Image Macros & Advice Animals

Captioned-image templates, advice animals, and exploitables.

3,818 moments in this segment.

1. 1939 - Kilroy Was Here. Date: 1939 onward · Place: Allied military installations, then ships, then everywhere · Figures: James J. Kilroy, shipyard inspector at Fore River Shipyard (Quincy, MA, leading attribution) · unknown wartime taggers worldwide · Tags: WWII, Proto-Meme 01. A Shipyard Inspector and a Phrase James J. Kilroy, riveter inspector at the Fore River Shipyard in Quincy, Massachusetts, writes KILROY WAS HERE in yellow crayon on the hulls of completed ship sections, partly as a tracking signature so management knows the work is checked. The sections ship out across the Atlantic; the phrase travels with them. American soldiers find KILROY WAS HERE already scrawled inside tanks, on the walls of bombed-out bunkers, on the underside of bridges they thought they'd captured for the first time. Other origin candidates exist (a Sergeant Francis Kilroy of the Air Transport Command; British Mr Chad; Australian Foo Was Here). The James Kilroy attribution wins because the American Transit Association awarded him the credit in 1946. 02. The First Meme That Knew It Was a Meme By 1945 the phrase, often paired with the bald-head-with-fingers-over-wall doodle, appears at the Potsdam Conference (according to a Truman aide), on the underside of the torch of the Statue of Liberty, on Mount Everest in 1953 (Hillary's team finds it scratched into ice). Stalin reportedly asks who Kilroy is, twice. Dawkins won't coin the word for thirty years. But KILROY WAS HERE is, in retrospect, the first meme that EVERYBODY understood as a meme: a unit that propagates because propagating is the point, that exists to mark its own propagation. "KILROY WAS HERE.", everywhere, 1939 onward Sources • Charles Panati, Extraordinary Origins of Everyday Things (1989) • American Transit Association award announcement (1946) • Wikipedia, Kilroy was here
2. 1947 - The Doomsday Clock. Date: June 1947 · Place: Chicago, Illinois · Figures: Martyl Langsdorf, designer · Eugene Rabinowitch, Bulletin co-editor · Hyman Goldsmith, Bulletin co-editor · Tags: Iconography, ColdWar, RecurringUpdate 01. Seven Minutes Martyl Langsdorf, a landscape painter married to Manhattan Project physicist Alexander Langsdorf, designs the cover of the June 1947 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. She crops a clock face to the upper-left quadrant and sets the hands at seven minutes to midnight because, she later says, it looks right. Editors Eugene Rabinowitch and Hyman Goldsmith run it on the cover. The image is meant for one issue. It has now run on every cover for seventy-nine years. 02. The Update as the Meme The replication mechanism is the announcement. In 1949, after the Soviet atomic test, the hands move to three minutes to midnight; in 1953, after the United States and Soviets test thermonuclear devices, to two minutes. Each move generates global front pages, and the same icon recirculates intact. The clock works because it is one image with one variable. Every newsroom in the world already has the file; the wire only needs to carry the new minute count. "Setting the hands of the Bulletin clock is not a measurement; it is a statement.", Eugene Rabinowitch, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists editorial, 1958 Sources • Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, vol. 3, no. 6, June 1947 • Kennette Benedict, 'Doomsday Clockwork', Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 2015 • Robert K. Elder and J. C. Gabel, 'The Doomsday Clock at 75' (Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists / Hat & Beard Press, 2022)
3. 1963 - The Smiley Face. Date: December 1963 · Place: Worcester, Massachusetts · Figures: Harvey Ball, freelance commercial artist · State Mutual Life Assurance Company of America, client · Bernard and Murray Spain, button retailers · Franklin Loufrani, French registrant · Tags: Icon, Button, CorporateMorale 01. Forty-Five Dollars In December 1963 the State Mutual Life Assurance Company of America hires Harvey Ball, a freelance commercial artist in Worcester, Massachusetts, to design a morale image for employees rattled by a corporate merger. Ball spends about ten minutes drawing a yellow circle, two oval eyes, and a curved mouth. State Mutual pays him forty-five dollars. The first hundred buttons are printed for an internal Friendship Campaign. Ball never registers the design. He earns nothing further from it for the rest of his life. 02. Fifty Million Buttons In 1970 Philadelphia novelty retailers Bernard and Murray Spain pair Ball's face with the phrase Have a Nice Day and sell it on buttons, mugs, and bumper stickers. By 1972 they have moved over fifty million units. In France in 1971 Franklin Loufrani registers the smiley commercially, founding what becomes The Smiley Company. Two parallel meme economies run for decades on an unregistered ten-minute drawing. "I made a smile. Just a yellow smile. Never thought it would go anywhere.", Harvey Ball, interview with the Worcester Telegram & Gazette, 1998 03. Ancestor of the Emoji On 19 September 1982 at Carnegie Mellon, Scott Fahlman proposes the colon-hyphen-parenthesis sequence as a joke marker on a bulletin board. Shigetaka Kurita's 1999 NTT DoCoMo emoji set includes a yellow circular smile directly descended from Ball's design. The yellow disc is one of the few twentieth-century icons that travels intact across paper, plastic, ASCII, Unicode, and PNG. Sources • Jimmy Stamp, 'Who Really Invented the Smiley Face?', Smithsonian Magazine, 13 March 2013 • Luke Stark and Kate Crawford, 'The Conservatism of Emoji', Social Media + Society, 2015 • Worcester Historical Museum, Harvey Ball Collection
4. 1970 - Have a Nice Day. Date: 1970-1972 · Place: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania · Figures: Bernard Spain, novelty wholesaler · Murray Spain, novelty wholesaler · Harvey Ball, smiley creator · Tags: Catchphrase, Bumper, Seventies 01. The Spain Brothers Brothers Bernard and Murray Spain run a small novelty wholesale operation out of Philadelphia. In September 1970 they pair Harvey Ball's unregistered yellow smile with the phrase Have a Nice Day on a button. They register the combined design and order an initial run from a New Jersey button manufacturer. By the end of 1971 they have sold an estimated twenty million units. By 1972, fifty million. Wholesale price: about three cents per button. 02. Saturation and Backlash The phrase appears on mugs, ashtrays, T-shirts, postcards, McDonald's bags, gas station receipts, and bumper stickers. By 1973 it is the standard sign-off of supermarket cashiers from Florida to Oregon. The phrase precedes the corporate scripting; the corporate scripting reinforces the phrase. Cynical reuse begins almost immediately. In 1972 Underground Press Syndicate papers run the smiley with a bullet hole between the eyes. Watchmen's 1986 cover image, a smiley with a blood smear, is a direct response to the 1970 saturation. "We must have sold fifty million buttons by 1972. We weren't artists. We were button guys.", Murray Spain, interview with the Philadelphia Inquirer, 1996 Sources • Susan Strasser, 'Satisfaction Guaranteed: The Making of the American Mass Market' (Pantheon, 1989) • Daniel J. Boorstin, 'The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America' (Atheneum, 1962, reissued 1992) • Philadelphia Inquirer, 'The Spain Brothers and the Yellow Smile', 14 April 1996
