50 famous memes and what they mean

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

Memes have ever come with an air of mystery, intriguing and confusing even the well-nigh computer literate. Where did they come up from? More importantly, what practise they hateful? Even modern scientific discipline is hopping on the meme train. A team of scientific researchers from Academy College London, Cyprus University of Engineering, the Academy of Alabama at Birmingham, and King'south College London came together in September 2022 to research the internet's most pop memes. Apart from assembling a definitive list of the world'southward favorite memes, the bookish study as well explored the influences (both positive and negative) that memes have on unlike communities. Some memes are created just for fun by creative or bored net users, only others are fabricated with the explicit intention of going viral to promote political ideas.

With the infinite number of memes scattered across the internet, it's hard to keep track. Merely when yous've grasped the meaning of ane hilarious meme, it has already become quondam news and replaced past something every bit 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 cyberspace resources, pop culture publications, and databases like Know Your Meme to find 50 dissimilar memes and what they mean. While the virtually self-replicating nature of these vague symbols tin can get exhausting, memes in their essence can besides bring people closer together—equally long equally they have cyberspace access.

You lot might also like: What "woke" and fifty 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 almost their brain sizes, information technology quickly turned into a meme. Photos of different sized brains are paired with "smart" sounding words until they aggrandize into a fully aware stage. One of the get-go 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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Immature Thug at computer

Dorsum in 2022 a photo surfaced of the rappers Young 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 two were so intently concentrating on, everything from the rappers planning an elaborate heist to playing old schoolhouse games like minesweeper.

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First World issues

While the "First World" terminology has been effectually 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 almost e'er depicts an bonny person looking sad, with a caption explaining his or her Commencement 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 mind," it was almost too easy for the internet to begin making fun of him with memes of their own. Memes ranged from but irresolute the words on the sign to elaborate photoshops.

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Drake

Drake has been the subject area of several dissimilar memes throughout his long career. His 2022 single "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 dove" meme showtime rose to popularity in 2011 later on 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 modern confusions or paranoia.

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Real name Google searches

"Real proper noun Google searches" is a meme that gained popularity in 2022 using the generic google template to describe made-up names for popular celebrities (ordinarily those who go by aliases). According to Know Your Meme, it first appeared showing the rapper Lil Pump's proper noun equally "Lilliam Pumpernickel" and only got more ridiculous from there.

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Futurama Fry

"Futurama Fry" is ane of the near relatable memes on the web. Ane popular meme, which began in 2011, shows the grapheme Fry from the animated show "Futurama" with eyes narrowed thinking about contradicting questions usually referring to modern times or sarcasm. Another is a generic photograph with the same character holding cash yelling "close up and take my money," used for when someone finds the description of a product on the net particularly highly-seasoned.

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Weird flex but OK

The phrase "weird flex simply OK" is used when someone brags about something that others would notice awkward or just plain irrelevant. The phrase began showing up on the internet in 2022 and has continued to be used in response to bad-mannered boasts. One of the virtually pop uses of the meme was during the contempo Brett Kavanaugh hearings later 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 image showing a human being-similar domestic dog enjoying his coffee while his house is called-for down has seemingly become more and more than 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 about "big brother watching" are old, only in early 2022 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 e'er critical, either; most of them draw the agents either protecting or being 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 internet meme sensation didn't brainstorm until 2014. Most notable memes include Kermit sipping on some tea with passive aggressive text followed past "only that's none of my business," as well as some other with a hooded Kermit formatted to show good vs. evil thoughts.

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Cats

From "I need dis" to "Nyan True cat," there really isn't one bailiwick that emcompasses the net's love of memes amend than cats. Since the early 2000s when "Keyboard Cat" start made an appearance on YouTube, people take been posting funny images of felines paired with hilarious text.

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Squinting woman

Also known as the "squat and squint" meme, the photo 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 show has been applied to whatsoever circumstance that the poster finds unbelievable.

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A Star is Built-in

When the first trailer for the highly anticipated movie starring Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga came out in 2018, excited fans took screenshots and made 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's belted solo from the song "Shallow."

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AndreDThompson // Twitter

Angry Patrick

Also known equally "evil Patrick" or "savage Patrick," this meme takes a still of the character Patrick from "Spongebob Squarepants" with a menacing wait in his eyes from a 1999 episode. Twitter got a hold of it around Feb 2022 and started using the prototype along with an explanation of bad behavior or motives.

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PaulFaire/TheThings // TheThings.com

By age 35...

Post-obit a 2022 MarketWatch article that implied an unrealistic amount of savings one should accept in their 30s, people on Twitter began responding to the article by sharing all the other things y'all 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 it" meme details the relatable conversations people accept between themselves and their brains, from bringing up awkward conversations topics to resisting "that'southward what she said" jokes. The first tweet with the meme showed upward in 2010, but afterwards resurfaced in 2022 and showed an inner struggle betwixt whether or not to start a conversation with a taxi commuter.

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MILOSLAVvonRANDA // WW Interweb

Handshakes

The 1987 moving-picture show "Predator" starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and Carl Weathers contained within information technology what could be the manliest handshake of all time, and in 2007 it began gaining traction on YouTube. After 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 ascend in 2018.

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Elon Musk

There have been several memes revolving around the tech entrepreneur Elon Musk throughout the years, especially following 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 paradigm from a 2012 episode of Spongebob Squarepants to make fun of another person's opinion on the cyberspace. The earliest uses of this meme came in 2022 on Twitter, quickly gaining traction and becoming one of the near pop (and effective) means to insult someone online.

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Roll Safety

In 2022 a British mockumentary starring actor Kayode Ewumi called "Hood Documentary" was uploaded onto YouTube by BBC. Soon subsequently, people on the net began using a screen-grabbed image of Ewumi pointing to his temple similar he had a proficient idea to reversely joke about bad decisions and poor thinking.

