50 famous memes and what they mean

Merriam-Webster defines "meme" every bit "an thought, behavior, style, or usage that spreads from person to person within a culture" or "an amusing or interesting item (such as a captioned picture show or video) or genre of items that is spread widely online specially through social media." That definition hasn't been effectually forever—it hasn't even been around for 5 years. The dictionary editors officially added the entry forth with "emoji" and "clickbait" to the formal lexicon in May 2015.

Memes take e'er come up with an air of mystery, intriguing and confusing fifty-fifty the most computer literate. Where did they come from? More importantly, what do they mean? Fifty-fifty modern scientific discipline is hopping on the meme train. A squad of scientific researchers from Academy Higher London, Cyprus University of Technology, the University of Alabama at Birmingham, and Male monarch'due south College London came together in September 2022 to research the cyberspace's about popular memes. Autonomously from assembling a definitive list of the world's favorite memes, the academic study also explored the influences (both positive and negative) that memes have on different communities. Some memes are created just for fun past creative or bored internet users, just others are fabricated with the explicit intention of going viral to promote political ideas.

With the infinite number of memes scattered across the cyberspace, information technology'due south hard to proceed track. Just when you lot've grasped the pregnant of one hilarious meme, it has already become old news and replaced by something equally as enigmatic. Online forums like Tumblr, Twitter, 4chan, and Reddit are responsible for a bulk 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 mean. While the almost self-replicating nature of these vague symbols can go exhausting, memes in their essence can also bring people closer together—equally long as they have internet access.

You might also like: What "woke" and 50 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 about their brain sizes, it quickly turned into a meme. Photos of different sized brains are paired with "smart" sounding words until they expand into a fully enlightened stage. One of the starting time 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 2022 a photo surfaced of the rappers Young Thug and Lil Durk staring at a reckoner screen while working on new music in the studio. The net quickly began finding humorous (and fabricated) explanations for what the two were then intently concentrating on, everything from the rappers planning an elaborate heist to playing erstwhile schoolhouse games like minesweeper.

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First World bug

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

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Change my heed

After Steven Crowder, a conservative podcaster, posted a photo of himself in 2022 sitting at a desk with a sign saying "Male privilege is a myth: Modify my heed," it was almost too piece of cake for the cyberspace to begin making fun of him with memes of their own. Memes ranged from merely irresolute the words on the sign to elaborate photoshops.

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Drake

Drake has been the discipline of several different memes throughout his long career. His 2022 single "Hotline Bling" was one of the biggest songs of the twelvemonth, and when the music video came out featuring Drake dancing in a brightly lit cube structure the memes began to accrue even more. Since then the cyberspace has memed everything from his Twitter posts to school portraits.

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Is this a...?

The "is this a dove" meme starting time rose to popularity in 2011 after Tumblr posted a photo from a Japanese animated show of an android mistaking a butterfly for a pigeon. Most of the memes derived from the photo use the subjects to express modernistic confusions or paranoia.

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Real name Google searches

"Real name Google searches" is a meme that gained popularity in 2022 using the generic google template to depict fabricated-up names for popular celebrities (unremarkably those who go by aliases). According to Know Your Meme, it commencement appeared showing the rapper Lil Pump's name as "Lilliam Pumpernickel" and merely got more ridiculous from there.

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Futurama Fry

"Futurama Fry" is one of the most relatable memes on the spider web. 1 popular meme, which began in 2011, shows the character Fry from the animated show "Futurama" with eyes narrowed thinking about contradicting questions usually referring to modernistic times or sarcasm. Some other is a generic photograph with the aforementioned character holding greenbacks yelling "shut up and have my coin," used for when someone finds the clarification of a product on the cyberspace specially highly-seasoned.

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Weird flex but OK

The phrase "weird flex but OK" is used when someone brags near something that others would detect awkward or just plain irrelevant. The phrase began showing up on the net in 2022 and has continued to be used in response to awkward boasts. I of the near pop uses of the meme was during the contempo Brett Kavanaugh hearings after he used his high school virginity as an statement.

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Evieliam // Wikimedia Eatables

This is fine

Taken out of a 2013 webcomic strip called "On Fire," this epitome showing a human being-similar canis familiaris enjoying his java while his house is burning downward has seemingly become more and more relatable every year. The prototype is rarely altered, simply fastened to troubling or hard-to-grasp news.