5. 1975 - Pet Rock. Date: August 1975 to February 1976 · Place: Los Gatos, California (originator) · United States (market) · Figures: Gary Dahl, advertising copywriter and inventor · Rod Lawrence, illustrator of the manual · Tags: Object, Fad, Joke 01. A Joke Sold at Cost-Plus Gary Dahl, a Los Gatos copywriter, is drinking with friends in April 1975 when they complain about pets. He says his pet is a rock. He goes home and writes a 32-page training manual: how to housebreak it (place on newspaper), how to teach it to sit, stay, attack. The rock costs him about a penny from a builder's supply in Rosarito Beach. The straw-filled box and manual cost a dollar. He retails it for $3.95. He sells about 1.5 million units between August and Christmas 1975, mostly through Neiman Marcus and department-store novelty counters. 02. The Object That Replicates by Embarrassment The Pet Rock works as a meme because the gift carries the joke for the giver. The recipient laughs, shows colleagues, who buy one for their cousin. The product is the punchline; the box is the delivery system. By December 1975 Newsweek, Time, and the Tonight Show have all done segments. Dahl is on Carson twice. Five months in, every five-and-dime is stocked with knockoffs: pet rocks with googly eyes, Pet Rock cemeteries, divorce papers for your rock. The category collapses inside its own saturation by Valentine's Day 1976. Dahl walks away with a reported $15 million in revenue and roughly $2 million in profit. "Sometimes I look at people and wonder how I ever sold them a rock.", Gary Dahl, quoted in People magazine, November 1975 03. Template for the Ironic Object Every later joke product (Yule Log VHS, Snuggie, Big Mouth Billy Bass, The Onion's I Am the Walrus T-shirts) descends from a Los Gatos garage in 1975. The Pet Rock proves a market exists for objects whose only function is to be a meme other people can witness you owning. Dahl dies in 2015 in Jacksonville, Oregon. The original packaging design with Rod Lawrence's deadpan dog-manual illustrations is in the Smithsonian National Museum of American History. Sources • Gary Dahl, The Care and Training of Your Pet Rock (Rock Bottom Productions, 1975) • Margalit Fox, 'Gary Dahl, Inventor of the Pet Rock, Dies at 78,' The New York Times, April 1, 2015 • Bruce Watson, 'The Pet Rock Story,' Smithsonian Magazine, March 2015 • 'And You Thought It Was Just a Rock,' People, November 24, 1975
6. 1976 - Dawkins Coins 'Meme'. Date: 1976 · Place: The Selfish Gene, chapter 11, Oxford University Press · Figures: Richard Dawkins, evolutionary biologist, 35 · Tags: Theory, The Word 01. A Replicator That Isn't Genetic Richard Dawkins ends The Selfish Gene with a chapter ('Memes: the new replicators') proposing that ideas, tunes, and cultural patterns replicate from brain to brain by imitation, mutate, and compete for attention the way genes compete for survival. He needs a one-syllable noun. He shortens the Greek mimeme to meme by analogy with gene. His examples are quiet: God as a successful meme, the tune of a hymn, the practice of celibacy among priests as a meme that survives despite carrying its own non-reproductive payload. He is not thinking about cartoon frogs. 02. Patient Word The term sits dormant in academic memetics for two decades. Daniel Dennett picks it up in Consciousness Explained (1991). Susan Blackmore's The Meme Machine (1999) tries to build a discipline around it. None of this is what survives. What survives is the word as the internet uses it: an image (with or without caption) that spreads, mutates, and gets used as social vocabulary. Dawkins's framing is correct in shape and wrong in tone. He coins a word for tunes; we use it for cats with grammar errors. The replicator does not know its own future use. "We need a name for the new replicator, a noun that conveys the idea of a unit of cultural transmission, or a unit of imitation.", Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene (1976), chapter 11 Sources • Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene (Oxford University Press, 1976) • Susan Blackmore, The Meme Machine (1999) • Dawkins's 2013 interview reflecting on 'internet meme'
7. 1981 - I Want My MTV. Date: 1 August 1981 (channel launch); March 1982 (campaign launch) · Place: New York City · Figures: George Lois, art director · Bob Pittman, MTV co-founder · Les Garland, MTV programming chief · Mick Jagger, first celebrity spot · Tags: AdCampaign, Catchphrase, Shibboleth 01. The Cable Holdouts MTV launches on 1 August 1981 carried by very few cable operators in the major markets. Manhattan does not have it. By early 1982, with affiliate uptake stalled, Bob Pittman and Les Garland hire art director George Lois to flip the carriage strategy from supply to demand. Lois pitches a single line: I Want My MTV. The viewer is the lever; the cable operator is the target. 02. The Shibboleth Spot Lois films Mick Jagger first, in a single take, instructing the camera: I want my MTV. Pat Benatar, Pete Townshend, David Bowie, and Stevie Nicks follow within weeks, each delivering the same six syllables in their own voice. The spot ends with a phone number for the local cable office. Affiliates report thousands of calls a day. Within eighteen months MTV is in the top ten US markets. The line becomes a catchphrase the way the Beatles' name is a catchphrase: by force of repetition by celebrities who matter more than the product they are selling. "If you don't get MTV where you live, call your cable operator and say: I want my MTV.", campaign tag, voiced by Mick Jagger, March 1982 03. Citation Loop Dire Straits releases Money for Nothing in 1985 with Sting singing the phrase as a hook. The song wins the 1986 MTV Video of the Year. The ad campaign for the channel has become the lyrical content of a song aired on the channel. The structure, celebrity-as-shibboleth demanding access to the product on the audience's behalf, is repeated in every Got Milk and Just Do It campaign for the next two decades, and is the template the influencer economy of the 2010s automates. Sources • Rob Tannenbaum and Craig Marks, 'I Want My MTV: The Uncensored Story of the Music Video Revolution' (Dutton, 2011) • George Lois, 'Damn Good Advice (For People With Talent)' (Phaidon, 2012) • Museum of the Moving Image, MTV campaign archive, accession 1982-1989
8. 1982 - Scott Fahlman Proposes:-). Date: 19 September 1982 · Place: Carnegie Mellon University CS bboard, Pittsburgh · Figures: Scott E. Fahlman, computer scientist, Carnegie Mellon · Tags: Emoticon, Visual Primitive, BBoard 01. 11:44 AM On A Tuesday On 19 September 1982 at 11:44 AM, Scott Fahlman posts to the CMU computer science department bulletin board with a modest proposal. A thread about elevator physics has gone sideways because nobody can tell which messages are jokes. Fahlman suggests:-) as a joke marker and:-( for the opposite. The post is recovered in 2002 from a backup tape after twenty years of being thought lost. The original survives as a flat text file with the timestamp intact. "I propose that the following character sequence for joke markers::-) Read it sideways.", Scott Fahlman, CMU CS bboard, 19 September 1982 02. The First Visual Primitive The smiley escapes Carnegie Mellon within weeks via ARPANET gateways, hits Usenet by 1983, and is universal by the time the web exists. It is the first widely-adopted visual element in text-only communication, a tiny ASCII glyph that does what a body would do if a body were present. Every emoji on every phone in 2026 descends from these three characters. Fahlman, asked about emoji decades later, said he prefers his original because it requires effort to decode and reward to recognize. Sources • Scott Fahlman, 'Smiley Lore:-)' (CMU faculty page) • Mike Jones, recovery of the original 1982 post (Microsoft Research, September 2002) • The New York Times, 'A Universal Symbol, in Need of Marketing' (29 September 2007)
9. 1984 - Where's the Beef?. Date: 9 January 1984 · Place: Chicago, Illinois (filmed) · Figures: Cliff Freeman, Dancer Fitzgerald Sample copywriter · Joe Sedelmaier, director · Clara Peller, performer · Walter Mondale, Democratic presidential candidate · Tags: Catchphrase, Television, Politics 01. Eighty-One Years Old Cliff Freeman writes the spot at Dancer Fitzgerald Sample in New York. Director Joe Sedelmaier casts Clara Peller, an eighty-one-year-old former manicurist he has used in earlier commercials, and shoots in Chicago in late 1983. The thirty-second spot for Wendy's airs nationally on 9 January 1984. Peller has emphysema and can barely get the line out on take. Sedelmaier dubs it cleaner in post. The line is three words and a fluffy bun. 02. The Mondale Use Within a month Where's the Beef? is on T-shirts, novelty records, and the lips of late-night hosts. Wendy's same-store sales jump thirty-one percent for the quarter. On 11 March 1984, during a Democratic primary debate in Atlanta, Walter Mondale turns to Gary Hart and asks where the beef is in his New Ideas platform. The clip dominates the next news cycle. Mondale wins the nomination. He loses forty-nine states to Reagan. "When I hear your new ideas, I'm reminded of that ad: Where's the beef?", Walter Mondale to Gary Hart, Democratic primary debate, Atlanta, 11 March 1984 03. End of the Endorsement In 1985 Peller appears in a Prego spaghetti sauce ad declaring she has finally found the beef. Wendy's drops her for crossing brand lines. She dies in August 1987 at age eighty-five. The structure of the joke, an old woman demanding the missing thing, persists as the basic template of every short-form video question meme that follows. Sources • Bob Garfield, 'And Now a Few Words From Me: Advertising's Leading Critic Lays Down the Law' (McGraw-Hill, 2003) • New York Times, 'Clara Peller, 85, Star of Wendy's TV Spots, Dies', 13 August 1987 • Jonathan Mahler, 'The Long History of Where's the Beef', Slate, 30 January 2014
