. Stacker hunted through net resources, popular civilisation publications, and databases like Know Your Meme to find 50 different memes and what they hateful. While the nearly self-replicating nature of these vague symbols tin can go exhausting, memes in their essence tin besides bring people closer together—every bit long as they have internet access.

You might also like: What "woke" and l other millennial sayings mean

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Danganronpamemer // imgflp

Expanding brain

In 2017, when a number of posters on Tumblr and 4chan started bragging near their brain sizes, it quickly turned into a meme. Photos of dissimilar sized brains are paired with "smart" sounding words until they expand into a fully enlightened phase. One of the kickoff 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 computer

Back in 2018 a photo surfaced of the rappers Immature Thug and Lil Durk staring at a computer screen while working on new music in the studio. The internet quickly began finding humorous (and fabricated) explanations for what the 2 were and so attentively concentrating on, everything from the rappers planning an elaborate heist to playing old school games like minesweeper.

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First Globe problems

While the "Showtime World" terminology has been around for a while, the hashtag #firstworldproblems reached its peak in popularity on Twitter in 2011 after Buzzfeed posted a series of memes about issues experienced by privileged people from wealthy countries. The meme most always depicts an bonny person looking sad, with a explanation explaining his or her Showtime Earth frustrations.

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Alter my listen

After Steven Crowder, a conservative podcaster, posted a photo of himself in 2018 sitting at a desk with a sign saying "Male privilege is a myth: Alter my mind," information technology was almost too like shooting fish in a barrel for the internet to begin making fun of him with memes of their own. Memes ranged from simply irresolute the words on the sign to elaborate photoshops.

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Drake

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

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Is this a...?

The "is this a pigeon" meme first rose to popularity in 2011 subsequently Tumblr posted a photo from a Japanese blithe show of an android mistaking a butterfly for a pigeon. Well-nigh of the memes derived from the photo use the subjects to express modern confusions or paranoia.

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Existent proper name Google searches

"Real name Google searches" is a meme that gained popularity in 2018 using the generic google template to depict made-up names for popular celebrities (commonly those who get by aliases). According to Know Your Meme, it first appeared showing the rapper Lil Pump'south name as "Lilliam Pumpernickel" and only got more ridiculous from there.

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Futurama Fry

"Futurama Fry" is one of the virtually relatable memes on the web. One pop meme, which began in 2011, shows the graphic symbol Fry from the blithe testify "Futurama" with eyes narrowed thinking about contradicting questions ordinarily referring to modern times or sarcasm. Another is a generic photo with the same character belongings greenbacks yelling "close up and take my money," used for when someone finds the clarification of a product on the internet specially highly-seasoned.

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Weird flex but OK

The phrase "weird flex but OK" is used when someone brags about something that others would discover bad-mannered or just manifestly irrelevant. The phrase began showing up on the internet in 2017 and has continued to be used in response to awkward boasts. One of the virtually pop uses of the meme was during the recent Brett Kavanaugh hearings afterward he used his high school virginity as an argument.

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Evieliam // Wikimedia Commons

This is fine

Taken out of a 2013 webcomic strip called "On Fire," this paradigm showing a human-like dog enjoying his coffee while his house is burning down has seemingly become more and more relatable every year. The image is rarely contradistinct, simply attached to troubling or hard-to-grasp news.

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Unsplash / Bence Boros and Twitter / @joshwillhall

FBI agent

Jokes nearly "big brother watching" are old, simply in early 2018 the internet was more paranoid than ever before thanks to the internet-fueled idea of FBI agents watching people through their webcams. The memes aren't always critical, either; most 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, but the cyberspace meme sensation didn't begin until 2014. Most notable memes include Kermit sipping on some tea with passive aggressive text followed by "but that's none of my business concern," as well equally another with a hooded Kermit formatted to bear witness expert vs. evil thoughts.

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Cats

From "I need dis" to "Nyan True cat," there really isn't i subject field that emcompasses the internet'due south love of memes better than cats. Since the early 2000s when "Keyboard Cat" first fabricated an appearance on YouTube, people accept been posting funny images of felines paired with hilarious text.

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Squinting adult female

Also known every bit the "squat and squint" meme, the photograph showing a squinting woman staring at something in the altitude actually came from an outtake of a Instagram shot that went viral in March 2018. Since then, the picture has been applied to any circumstance that the poster finds unbelievable.