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Kyle MacLachlan // Twitter

Thank 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 merely using the championship phrase to demonstrate being over something and moving on, the net too used the lyrics to compare three things that taught them love, patience, and pain to mimic the chorus.

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Let's get this breadstuff

People on the net use the "Let's get this bread" meme ironically (normally it is slang for earning money) to brand 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 epitome of Pikachu looking surprised from an episode of "Pokemon" caught the attention of Twitter in late 2018. For the adjacent few months, the image blew upward when people started using it every bit a meme for doing something with an obvious outcome.

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Warren Bakery // The Blogging Baker

Condescending Willy Wonka

The meme uses an epitome of Gene Wilder'southward 1971 Willy Wonka character to say something patronizing or mock someone. First used on Gizmodo and Tumblr as early as 2011, the image has become a mutual cavalier 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 photograph was taken of Momoa sneaking upward on Cavill on the red carpet the same year, it apace went viral. On the concluding day of 2017, a Facebook account posted a meme using the image, labeling Momoa equally "2018." The meme gained popularity throughout the following months as people labeled the two equally unlike things creeping upwards on each other.

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Exhausted Spongebob

In yet some other Spongebob Squarepants meme, "exhausted Spongebob" uses an epitome from a 1999 episode where the character is leaning against a rock, naked and out of jiff. Twitter began using the screengrab as an attachment to tweets effectually March 2022 virtually being tired.

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Classical art memes

There is a lot of unique classical art out there, so of course the internet has to discover the most hilarious and wacky pieces to turn into memes. While fine 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's most interesting man

Nearly people will recognize the "earth's most interesting man" (played by thespian Jonathan Goldsmith) from the Dos Equis beer commercials that began in 2008. The meme usually uses the epitome of Goldsmith as a well-dressed gentleman with an adaptation of his catchphrase "I don't ever 10, 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 pop memes of 2017, "guy blinking nervously" is commonly used in GIF form to demonstrate bafflement and being 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 swallow pills

The "hard to swallow pills" meme uses 2 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 "hard to eat pills" and employ it as a meme to illustrate a hard 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 2 opposing subjects, the "who would win" meme is said to accept begun in 2022 when a 4chan user posted the meme using two video games every bit opponents.

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How I sleep knowing...

The classic rhetorical question "How practise you slumber at night?" was the inspiration for this meme. The more mod 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 feel guilty about or worry almost (and therefore lose sleep over).

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Kardashians

Ever since the evidence "Keeping Up with the Kardashians" outset aired in 2007, people cruel in dearest with watching the family unit's antics. They have all been the discipline of a huge number of memes, with some of the almost popular ones using screen shots from the bear witness (usually of a meltdown or overreaction).

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"Today" days erstwhile

"Today days one-time" is used as a response to any random realization. It first came from posts asking "How one-time were y'all when you realized X?" with someone responding: "I was today years erstwhile." This tin can exist a fact both well-known or more obscure.

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Pepe

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

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Crying Michael Hashemite kingdom of jordan

Taken from an epitome of the famous athlete'due south emotional speech during his 2009 consecration 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 2012 and gained an official fan page on Tumblr in 2015. Jordan has reportedly found the entire fad pretty funny.

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*Slaps roof of car*

"Slaps roof of car" can be traced back to a 2022 tweet of a ridiculous auto salesmen conversation overheard and started blowing up in 2022 after being paired with an illustrated stock image of a automobile salesman showing off a automobile. The meme has seen many photoshopped variations, but usually utilizes the phrase "This bad male child tin can fit so much Ten in it."

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Awkward little daughter

Also known as "Side Eyeing Chloe," this meme can be used in pretty much any awkward situation. The original photo came from a video of a little girl giving an unimpressed and hesitant wait after being told almost a surprise trip to Disneyland in 2013.

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Krusty Krab vs. Chum Bucket

Just about every "Spongebob Squarepants" fan knows about the intense rivalry betwixt the Krusty Krab and the Chum Saucepan restaurants, but the former ordinarily reigns supreme. The meme uses photoshopped images of both cartoon restaurants in order to project ii 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 pall during the vacation flavor and tell their children that information technology was watching them be naughty or prissy. Toward the end of 2017, information technology became popular to post images of funny things that rhyme sitting on top of other things that rhyme using the phrase "You lot've heard of elf on the shelf, now get set up for Ten."

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One does non simply...

Fans of "Lord of the Rings" won't demand an caption for this meme. Actor Sean Edible bean played Boromir in the movies, and i of his famous lines, "1 does not but 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 man/adult female looking for....

Afterward a 2022 tweet that posed a questionnaire using the classic dating template "I am a man/adult female looking for a man/adult female" near Carly Rae Jepsen, a meme was built-in. Since and so, it has go popular to use the format to make funny declarations.

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Success kid

Ane of the nigh popular memes of all time, "success kid" uses a 2007 photograph taken of a little boy with a clenched fist and determined expression. It is almost always used to display modest successful moments or "wins" that happen to someone throughout a normal day like getting an actress chicken asset 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 epitome he found comical from a video of a girl singing a rendition of Justin Bieber's song "Boyfriend." It quickly began making its rounds on the internet, using captions portraying her every bit a stereotypical overly attached girlfriend.

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Donald Trump yelling at lawnmower boy

The internet just couldn't assistance itself after images surfaced of a little boy mowing the lawn at the White Firm completely ignoring Trump. The kid was apparently then focused on the job that he didn't discover 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 leave 12

The "Left exit 12" meme uses a series of screen grabs from a 2013 YouTube video showing a machine globe-trotting dangerously into an exit ramp. People began photoshopping the go out sign (exit 12) to say comical things that one might swerve off the highway in order to get to.

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