10. 1989 - You've Got Mail. Date: 1989 (recorded), 1993-2017 (in service) · Place: Quantum Computer Services, Vienna, Virginia (later AOL) · Figures: Elwood Edwards, voice actor · Tags: Audio Meme, AOL, Notification Sound 01. Elwood Edwards In A Living Room In 1989, Karen Edwards mentions to her husband Elwood, a voice actor, that her employer is looking for someone to record system prompts for their new online service. Elwood records four phrases on a tape recorder in their living room: Welcome, You've got mail, Files done, Goodbye. He is paid two hundred dollars. The phrases ship with Quantum Link, then with AOL when Quantum rebrands in 1991. 02. Three Syllables That Defined A Decade By 1996, You've got mail is so culturally bonded to AOL that Warner Bros. names a Nora Ephron film after it. Edwards never received royalties; AOL gave him a one-time bonus and the use of the line for life. He drove a cab in Cleveland for most of the 90s. The sound is retired when AOL Mail shuts down its desktop client in 2017. Elwood Edwards dies on 5 November 2024. The obituaries lead with the three syllables. "You've got mail.", Elwood Edwards, recorded on a home tape deck, 1989 Sources • The New York Times, 'Elwood Edwards, Voice of You've Got Mail, Dies at 74' (5 November 2024) • CNN, 'Meet the voice behind AOL's You've Got Mail' (15 August 2015) • Wikipedia, 'Elwood Edwards'
11. 1990 - Godwin's Law. Date: August 1990 · Place: Usenet, primarily talk.* and soc.* newsgroups · Figures: Mike Godwin, attorney, Electronic Frontier Foundation · Tags: Usenet, The First Internet Law 01. The Observation Mike Godwin, then 34 and working as an attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, posts an observation to Usenet in August 1990: As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one. He is describing a behavior he has watched repeat for years on the discussion networks of the pre-web internet. Godwin will later say in interviews that he posted it less as humor than as a meme deliberately, an attempt to put a name on the pattern that would slow the pattern down. He invented the term for what he was creating; he wanted users to think twice before reaching for the Hitler comparison. 02. The First Internet Law It works imperfectly. The reductio-ad-Hitlerum reflex outlives Usenet, outlives the discussion networks of every following decade. But Godwin's Law itself becomes the first widely-acknowledged internet folk-law, taught informally to new users for 35 years and counting. It is also the first internet meme in the Dawkins sense to be designed by its author to do a specific cultural job. Godwin's Law is, in its original 1990 sense, a memetic countermeasure to a worse meme. Mike Godwin is a memetic engineer. "As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one.", Mike Godwin, Usenet, August 1990 Sources • Mike Godwin, Wired (October 1994): 'Meme, Counter-meme' • Wikipedia, Godwin's law
12. 1993 - Future Crew's Second Reality. Date: 29 July 1993 · Place: Assembly demoparty, Helsinki · Figures: Future Crew, Finnish demogroup · Purple Motion (Jonne Valtonen), music · Skaven (Peter Hajba), music · Psi (Sami Tammilehto), code · Marvel (Mika Tuomi), code · Tags: Demoscene, 486 PC, Real-Time Art 01. Eight Minutes On A 486 At the Assembly 1993 demoparty in Helsinki on 29 July, Future Crew premieres Second Reality, an eight-minute audiovisual demo that runs in real time on a 486 PC. Purple Motion and Skaven compose the soundtrack in Scream Tracker. Psi and Marvel write the code. The plasma effects, 3D vector cityscape, and Stargate-style tunnel sequence are computed live, not pre-rendered. It wins the PC demo competition by acclamation and is included on the cover CD of the October 1993 PC Format magazine, putting it on millions of home machines. 02. The First Native Internet Aesthetic The demoscene is the first artistic subculture born on Usenet and FTP, distributing executables through alt.binaries and Hornet Archive. Future Crew's members go on to found Remedy Entertainment (Max Payne, Alan Wake) and Hummingbird Studio. Purple Motion scores Angry Birds films decades later. Second Reality is a Library of Congress-inducted artifact in 2020, the first demo so recognized. The grammar of the kinetic title sequence, the impossible camera move, the synchronized drop, descends from here. "We just wanted to make something that would make people in the hall stand up.", Sami 'Psi' Tammilehto, Future Crew, interview in Pelit magazine, 1993 Sources • Future Crew, Second Reality release notes (Assembly 1993) • Library of Congress, 'Selections to the National Recording Registry' announcement (March 2020) • Lassi Tasajarvi, 'Demoscene: The Art of Real-Time' (Even Lake Studios, 2004)
13. 1994 - Carmack's.plan Files. Date: 1994 to 2000 · Place: id Software, Mesquite, Texas, via finger protocol · Figures: John Carmack, programmer, id Software · finger daemon, RFC 1288 · Tags: Finger, Dev Log, id Software 01. Finger johnc@idsoftware.com The finger protocol, RFC 1288, lets anyone on the internet type finger user@host and read that user's.plan file, a plain text file in their home directory. It is designed in the 1970s for telling colleagues where you went for lunch. John Carmack, lead programmer of Doom and Quake, uses it from 1994 onward as a public engineering diary. Carmack posts terse notes about renderer bugs, BSP tree optimizations, network protocol redesigns, and the occasional Ferrari acquisition. Fans mirror the.plan to Usenet within minutes of each update. 02. The First Dev Blog Carmack's.plan invents the public engineering postmortem as a genre. Quake's deathmatch netcode, the abandonment of the original Trinity engine, the decision to GPL Doom in 1999, all are announced first via finger. The format is read-only, no comments, no replies, a one-way broadcast from the workstation of the most influential graphics programmer alive. Blogs absorb the practice by 1999. By 2010 every studio has a dev blog. Carmack stops updating the.plan when he leaves id in 2013, but the archive at floodyberry.com preserves every entry. "I do most of my best programming work at four in the morning, fueled by Diet Coke and the knowledge that nobody is going to interrupt me.", John Carmack.plan file, 1996 Sources • John Carmack.plan archive, mirrored at floodyberry.com • David Kushner, 'Masters of Doom' (Random House, 2003) • RFC 1288, 'The Finger User Information Protocol' (December 1991)
14. 1995 - Free Kevin Stickers. Date: 15 February 1995 to 21 January 2000 · Place: Worldwide, via 2600 Magazine and laptop lids · Figures: Kevin Mitnick, hacker · Emmanuel Goldstein (Eric Corley), editor of 2600 · Tsutomu Shimomura, security researcher · Tags: Hacker Culture, Sticker, 2600 01. Held Without Trial The FBI arrests Kevin Mitnick on 15 February 1995 in Raleigh, North Carolina, after a manhunt assisted by Tsutomu Shimomura. Mitnick is held without bail for four and a half years, eight months of it in solitary confinement, on the prosecutorial theory that he could start a nuclear war by whistling into a payphone. Emmanuel Goldstein at 2600 Magazine prints the first FREE KEVIN bumper stickers in 1995. They are distributed free at 2600 meetings on the first Friday of every month at payphones and food courts in dozens of cities. 02. The First Hacker Cause Celebre FREE KEVIN stickers cover laptop lids at every DEF CON from 1996 to 2000. The yellow-and-black livery is unmistakable. The freekevin.com site, the documentary Freedom Downtime (2001), and the New York Times opinion column by John Markoff that started the whole pursuit, become a generational litmus test. Mitnick is released on 21 January 2000. The stickers persist. They are the prototype for every laptop-lid political sticker that follows, from Snowden to Stallman. "Kevin Mitnick is in prison for downloading source code. He hurt nobody. Free Kevin.", 2600 Magazine editorial, Spring 1996 Sources • Jonathan Littman, 'The Fugitive Game: Online with Kevin Mitnick' (Little, Brown, 1996) • 2600 Magazine archive, Spring 1995 through Winter 1999-2000 • Emmanuel Goldstein, 'Freedom Downtime' documentary (2001)