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A Star is Born

When the get-go trailer for the highly predictable movie starring Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga came out in 2018, excited fans took screenshots and made them into memes. The well-nigh popular ones came from funny adaptations of Cooper'south line "I just wanted to take another expect at you" and Gaga'southward belted solo from the vocal "Shallow."

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AndreDThompson // Twitter

Angry Patrick

Also known as "evil Patrick" or "fell Patrick," this meme takes a even so of the character Patrick from "Spongebob Squarepants" with a menacing look in his eyes from a 1999 episode. Twitter got a hold of it around February 2018 and started using the epitome along with an caption of bad behavior or motives.

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PaulFaire/TheThings // TheThings.com

By age 35...

Following a 2018 MarketWatch article that implied an unrealistic amount of savings one should have in their 30s, people on Twitter began responding to the article by sharing all the other things yous should ideally have by historic period 35 (from the hilariously truthful 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 it" meme details the relatable conversations people accept between themselves and their brains, from bringing up bad-mannered conversations topics to resisting "that'southward what she said" jokes. The offset tweet with the meme showed up in 2010, but afterward resurfaced in 2017 and showed an inner struggle between whether or not to start a conversation with a taxi driver.

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MILOSLAVvonRANDA // WW Interweb

Handshakes

The 1987 motion-picture show "Predator" starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and Carl Weathers contained inside it what could be the manliest handshake of all time, and in 2007 it began gaining traction on YouTube. Later multiple videos and fan art paying tribute to the handshake became pop 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

There have been several memes revolving effectually the tech entrepreneur Elon Musk throughout the years, especially following his Twitter request for "dank memes" in Oct 2018. One of the near pop Musk memes uses an prototype of the billionaire smoking during a podcast interview.

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Mocking Spongebob

"Mocking Spongebob" uses an prototype from a 2012 episode of Spongebob Squarepants to brand fun of another person's opinion on the net. The earliest uses of this meme came in 2017 on Twitter, quickly gaining traction and becoming one of the near pop (and effective) ways to insult someone online.

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Roll Rubber

In 2016 a British mockumentary starring actor Kayode Ewumi called "Hood Documentary" was uploaded onto YouTube by BBC. Before long later on, people on the internet began using a screen-grabbed image of Ewumi pointing to his temple like he had a expert idea to reversely joke near bad decisions and poor thinking.

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Kyle MacLachlan // Twitter

Thank u, side by side

When Ariana Grande released her unmarried "Give thanks U, Next" nearly her ex-boyfriends in early 2019, fans quickly began creating memes out of the lyrics. Bated 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 dearest, patience, and pain to mimic the chorus.

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Let's get this bread

People on the net use the "Let's become this staff of life" meme ironically (unremarkably information technology is slang for earning money) to make fun of people or themselves for trying also hard 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 upwards when people started using it as 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 image of Gene Wilder's 1971 Willy Wonka grapheme to say something patronizing or mock someone. First used on Gizmodo and Tumblr as early as 2011, the epitome has become a mutual condescending response online.

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Pinkish Diamond // Pinterest

Jason Momoa sneaking up 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 red rug the same year, it rapidly went viral. On the last 24-hour interval of 2017, a Facebook account posted a meme using the image, labeling Momoa as "2018." The meme gained popularity throughout the following months as people labeled the 2 as different things creeping up on each other.

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Wearied Spongebob

In yet 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 every bit an zipper to tweets around March 2018 near being tired.

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Classical art memes

There is a lot of unique classical fine art out at that place, so of course the internet has to observe the near hilarious and wacky pieces to turn into memes. While art-related videos and other online art parodies can exist traced back to 2004, the more than recognizable memes gained popularity starting in 2013.

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World's most interesting man

Nearly people will recognize the "earth's most interesting homo" (played by player Jonathan Goldsmith) from the Dos Equis beer commercials that began in 2008. The meme ordinarily uses the paradigm of Goldsmith equally a well-dressed gentleman with an adaptation of his catchphrase "I don't always 10, but when I do, I Y" and began to gain popularity every bit early as 2010.

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Guy blinking nervously

One of the most popular memes of 2017, "guy blinking nervously" is usually used in GIF form to demonstrate bafflement and beingness caught unaware. The GIF initially came from a clip of a video producer when his co-worker said something inappropriate accidentally.