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Unsplash / Bence Boros and Twitter / @joshwillhall

FBI amanuensis

Jokes about "big brother watching" are old, but in early 2022 the net was more paranoid than e'er before cheers to the internet-fueled idea of FBI agents watching people through their webcams. The memes aren't always disquisitional, either; nearly of them depict the agents either protecting or being friendly with their subjects.

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Kermit

The iconic green boob has stolen the hearts of millions on the "Muppet Show" since the 1950s, but the net meme sensation didn't brainstorm until 2014. About notable memes include Kermit sipping on some tea with passive aggressive text followed by "but that'southward none of my business," besides as another with a hooded Kermit formatted to show expert vs. evil thoughts.

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Cats

From "I need dis" to "Nyan Cat," in that location really isn't i subject area that emcompasses the internet'due south 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 every bit the "squat and squint" meme, the photograph showing a squinting adult female staring at something in the distance actually came from an outtake of a Instagram shot that went viral in March 2018. Since then, the moving picture has been applied to any circumstance that the poster finds unbelievable.

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A Star is Born

When the starting time trailer for the highly predictable movie starring Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga came out in 2018, excited fans took screenshots and fabricated them into memes. The most pop ones came from funny adaptations of Cooper's line "I just wanted to take another look at you" and Gaga'due south belted solo from the song "Shallow."

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AndreDThompson // Twitter

Angry Patrick

Also known as "evil Patrick" or "savage Patrick," this meme takes a yet of the graphic symbol Patrick from "Spongebob Squarepants" with a menacing look in his eyes from a 1999 episode. Twitter got a hold of information technology around Feb 2022 and started using the image along with an explanation of bad beliefs or motives.

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PaulFaire/TheThings // TheThings.com

By age 35...

Following a 2022 MarketWatch commodity that unsaid an unrealistic corporeality of savings one should have 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 up awkward conversations topics to resisting "that's what she said" jokes. The showtime tweet with the meme showed upwardly in 2010, but afterward resurfaced in 2022 and showed an inner struggle betwixt whether or not to kickoff a conversation with a taxi driver.

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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 information technology began gaining traction on YouTube. Subsequently multiple videos and fan fine 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 take 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 nigh pop 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'southward opinion on the net. The primeval uses of this meme came in 2022 on Twitter, quickly gaining traction and becoming 1 of the near popular (and effective) ways to insult someone online.

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Roll Rubber

In 2022 a British mockumentary starring player Kayode Ewumi called "Hood Documentary" was uploaded onto YouTube by BBC. Soon afterward, people on the internet began using a screen-grabbed image of Ewumi pointing to his temple like he had a skillful thought to reversely joke nearly bad decisions and poor thinking.

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Kyle MacLachlan // Twitter

Thank u, side by side

When Ariana Grande released her single "Give thanks U, Next" about her ex-boyfriends in early on 2019, fans speedily began creating memes out of the lyrics. Bated from just using the title phrase to demonstrate beingness over something and moving on, the internet as well used the lyrics to compare three things that taught them dear, patience, and hurting to mimic the chorus.

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Allow's go this bread

People on the internet utilize the "Let'due south become this bread" meme ironically (normally information technology is slang for earning money) to make fun of people or themselves for trying too hard to earn money. In 2022 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 paradigm of Pikachu looking surprised from an episode of "Pokemon" caught the attention of Twitter in late 2018. For the next few months, the image blew up 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 epitome 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 common condescending response online.

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Pink 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 upwardly on Cavill on the red carpeting the aforementioned yr, it apace went viral. On the last twenty-four hours 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 two as different things creeping up on each other.

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Exhausted Spongebob

In withal another Spongebob Squarepants meme, "exhausted Spongebob" uses an image from a 1999 episode where the character is leaning confronting a rock, naked and out of breath. Twitter began using the screengrab as an attachment to tweets effectually March 2022 well-nigh being tired.

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Classical art memes

There is a lot of unique classical art out in that location, so of course the net has to observe the nearly hilarious and wacky pieces to plough into memes. While art-related videos and other online art parodies can exist traced back to 2004, the more recognizable memes gained popularity starting in 2013.