15. 1995 - GeoCities Neighborhoods. Date: 1995-1999 · Place: Beverly Hills, California (GeoCities HQ); SoHo, Area51, Heartland, etc. (virtual) · Figures: David Bohnett, founder, GeoCities · John Rezner, co-founder · Tags: Web 1.0, Themed Communities, Personal Homepage 01. Pick A Neighborhood David Bohnett launches Beverly Hills Internet in 1994, renames it GeoCities in 1995, and gives every user a free homepage filed under a themed neighborhood. SoHo is for artists. Area51 is for sci-fi. Heartland is for family content. The Tropics is for travel. You pick the neighborhood that fits your page, then claim a street address inside it. By 1999 GeoCities is the third most-visited domain on the web, with thirty-eight million pages. 02. The Last Time The Web Was A Place Neighborhoods give web 1.0 its specific aesthetic: tiled backgrounds, MIDI autoplay, welcome to my homepage, neighborhood-themed link rings. The geographic metaphor is taken literally, with community leaders moderating each district by hand. Yahoo buys GeoCities in January 1999 for $3.57 billion, kills the neighborhood structure in 2001, and shuts the whole thing down on 26 October 2009. The Archive Team rescues 650 GB of raw HTML in the final weeks. "Welcome to my page! This page is best viewed in Netscape Navigator at 800x600.", Canonical GeoCities homepage opener, c. 1996 Sources • Wired, 'GeoCities: A Pale Shadow of Its Former Self' (Bob Liu, 26 October 2009) • Archive Team, 'GeoCities' (archiveteam.org) • Olia Lialina, 'A Vernacular Web' (2005, contemporary.archive.org)
16. 1996 - The Dancing Baby. Date: Autumn 1996, mainstream peak September 1998 · Place: Kinetix (Autodesk subsidiary), San Francisco · Ally McBeal, Fox Broadcasting · Figures: Michael Girard, 3D animator, Kinetix · Robert Lurye, animator · David E. Kelley, showrunner, Ally McBeal · Tags: Viral Video Precursor, 3D Animation, Forward This 01. A Character Studio Demo File Michael Girard and Robert Lurye build a sample animation for Character Studio, an Autodesk 3D Studio Max plugin, in autumn 1996. It is a diapered toddler doing the cha-cha in a void, included on the demo disc so animators can study motion-capture bone rigs. A LucasArts developer named Ron Lussier optimises the file, retitles it Baby Cha-Cha-Cha, and forwards it around. By summer 1997 it is forwarded around the entire AOL-using world as a.gif and as an.avi. 02. Crossover On Ally McBeal On 9 September 1998, the season premiere of Ally McBeal includes the Dancing Baby as a recurring hallucination representing Ally's biological clock. Network television acknowledges an internet meme on prime time, an early-historic milestone. Blue Swede's Hooked on a Feeling overlays the baby's dance. It is the first viral video in the modern sense: a file circulated independently of its origin, decoupled from authorship, mutated, captioned, broadcast back to its audience by mass media. Sources • The New York Times, 'The Dancing Baby Goes Mainstream' (Lisa Napoli, 11 September 1998) • Wired, 'Hooked on a Feeling' (Steve Silberman, 13 August 1998) • Know Your Meme, 'Dancing Baby'
17. 1997 - Slashdot Launches. Date: 5 October 1997 · Place: Holland, Michigan, then Hope College dorm room · Figures: Rob Malda (CmdrTaco), founder · Jeff Bates (Hemos), co-founder · Kurt Gray, early developer · Tags: News Aggregator, Comment Moderation, Geek Culture 01. News For Nerds, Stuff That Matters Rob Malda registers slashdot.org on 5 October 1997 from his dorm room at Hope College in Holland, Michigan. The site is a hand-written Perl CGI aggregating Linux news, Star Wars rumors, and Carmack.plan updates. Jeff Bates joins within weeks as Hemos. The tagline, 'News for nerds, stuff that matters', is unironic. Threaded comments arrive in 1998 with the M1/M2 metamoderation system, the first serious attempt at distributed community moderation on the open web. Karma points, score thresholds, and the +5 Insightful tag enter the lexicon. 02. Imagine A Beowulf Cluster Of These Slashdot generates two enduring memes by 1998. Imagine a Beowulf cluster of these is the canonical comment on any new piece of hardware. Frist psot is the corrupted spelling of the race for the first comment. In Soviet Russia, car drives you spreads from Slashdot via Yakov Smirnoff revivals. The Slashdot Effect, the traffic spike that crashes any small site linked from the front page, is the first widely-recognized DDoS-by-popularity. The phrase enters technical English permanently. "Imagine a Beowulf cluster of these.", Anonymous Coward, Slashdot comment, repeated thousands of times from 1998 onward Sources • Rob Malda, 'Slashdot: 10 Years' retrospective (slashdot.org, 5 October 2007) • Andrew Leonard, 'Free Software Project' (Salon, 1999) • Wendy Grossman, 'net.wars' (NYU Press, 1997)
18. 1997 - Bert Is Evil. Date: 1997-2001 · Place: Fractalcow.com, Manila, Philippines · Figures: Dino Ignacio, web designer, Manila · Tags: Photoshop, Webby Award, Format Franchise 01. Bert With Hitler Dino Ignacio, a 22-year-old web designer in Manila, launches Bert Is Evil in 1997. The site Photoshops Sesame Street's Bert into the company of history's worst people: Hitler, the Unabomber, Pol Pot. The bit is that Bert's face is unchanged, his expression always faintly disapproving, and yet the juxtaposition reads as confession. It wins a Webby Award for Best Weird Site in 1998. 02. Bert With Bin Laden In October 2001, a Bangladeshi printer pulls a Bert-with-Bin-Laden image off Google for an anti-American protest poster. Reuters photographs the poster being carried in a Dhaka street demonstration. The photo runs worldwide. Sesame Workshop releases a statement; Ignacio shuts the site down voluntarily, fearing for his safety. It is the first incident of a meme escaping the internet, getting laundered through global news photography, and reaching the audience that originally made it as a stranger. Sources • BBC News, 'Sesame Street's Bert linked to Bin Laden' (11 October 2001) • Dino Ignacio, statement on fractalcow.com (October 2001, archive.org) • Know Your Meme, 'Bert Is Evil'
19. 1998 - The Hampster Dance. Date: August 1998 (launched), peaks 1999 · Place: GeoCities, Canada · Figures: Deidre LaCarte, art student, Vancouver · Tags: Web 1.0, GIF Loop, Earworm 01. A Tribute To A Hamster Deidre LaCarte, a Vancouver art student, builds a GeoCities page in August 1998 as a tribute to her hamster Hampton. The page contains four rows of dancing animated-GIF hamsters and a looping sample from the Disney film Robin Hood: a sped-up clip of Roger Miller singing Whistle Stop. It is part of an informal traffic-building competition with her sister and a friend. By March 1999 the page is getting 14 million visits a month. LaCarte registers hampsterdance.com. 02. Hampton The Hampster Hits The Charts A Canadian production duo licenses the loop in 1999, expands it into a full novelty single credited to Hampton the Hampster, and releases The Hampsterdance Song in 2000. It hits the top 20 in the UK and Australia and goes platinum. The misspelling of hamster as hampster, originally a typo, becomes a load-bearing canonical detail. It is the first time a personal GeoCities page produces a chart-topping single. The whole arc, from one art student's birthday gift to a Hot 100 entry, takes 18 months. Sources • Wired, 'Hampsters on Parade' (Lindsey Arent, 16 March 1999) • The Globe and Mail, 'How a Vancouver student created a global hit' (3 February 2000) • Know Your Meme, 'Hampster Dance'
20. 1999 - Fark.com Launches. Date: 1 April 1999 · Place: Lexington, Kentucky · Figures: Drew Curtis, founder · Squidly the Fark squirrel mascot · Tags: Weird News, Photoshop, Headline Tag 01. It's Not News, It's Fark Drew Curtis launches Fark.com on 1 April 1999 from Lexington, Kentucky, as a personal dumping ground for the weird news links his friends keep emailing him. Within a year it has a submission queue, a moderator team, and the iconic green tag system: Florida, Stupid, Asinine, Cool, Hero, PSA, Photoshop. The Florida tag, applied to any story involving Florida Man before Florida Man is a Twitter account, codifies a regional joke into a national one. 02. Photoshop Contests As Folk Form Fark's Photoshop contests, launched in 1999, are the first sustained mass-participation image-manipulation events on the open web. A weekly thread posts a source image, users submit edits, the funniest go to the front page. The format trains a decade of meme-makers in compositing before image-macro generators exist. By 2003 Fark serves four million daily users. The site is older than 9/11, older than Google's IPO, and is still owned by Drew Curtis from Lexington. It is the longest-running independently-owned major aggregator on the English-speaking web. "It's not news, it's Fark.", Drew Curtis, Fark.com tagline, 1999 Sources • Drew Curtis, 'It's Not News, It's Fark' (Gotham Books, 2007) • Fark.com 10-year retrospective post (1 April 2009) • Wired, 'The Drew Curtis Interview' (April 2003)