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Difficult to eat pills

The "hard 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 canteen to read "hard to consume pills" and utilize it as a meme to illustrate a difficult truth.

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Who would win?

The internet has taken the babyhood game of "who would win" to a whole new level with this meme. Used to pose hypothetical battles between two opposing subjects, the "who would win" meme is said to accept 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 archetype rhetorical question "How practise you slumber at night?" was the inspiration for this meme. The more modern rendition shows a movie of a person or beast sleeping soundly with different versions of the words: "How I sleep knowing..." This unremarkably refers to something that most people experience guilty about or worry well-nigh (and therefore lose sleep over).

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Kardashians

E'er since the evidence "Keeping Upwards with the Kardashians" outset aired in 2007, people cruel in love with watching the family unit's antics. They have all been the subject field of a huge number of memes, with some of the most popular ones using screen shots from the prove (ordinarily of a meltdown or overreaction).

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"Today" days old

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

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Pepe

Pepe the frog is a fictional grapheme that showtime appeared in a 2005 comic, and has gone through multiple transformations since then. Starting out as a positive meme known as "feel adept frog" in 2008, Pepe was edited into a more sad or angry meme a few years afterwards. Past 2015, what was initially intended to symbolize a peaceful way of life past the creative person became twisted by several detest groups causing the image to exist added to the Anti-Defamation League'southward database of detest symbols in 2016.

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Crying Michael Hashemite kingdom of jordan

Taken from an image of the famous athlete's emotional speech communication during his 2009 induction into the Basketball Hall of Fame, this meme is usually used to convey a fan's thwarting when his particular team loses or performs poorly. The meme has been around since first appearing on MemeCrunch in 2012 and gained an official fan page on Tumblr in 2015. Jordan has reportedly institute the entire fad pretty funny.

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*Slaps roof of car*

"Slaps roof of car" tin can be traced dorsum to a 2014 tweet of a ridiculous machine salesmen conversation overheard and started bravado up in 2018 subsequently beingness paired with an illustrated stock image of a car salesman showing off a automobile. The meme has seen many photoshopped variations, but usually utilizes the phrase "This bad male child tin fit so much X in information technology."

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Bad-mannered little girl

Also known as "Side Eyeing Chloe," this meme can be used in pretty much whatsoever awkward situation. The original photo came from a video of a petty daughter giving an unimpressed and hesitant look later being told about a surprise trip to Disneyland in 2013.

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Krusty Krab vs. Chum Saucepan

Just virtually every "Spongebob Squarepants" fan knows about the intense rivalry between the Krusty Krab and the Chum Saucepan restaurants, just the former unremarkably reigns supreme. The meme uses photoshopped images of both cartoon restaurants in order to project two rivals, such as sports teams and TV shows.

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Havokimin // College Humor

Elf on the shelf rhyming

The "Elf on the Shelf" tradition began when parents would put an elf doll in the curtain during the vacation season and tell their children that it was watching them be naughty or nice. Toward the finish of 2017, it became pop to postal service images of funny things that rhyme sitting on top of other things that rhyme using the phrase "Y'all've heard of elf on the shelf, at present get ready for Ten."

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One does not but...

Fans of "Lord of the Rings" won't demand an explanation for this meme. Thespian Sean Bean played Boromir in the movies, and i of his famous lines, "1 does not simply walk into Mordor," became the inspiration for a meme that plays on the phrase. Bean himself even admitted to seeing a large influx of the memes online during a 2015 interview.

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I am a man/adult female looking for....

After a 2017 tweet that posed a questionnaire using the classic dating template "I am a man/woman looking for a human being/adult female" about Carly Rae Jepsen, a meme was born. Since then, information technology has become popular to utilize the format to brand funny declarations.

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Success kid

1 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. Information technology is almost always used to brandish small successful moments or "wins" that happen to someone throughout a normal twenty-four hours similar getting an extra chicken nugget in a fast-nutrient 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 found comical from a video of a daughter singing a rendition of Justin Bieber'southward song "Boyfriend." It quickly 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 internet just couldn't assist itself later on 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 chore that he didn't find Trump when he came out to greet him, forcing Trump to yell loudly over the audio of the lawnmower and making for some great meme fuel.

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Left exit 12

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

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