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World'due south nigh interesting human being

Most people will recognize the "world's nigh interesting human" (played by thespian Jonathan Goldsmith) from the Dos Equis beer commercials that began in 2008. The meme normally uses the image of Goldsmith as a well-dressed gentleman with an adaptation of his catchphrase "I don't always Ten, but when I practise, I Y" and began to gain popularity every bit early equally 2010.

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Guy blinking nervously

One of the near pop memes of 2017, "guy blinking nervously" is usually used in GIF grade to demonstrate bafflement and existence defenseless unaware. The GIF initially came from a clip of a video producer when his co-worker said something inappropriate accidentally.

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Hard 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 swallow pills" and use information technology 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 have begun in 2022 when a 4chan user posted the meme using two video games as opponents.

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How I sleep knowing...

The classic rhetorical question "How do you sleep at nighttime?" was the inspiration for this meme. The more modern rendition shows a picture of a person or animal sleeping soundly with different versions of the words: "How I sleep knowing..." This usually refers to something that most people experience guilty almost or worry about (and therefore lose slumber over).

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Kardashians

Always since the show "Keeping Upward with the Kardashians" starting time aired in 2007, people fell in love with watching the family unit'due south antics. They accept all been the subject of a huge number of memes, with some of the most pop ones using screen shots from the show (usually of a meltdown or overreaction).

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"Today" days old

"Today days old" is used as a response to whatsoever random realization. It first came from posts asking "How old were you when you lot realized 10?" with someone responding: "I was today years erstwhile." 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 kickoff appeared in a 2005 comic, and has gone through multiple transformations since then. Starting out equally a positive meme known every bit "experience good frog" in 2008, Pepe was edited into a more than sad or aroused meme a few years later. By 2015, what was initially intended to symbolize a peaceful way of life by the artist became twisted past 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's emotional spoken language during his 2009 induction into the Basketball Hall of Fame, this meme is unremarkably 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 2012 and gained an official fan folio on Tumblr in 2015. Jordan has reportedly found the entire fad pretty funny.

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*Slaps roof of machine*

"Slaps roof of automobile" can exist traced back to a 2022 tweet of a ridiculous auto salesmen conversation overheard and started blowing upwards in 2022 after being paired with an illustrated stock image of a automobile salesman showing off a car. The meme has seen many photoshopped variations, merely usually utilizes the phrase "This bad boy tin can fit so much X in information technology."

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Awkward fiddling daughter

Besides known as "Side Eyeing Chloe," this meme tin can be used in pretty much whatsoever awkward situation. 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 2013.

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Krusty Krab vs. Chum Bucket

Just near every "Spongebob Squarepants" fan knows nearly the intense rivalry between the Krusty Krab and the Chum Bucket restaurants, but the former commonly reigns supreme. The meme uses photoshopped images of both drawing restaurants in guild to project two rivals, such as sports teams and TV shows.

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Havokimin // Higher Humor

Elf on the shelf rhyming

The "Elf on the Shelf" tradition began when parents would put an elf doll in the drape during the holiday season and tell their children that information technology was watching them be naughty or nice. Toward the stop of 2017, it became popular to postal service images of funny things that rhyme sitting on top of other things that rhyme using the phrase "You've heard of elf on the shelf, at present get ready for X."

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Ane does not simply...

Fans of "Lord of the Rings" won't need an explanation for this meme. Player Sean Edible bean played Boromir in the movies, and one of his famous lines, "One does not merely walk into Mordor," became the inspiration for a meme that plays on the phrase. Bean himself even admitted to seeing a big influx of the memes online during a 2022 interview.

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

After a 2022 tweet that posed a questionnaire using the classic dating template "I am a man/woman looking for a man/adult female" near Carly Rae Jepsen, a meme was born. Since then, information technology has become popular to use the format to make funny declarations.

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Success child

One of the most popular memes of all time, "success kid" uses a 2007 photo taken of a little boy with a clenched fist and determined expression. It is virtually e'er used to display small successful moments or "wins" that happen to someone throughout a normal day like getting an actress 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 found comical from a video of a girl singing a rendition of Justin Bieber's song "Boyfriend." It chop-chop began making its rounds on the internet, using captions portraying her as a stereotypical overly fastened girlfriend.

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Donald Trump yelling at lawnmower boy

The internet just couldn't aid itself afterwards images surfaced of a little boy mowing the lawn at the White Firm 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.

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Left get out 12

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

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