21. 1999 - Mahir Çağrı: I Kiss You. Date: August 1999 · Place: İzmir, Turkey · Figures: Mahir Çağrı, journalist and accordion player · Tags: Personal Homepage, Accidental Virality, Pre-Influencer 01. I Like Sex Mahir Çağrı, a 36-year-old Turkish journalist and accordion player living in İzmir, builds a homepage on a Sezer Internet server in November 1998. It contains photographs of him in a Speedo, playing accordion, and beside a Mercedes. The captions, in broken English, are sincere: I like sex, Welcome to my home page!!!!!!!!!, I kiss you!!!!!. It is, by any measure he intends, a personal page meant to attract pen-friends. In August 1999 someone on a US forum links it as a joke. Within a month it has millions of visitors. 02. The Subject Becomes The Author Mahir is the first person in internet history to be made famous by his own page being passed around to mock him, and the first to successfully reclaim it. He flies to the US, appears on Letterman, releases a single, gets a column in a Turkish newspaper, and runs for the Istanbul parliament. He is the prototype of the involuntary internet celebrity, and the prototype of the involuntary internet celebrity who pivots, with grace and a complete lack of self-consciousness, into the role. "WELLCOME TO MY HOME PAGE!!!!!!!!! I KISS YOU!!!!!", Mahir Çağrı, ikissyou.org, c. November 1998 Sources • The Independent, 'Mahir: the man who kissed the world' (Justin Huggler, 22 January 2000) • Wired, 'Turkey's Cyber-Citizen' (Steve Kettmann, 26 January 2000) • Know Your Meme, 'I Kiss You (Mahir Cagri)'
22. 1999 - DeCSS Haiku And T-Shirts. Date: October 1999 · Place: Norway and the open web · Figures: Jon Lech Johansen (DVD Jon), 15-year-old programmer, Larvik, Norway · Seth Schoen, EFF, author of '42.zip is not a virus' DeCSS Haiku · MPAA, plaintiff · Tags: Crypto, Free Speech, T-Shirt 01. 456 Lines Of C In October 1999, 15-year-old Jon Lech Johansen in Larvik, Norway, releases DeCSS, a 456-line C program that decrypts the Content Scramble System used on commercial DVDs. He just wants to watch DVDs on his Linux laptop. The MPAA files suit in New York under the new DMCA, the first major test of the 1998 law. Judge Lewis Kaplan rules in 2000 that publishing the DeCSS source code is illegal. The web responds by translating DeCSS into every conceivable form. 02. Haiku, T-Shirts, Prime Numbers Seth Schoen writes the DeCSS Haiku, 465 stanzas of formally-correct haiku that compile, in spirit, to the DeCSS algorithm. The code is printed on T-shirts sold by Copyleft. The 1,401-digit Phil Carmody prime, whose binary representation is the gzipped DeCSS source, is published as a prime number that is also illegal speech. The DeCSS T-shirt becomes the uniform of every 2600 meeting and Defcon hallway from 1999 to 2003. Free-speech case law catches up in 2001 when the Norwegian acquittal of Johansen establishes that reverse-engineering for interoperability is legal in Norway. Johansen later co-founds doubleTwist and works on iTunes interop. "Now help me, my friends, / Cluster many minds in code / And lay legal traps.", Seth Schoen, 'DeCSS Haiku' stanza 3, March 2001 Sources • Seth Schoen, 'DeCSS Haiku' full text, EFF archive (March 2001) • Universal v. Reimerdes, 111 F. Supp. 2d 294 (S.D.N.Y. 2000) • Norwegian Supreme Court, Johansen acquittal (5 January 2004)
23. 2000 - More Cowbell. Date: 8 April 2000 · Place: Saturday Night Live, Studio 8H, NBC, New York · Figures: Christopher Walken, Bruce Dickenson · Will Ferrell, Gene Frenkle (writer) · Blue Oyster Cult, fictionalized band · Tags: Sketch, Quote, Pre-YouTube 01. A Fictional Recording Session Will Ferrell writes a sketch about the 1976 recording of Blue Oyster Cult's Don't Fear the Reaper, where producer Bruce Dickenson, played by Christopher Walken, demands more cowbell from session player Gene Frenkle. Ferrell pads the cowbell prop on purpose so it makes a louder, more absurd clang. Walken sells the line with total commitment. The sketch airs once on 8 April 2000. It is funny in the room and forgotten by the network. NBC does not push it. The clip survives in tape trades, on Kazaa, on early YTMND pages. 02. Quote Without Source I gotta have more cowbell becomes a 2002-2005 office quote, then a forum sig, then a t-shirt, then a stadium sign. By the time YouTube hosts the clip in 2006 the quote has already outlived its sketch by half a decade. Most people who use it have never seen Walken deliver it. The Cowbell sketch is the first viral SNL bit of the streaming era, distributed by everyone except SNL itself. It teaches the network that single-clip sketches travel further than whole episodes. "I got a fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell.", Bruce Dickenson (Walken), SNL, 8 April 2000 Sources • Saturday Night Live archive, S25E16 (8 April 2000) • Rolling Stone, 'How More Cowbell became SNL's biggest catchphrase' (2015) • KnowYourMeme, More Cowbell
24. 2000 - Pivot Stickfigure Animator. Date: August 2000 · Place: Bideford, Devon, England · Figures: Peter Bone, programmer · Newgrounds stick-animator scene, audience · Tags: Tool, Newgrounds, Stick 01. A 14-Year-Old Ships a Tool Peter Bone, a teenager in Devon, writes Pivot Stickfigure Animator in Visual Basic and releases the freeware in August 2000. It does one thing: drag stick-figure joints between frames and export a GIF. No timeline, no tweening, no learning curve. The tool reaches the Newgrounds crowd within months. Suddenly any 12-year-old can produce a passable fight scene without owning Flash, without learning vectors, without paying Macromedia. 02. An Entire Genre From One.exe Stickdeath, Xiao Xiao knockoffs, sword duels, gun battles, infinite ragdoll loops. By 2003 a third of front-page Newgrounds Flash includes Pivot-exported sequences. The aesthetic is so identifiable that animators brag about NOT using Pivot. Pivot is the first creation tool aimed squarely at children that produces a global meme genre. It predicts Scratch, Roblox Studio, TikTok templates: lower the floor, the kids will fill the ceiling. Sources • Pivot Animator official site, version history • KnowYourMeme, Pivot Animator • Newgrounds Wiki, Stick Figure Animation
25. 2000 - Newgrounds Flash Era. Date: 2000 onward · Place: newgrounds.com, Tom Fulp's bedroom (then Glenside, PA) · Figures: Tom Fulp, founder · the Flash animator diaspora · Tags: Flash, Animation 01. Tom Fulp's BBS Grows Up Tom Fulp starts Newgrounds in 1995 as a Neo Geo fan newsletter and turns it into a Flash-animation portal when Macromedia Flash 4 makes browser animation viable in 1999. Anyone can upload a.swf; users vote; surviving submissions go in the archive. The model is YouTube before YouTube, for animation only. By 2001 Newgrounds is hosting Pico's School, Stick Slayer, Decline of Video Gaming, and the early run of Joe Cartoon mirrors. A generation of animators (David Firth, FilmCow, Egoraptor, Edd Gould of Eddsworld) starts here. 02. Everything Forever Newgrounds' tag-line is Everything, By Everyone. It survives Flash's death (Adobe end-of-life, 31 December 2020) by reimplementing the runtime in JavaScript (Ruffle) and continues hosting the archive. Almost every notable 2000s Flash cartoon (Salad Fingers, Charlie the Unicorn, End of the World) either originates on or mirrors to Newgrounds. Sources • Tom Fulp, Newgrounds 25th anniversary post (2020) • Polygon, 'Newgrounds survived Flash' (2020) • KnowYourMeme, Newgrounds
26. 2001 - Wikipedia Launches. Date: 15 January 2001 · Place: wikipedia.org, San Diego, California · Figures: Jimmy Wales, co-founder · Larry Sanger, co-founder · Ward Cunningham, wiki concept (1995) · Tags: Platform, Encyclopedia, Substrate 01. Nupedia's Bastard Side Project Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger are running Nupedia, a slow expert-reviewed encyclopedia, and it is going nowhere. Sanger proposes a wiki as a feeder for draft articles. They launch it on 15 January 2001 as a side experiment. Within a month it has more articles than Nupedia ever produced. Wikipedia is not a meme. Wikipedia is the substrate on which the next two decades of memes are documented, fact-checked, debated, and canonised. 02. The Meme Notability Wars By 2005 the Articles for Deletion debates over internet memes are themselves a meme. Editors argue whether Star Wars Kid, All Your Base, and Caturday deserve articles. The threshold is notability, defined by reliable secondary coverage. The result is a feedback loop: a meme covered by a newspaper becomes notable, becomes Wikipedia-eligible, becomes canon. Every meme historian who comes after, including this archive, owes Wikipedia the timestamps. Many of the only surviving primary sources for early 2000s memes are Wikipedia article histories from 2004-2007. "The free encyclopedia that anyone can edit.", Wikipedia masthead, 2001 onward Sources • Wikipedia, History of Wikipedia • Andrew Lih, 'The Wikipedia Revolution' (Hyperion, 2009) • Slashdot, Wikipedia launch announcement (17 January 2001)
27. 2003 - Badger Badger Badger. Date: September 2003 · Place: weebls-stuff.com · Figures: Jonti Picking (Weebl), animator, UK · Tags: Flash, Loop 01. Badger Badger Badger Badger Mushroom Mushroom Jonti Picking, a British Flash animator working as Weebl, posts Badger Badger Badger on weebls-stuff.com in September 2003. The loop: pixelated badgers doing calisthenics, a low-fi song chanting BADGER BADGER BADGER, occasional cutaways to a mushroom and then a SNAKE, IT'S A SNAKE. The page is set to loop indefinitely. Open it, walk away, come back, the badgers are still doing calisthenics. Office firewalls block it; office workers find proxies. 02. Weebl Becomes a Brand Picking follows with Magical Trevor (2004), Kenya (Africa), Weebl and Bob, Salad Fingers' cousin in the early-2000s Flash diaspora. He becomes one of the few Flash-era animators to make a sustainable living from the work; he later scores Adventure Time episodes. Badger Badger Badger is the proof-of-concept for the loop-without-payoff as an entire creative form. Two minutes of badgers, no story, infinite replay. "Mushroom, mushroom.", Badger Badger Badger, weebls-stuff.com, September 2003 Sources • weebls-stuff.com, Badger Badger Badger • Guardian, 'The cult of Weebl' (2005) • KnowYourMeme, Badgers
28. 2004 - Encyclopedia Dramatica Founded. Date: 10 December 2004 · Place: encyclopediadramatica.com (later.se.rs.online) · Figures: Sherrod DeGrippo (Girlvinyl), founder · the LJDrama crowd, early editors · Tags: Wiki, Hostile 01. Wikipedia for the Cruelty Sherrod DeGrippo, a 26-year-old infosec analyst writing as Girlvinyl, launches Encyclopedia Dramatica on 10 December 2004 as a wiki spin-off from LiveJournal drama coverage. The brief is Wikipedia's format aimed at internet subcultures, with no neutrality, every entry written in maximum bad faith. Articles document /b/ raids, furries, otherkin, MySpace celebrities, and individual targets in vicious detail. The site is the era's hostile archive, the place where the chans' inside-baseball is written down. 02. The Reference Book for /b/ Encyclopedia Dramatica becomes /b/'s working memory. Rules of the Internet, Pool's Closed, the entire taxonomy of cancer-on-/b/-today: ED writes them up. The site is also a documented harassment vehicle. Multiple lawsuits, multiple defamation actions. DeGrippo sells the site in 2011; it has bounced between hosts and registrars for fifteen years since. The cultural function (a hostile dictionary for image-board culture) outlasts every individual domain. Sources • Sherrod DeGrippo interview, Wired (2007) • KnowYourMeme, Encyclopedia Dramatica • Wayback Machine, encyclopediadramatica.com captures 2005-2011
29. 2005 - Citation Needed. Date: 16 February 2005 · Place: Wikipedia, Template namespace · Figures: Ta bu shi da yu, Wikipedia editor (template creator) · Wikipedia editor community · Tags: Template, Wiki 01. A Template That Reaches the Street On 16 February 2005, English Wikipedia editor Ta bu shi da yu creates the Template:Citation needed markup. The template inserts a small bracketed superscript at the end of an unsourced sentence: [citation needed]. It is a workflow tool, meant only for editors patrolling articles. It immediately becomes the most-deployed inline template on the English Wikipedia. By 2010 hundreds of thousands of pages carry the tag at least once. 02. The Markup Becomes a Punchline By 2007 readers are wearing T-shirts printed CITIZENS HAVE THE RIGHT TO BEAR ARMS [CITATION NEEDED]. Picket signs carry it at protests. Forum posts append it sarcastically to obvious lies. The template detaches from Wikipedia and becomes a generic skepticism gesture, the textual equivalent of an arched eyebrow. Citation Needed is the first piece of platform-specific markup to escape its platform and become free-floating cultural vocabulary. It is the model for the [intensifies] greentext, the /s sarcasm tag, the air-quote, every snowclone-shaped sigil that lets you punctuate a sentence with disbelief. "[citation needed]", Wikipedia Template:Citation needed, 16 February 2005 Sources • Wikipedia, Template:Citation needed history (16 February 2005) • The Atlantic, 'How citation needed became the internet's favorite phrase' (2014) • Wikipedia, History of citation-needed template
30. 2005 - Flying Spaghetti Monster. Date: June 2005 · Place: Bobby Henderson's open letter to the Kansas State Board of Education · Figures: Bobby Henderson, 24, physics graduate, Oregon State · Tags: Satire, Pastafarianism 01. Open Letter to Kansas In June 2005 Bobby Henderson, a 24-year-old Oregon State physics graduate, posts an open letter to the Kansas State Board of Education, which is debating whether to teach intelligent design in public-school science classes. Henderson argues that if intelligent design qualifies as science, his belief that the universe was created by an invisible Flying Spaghetti Monster also qualifies and must receive equal classroom time. The letter goes viral on early-blog channels and forums within weeks. Pastafarianism is born as a deliberate, well-written satire. 02. Colanders on Driver's Licences By 2007 Pastafarians in several countries have won the right to wear colanders on their heads in government ID photographs on freedom-of-religion grounds. The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster registers as a religion in the Netherlands (2016), Australia (rejected 2015), and elsewhere. FSM is the era's most successful piece of policy-targeted satire. The meme works as a wedge against intelligent-design pedagogy in school boards from Kansas to Florida. The satire is the argument. "I would like to know what evidence there is to support intelligent design over my Pastafarianism.", Bobby Henderson, open letter to Kansas Board of Education, June 2005 Sources • Bobby Henderson, The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster (Villard, 2006) • Original open letter, venganza.org (Wayback, June 2005) • Washington Post, 'Pastafarian wins right to wear colander' (2014)
31. 2008-12-30 - Disaster Girl
32. 2009-01-02 - YO DAWG!. !
33. 2009-02-17 - I See What You Did There. ”, sometimes shortened as ICWYDT or ISWYDT, is a phrase typically found online either in comments or captions for image macros. Depending on its tone, it can convey a condescending response to a banal joke, a genuine admiration for another person’s wit or a threat akin to “I know what you did.”
34. 2009-02-17 - I see what you did there - Oswin // Doctor Who
35. 2009-04-05 - LET ME SHOW YOU MY POKEMANS
36. 2009-04-12 - Feels Good Man - Society+ - Bande annonce
37. 2009-04-17 - I had a black dog, his name was depression
38. 2009-05-05 - Robocop On A Unicorn. The “Robocop on a Unicorn” image was photoshopped and posted to photo sharing site Flickr on January 15th 2008 by Olav Rokne. After attracting thousands of views among the Flickr community, the photoset found its way onto Buzzfeed.com, Neatorama, and Digg.
39. 2009-05-05 - Robocop On A Unicorn
40. 2009-05-15 - Profit - Corbettmaths
41. 2009-05-20 - It's Goofy Time!. ! is a series of exploitable comics based on a single-pane illustration from the webcomic series The Parking Lot is Full originally published in 1998. The comic spawned an extensive collection of variations featuring alternative characters and captions when a blank template version of the illustration was posted on 4chan’s /b/ (random) board in 2007.
42. 2009-08-24 - Jesus Christ it's a lion! Get in the car!. !
43. 2009-08-24 - Technologically Impaired Duck.
44. 2009-08-30 - No Joe, No!. ! is a multi-pane exploitable based on a stick figure comic strip featuring Joe and Sally. While the author behind original comic remains in search, the blank template has spawned an extensive pool of derivatives on popular gaming communities like GamesFAQ and GameSpot, as well as on 4chan’s /v/ board.
45. 2009-08-30 - No, No Joe
46. 2009-09-09 - Green Screen Happy Happy Happy Cat Meme
47. 2009-10-19 - This looks shopped...
48. 2009-10-26 - Change your profile picture to clippy. I'm serious
49. 2009-12-05 - Rowsdower Zap Rowsdower
50. 2009-12-05 - An Average Night on the 4chan Party Van TF2 Server
51. 2009-12-06 - YTMND Fad - P1ZZ4 Guy. 5:12
52. 2009-12-16 - "Fingerstache (Original Mix)" - Olivier Giacomotto - Definitive Recordings
53. 2009-12-22 - I Can't Hear You Over the Sound of How Awesome I Am
54. 2010-01-17 - HNNNNNNG. I may have gushed a little bit
55. 2010-12-14 - Have You Ever. Provided to YouTube by Universal Music Group Have You Ever · The Offspring
56. 2011-01-11 - LOL Guy
57. 2011-03-04 - Cat Gives Thumbs Up
58. 2011-04-29 - Anti-Joke Chicken
59. 2011-07-28 - CHEMISTRY CAT
60. 2011-11-29 - Seems legit
61. 2012-02-08 - Bradying. ’s loss against the New York Giants at the Super Bowl XLVI.
62. 2012-04-16 - Paranoid Parrot. (ex: “save game file”) followed by an irrational response driven by paranoia.
63. 2012-04-20 - So it begins
64. 2012-06-07 - R.LUM.R - Frustrated. ☞☞☞☞☞☞☞☞☞☞☞☞☞☞☞☞☞☞☞☞☞☞☞☞☞☞☞☞☞☞☞☞☞ LYRICS: Here I go talking bout the same thing In and out as quick as you can fade way it don't matter what I say if you want me to chain you to the sky. Oh my.
65. 2013-01-13 - Bottle Meme. The Bottle Meme, also known as “You May Bottle Anything” (Japanese: 詰めてもいいのよ, Tsumetemo Iinoyo) on the Japanese web, is an image exploitable series in which fictional manga and anime characters are drawn within the confines of glass bottle containers. Since emerging through the Japanese artist community pixiv in April 2009, the meme has spawned at least 1,200 derivative artworks on the site and elsewhere on the English-speaking web, including Tumblr and deviantART.
66. 2013-01-22 - SUCCESSFUL BLACK MAN
67. 2013-03-06 - Dezzing (Valzer lento). Provided to YouTube by Euro Zeta srlu Dezzing (Valzer lento) · Ernesto Germani
68. 2013-05-22 - Custom Bingo Cards
69. 2013-06-09 - You Know You Play Too Much When. ” is a phrasal template for jokes listing humorous consequences of participating in an activity for an extended period of time.
70. 2013 - Harlem Shake. Date: 2 February 2013 · Place: YouTube; Brisbane, Australia (Sunny Coast Skate) origin upload · Figures: Baauer (Harry Rodrigues), producer · Filthy Frank (George Miller), first costumed upload · Sunny Coast Skate, viral catalyst · Tags: YouTube, Dance, VideoReply 01. Thirty-One Seconds Baauer's instrumental Harlem Shake drops on Mad Decent's Jeffree's imprint in May 2012. On 30 January 2013 George Miller, performing as Filthy Frank, posts a short video of four costumed friends thrashing to the drop. On 2 February 2013 the Australian teen crew Sunny Coast Skate copy the format with a clean structure: one person dancing alone in a helmet for fifteen seconds, the bass drop, jump cut to the entire room in costume losing their minds for fifteen more. The structure is the meme. Within a week forty thousand response videos exist. The Norwegian army, the Miami Heat bench, the Today Show, Facebook HQ, and a Boeing 737 in flight all post versions. 02. The Billboard Rule Change Baauer's track hits number one on the Billboard Hot 100 on 2 March 2013, the first week YouTube views count toward chart position. The Harlem Shake forces the rule change. Residents of actual Harlem object that the dance bears no relationship to the local 1981 Albert Boyce original. Schlepa, a Harlem resident, films interviews of neighbors watching the videos with visible distaste. The meme's geographic illiteracy becomes part of its record. "That's not the Harlem Shake.", Harlem resident in Schlepa's street interview, posted 20 February 2013 Sources • Billboard, 'Baauer's Harlem Shake Hits No. 1', 27 February 2013 • Kevin Ashton, The Atlantic, 'You Didn't Make the Harlem Shake Go Viral, Corporations Did', 28 February 2013 • KnowYourMeme entry, 'Harlem Shake'
71. 2013 - #BlackLivesMatter. Date: 13 July 2013 · Place: Oakland and New York; Facebook and Twitter · Figures: Alicia Garza, organiser · Patrisse Cullors, organiser · Opal Tometi, organiser · George Zimmerman, acquitted defendant · Trayvon Martin, killed 26 February 2012 · Tags: Hashtag, BlackTwitter, Movement 01. A Love Letter to Black People On the night of 13 July 2013 a Florida jury acquits George Zimmerman of the killing of seventeen-year-old Trayvon Martin. Alicia Garza writes a Facebook post she calls a love letter to Black people ending with the line Our lives matter, Black lives matter. Patrisse Cullors shares it with the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter. Opal Tometi builds the social infrastructure across Tumblr and Twitter the following week. The phrase exists before the hashtag; the hashtag is what makes it a movement. "Black people. I love you. I love us. Our lives matter, Black lives matter.", Alicia Garza, Facebook, 13 July 2013 02. Ferguson and After The hashtag is used roughly 5,000 times in the year after Martin's verdict. After Michael Brown is killed in Ferguson on 9 August 2014 it appears 1.7 million times in three weeks. By the end of 2016 it has been tweeted 30 million times. BLM is the case study every organiser studies next. The architecture is hashtag as masthead, distributed cell as chapter, Vine and Periscope as wire service. The state learns to track hashtags too. Sources • Alicia Garza, 'A Herstory of the #BlackLivesMatter Movement', The Feminist Wire, 7 October 2014 • Pew Research Center, 'An analysis of #BlackLivesMatter and other Twitter hashtags related to political or social issues', 11 July 2018 • Jelani Cobb, 'The Matter of Black Lives', The New Yorker, 14 March 2016
72. 2013 - Doge. Date: 2013 (viral peak November) · Place: Tumblr, then Reddit, then everywhere · Figures: Atsuko Sato, kindergarten teacher and Kabosu's owner, Sakura City, Japan · Kabosu, the Shiba Inu (b. 2 November 2005, d. 24 May 2024) · Tags: Doge, Comic Sans 01. Wow. Such Shiba. Atsuko Sato adopts Kabosu, an abandoned Shiba Inu, from a puppy mill in November 2008. She posts photos to her personal blog. In February 2010 one specific photo, Kabosu sitting on a couch, eyebrows raised, looking sideways at the camera with a slight smile, gets reposted to Tumblr. Three years later, in late 2013, someone adds wow. such doge. in Comic Sans, multicolored. The internal-monologue-of-the-dog format crystallizes. Within weeks, Comic Sans captions overlaid on Kabosu with the structure wow. such X. very Y. so Z. are everywhere. The genre rewards bad grammar specifically. It is, structurally, an anti-image-macro: not Impact font, not white outline, not declarative. Doge is the meme's first explicit anti-aesthetic to Impact-font macros. 02. Doge Becomes Dogecoin On 6 December 2013, software engineers Billy Markus and Jackson Palmer launch Dogecoin, a cryptocurrency parody using the Doge meme as its branding. They intend it as a joke about Bitcoin speculation. By January 2018, Dogecoin's market cap briefly exceeds $2 billion. By May 2021, after Elon Musk's repeated promotion, it briefly exceeds $90 billion. Kabosu the actual dog dies on 24 May 2024 at age 18. Atsuko Sato runs an Instagram (@kabosumama) until the end. The dog never knew it was the cover image of a $90 billion financial asset. Wow. such market. very cap. so meme. Sources • Atsuko Sato, Kabosu-mama blog (2010-2024) • Know Your Meme, Doge entry • Dogecoin whitepaper / launch announcements, December 2013
73. 2013-09-05 - Actresses Without Teeth
74. 2013-11-13 - Does This Look Like The Face Of Mercy?. Original Video: Lythero's Channel: Lythero LytheroOutOfContext Out Of Context Clips Shenanigoons
75. 2014-03-08 - The New Serious Cat. Lulu the New Serious Cat (aka the Dramatic Cat) is seriously serious, you guys.
76. 2014-04-14 - Muh. ” is Internet slang for “my,” the first-person, possessive pronoun in the English language. On 4chan, a series of image macros mimicking entries in the Scholastic Dictionary of Idioms contain variations of the phrasal template “Muh X” accompanied by descriptions which mock political, religious and ethnic groups.
77. 2014-05-02 - #Johning. ’s legs over the footboard of a bed and a laptop on the stomach. It is a parody of a photograph of young adult author and vlogger John Green published by Hollywood Reporter in May 2014.
78. 2014-05-21 - Cat Fort. ’s cat with household items, such as cardboard boxes and decorative pillows, in a similar fashion to the setting of the collaborative webcomic series Dog Fort.
79. 2014-05-21 - I Built 10 Incredible Cat Forts!. Bella's Bakery T-Shirts: I Built 10 Incredible Cat Forts. I build 10 cat forts for Ralph and Bella, including a cardboard castle, a toilet paper palace, a blanket den, a glowing geodesic dome, a network of tunnels, Bella's bakery, and more!
80. 2014-06-03 - Noot Noot. ” is the sound made by the titular character from the British-Swiss children’s TV series Pingu. Due to its frequent utterance throughout the series, the soundbite of the catchphrase has been incorporated into a variety of pop music mash-ups and photoshopped images on Tumblr.
81. 2014-06-05 - Critters | 4chan /x/ Paranormal Greentext Stories Thread
82. 2014-07-22 - Trashcat is not Amused
83. 2014-07-31 - First Words. ’s experience of hearing the first word of a child, though instead of it being a common first word such as “mom” or “dad,” the word conveys a message that is unexpectedly dark or insulting.
84. 2014-09-15 - Bead Art. 2D or 3D images of iconic characters and objects from various video games, TV shows and films. On the web, the textile handicraft has grown into a popular medium of fan art as the real-life equivalent of fan-made, computer-graphic sprites, similar to other analog techniques of pixelation like Sticky Note Art and Toast Art.
85. 2014-11-04 - Dirds. “dog” and “birds,” is a photoshop meme in which faces of canines are superimposed over the trunks of birds to produce fake images of a hybrid between the two species, in a similar vein to other Photoshop-bred mythical creatures like Birds with Arms, Crocoducks and the Bearksharkotopus.
86. 2015-02-14 - Birds with Arms
87. 2015-04-27 - Jared Leto's Joker
88. 2015-05-12 - This Is Fine
89. 2015 - Drake Hotline Bling Reaction Template. Date: 19 October 2015 · Place: YouTube; Director X video shoot, Toronto · Figures: Drake (Aubrey Graham), subject · Director X, music video director · James Turrell, lighting reference · Tags: Template, ImageMacro, Music 01. The Two-Panel Director X releases the music video for Drake's Hotline Bling on 19 October 2015. The lighting cites James Turrell's installations; the dancing cites Drake's own off-rhythm uncle physicality. Two frames go viral: Drake's left hand raised in dismissal, and his right hand pointing at what he prefers instead. By the following week the two frames are paired as a vertical image macro with text labels: top panel rejects something, bottom panel approves of something else. The form becomes one of three universal comparison templates of the era. 02. Syntax Lock The Drake template, Distracted Boyfriend, and Expanding Brain together establish that comparative judgment can be a four-frame piece of grammar with no caption tradition. The image becomes the punctuation; the labels become the sentence. Drake never publicly comments on the template. The video racks two billion views by 2024. Sources • Director X, 'Drake, Hotline Bling', Vevo upload, 19 October 2015 • Doreen St. Felix, The Fader, 'How Hotline Bling Became a Meme', 21 October 2015 • KnowYourMeme entry, 'Drakeposting'
90. 2015-07-07 - Matrix Morpheus. (played by Lawrence Fishburne) from The Matrix franchise. The captions typically follow a two line format with the first line reading “What if I Told You,” followed by a revelation that often belittles futile or petty behavior, in a similar vein to the advice animal characters Conspiracy Keanu and Sudden Clarity Clarence.
91. 2015-07-21 - Sweet Jesus, Pooh! That's Not Honey!. “Sweet Jesus, Pooh!” is an exploitable comic series featuring the character Tigger from Winnie the Pooh panicking over the character Pooh accidentally eating his father’s ashes. Variations of the comic typically depict Pooh ingesting a variety of substances.
92. 2015-08-11 - Kevin Durant Can't Bear to Watch. With seconds remaining in Game 5 of the West Semifinals, Kevin Durant was sitting on the floor at Chesapeake Arena, facing away from the basket as his teammate, Russell Westbrook hit game-winning free throws.
93. 2015-11-16 - Original Confused Travolta. For those who want the original Confused Travolta to make new awesome memes.
94. 2016-01-22 - Be Like Bill. “Bill” using a desktop computer, accompanied by a parable praising Bill’s choice to simply carry on after being provoked by a trigger while browsing the Internet. Since its emergence through English-language humor websites in late 2015, the single-pane comic has gone globally viral and spawned a large volume of derivative illustrations with similar messages highlighting other socially intelligent behaviors on the web and in real life.
95. 2016-02-09 - Doom 2016 Cover Art Parodies. Doom Cover Art Parodies refers to the photoshop alteration of the box art of id Software’s upcoming title Doom, in which the the lettering is replaced with various other logotypes, mocking it’s use of the generic “Soldier /w Gun + Title” format utilized by many modern first-person shooters on the market.
96. 2016-03-21 - Snek. /or spells words incorrectly; in addition, the word “heck” is often substituted for profanity.
97. 2016 - Knife Wielding Kid
98. 2016-06-23 - Donald and Hobbes
99. 2016-06-23 - The mistery about the noodle incident in Calvin & Hobbes...
100. 2016-08-03 - Jokes Clown. “Jokes” written on the front. Online, the picture is often used as a reaction image, or serves as a template for photoshopped variations.
101. 2016-09-16 - Persuadable Bouncer.mp4. Credits to Xploshi For the music, Supergreybros for the Cat vs Croc cover, and xMarnBBK for the persuadable Bouncer photo.
102. 2017-02-01 - Roll Safe. (a.k.a. “Roll Safe”) in the web series Hood Documentary. The image is often captioned with various jokes mocking poor decision-making and failures in critical thinking.
103. 2017-03-09 - Expanding Pupil. 55% while looking at an object of affection, followed by a series of images in which a pupil expands or contracts in reaction to various humorous photographs.
104. 2017-04-02 - Bees Are Dying at an Alarming Rate
105. 2017-04-18 - C'mon, Do Something
106. 2017-04-19 - It's called fashion. Find more videos, bizarre news and oddities at www.iamastronaut.eu
107. 2017-05-25 - Bad Acronyms. (for example, the word “Scuba” is an acronym for for " S elf, C ontained U nderwater B reathing A pparatus). The jokes are generally used in shitposts.
108. 2017-06-01 - Things That Disappear When You Need Them
109. 2017 - MoonPie Twitter. Date: 20 February 2017 · Place: Twitter; Chattanooga Bakery, Tennessee · Figures: Tom Tumbusch, MoonPie president · Jess Cervellon, social lead at the agency · IHOP, the rival in the IHOPancakes exchange · Tags: Brand, Twitter, Snack 01. Pancake Trash Talk On 20 February 2017 IHOP tweets pancakes or french toast? MoonPie's account quote-tweets or a moonpie. The exchange screencaps across Twitter the same evening. The MoonPie account has been quietly running a Denny's-style surreal voice for months; the IHOP reply is the breakout. The 117-year-old Chattanooga Bakery has roughly twenty employees. Its Twitter is operated by a small agency. The account ends 2017 with 240,000 followers, up from 18,000 at the start of the year. 02. The Solar Eclipse Bit On 21 August 2017 the total solar eclipse crosses the United States. MoonPie tweets a black circle with the caption the official snack of the eclipse. NASA quote-tweets it. The bit is so good it ends up on the front of Buzzfeed twice. MoonPie sales rise an estimated 17 per cent year-on-year through 2017. The Tom Tumbusch interview cycle that follows makes clear the brand had no Plan B; it just kept posting until it worked. This is the canonical case for permission to be weird. Sources • @MoonPie original IHOP quote-tweet, 20 February 2017 • Tim Nudd, 'How MoonPie Became the Strangest, Most Wonderful Voice on Twitter', Adweek, 28 March 2017 • Tom Tumbusch interview, Marketing Brew, 11 January 2018
110. 2017 - Covfefe. Date: 31 May 2017 · Place: Twitter, @realDonaldTrump · Figures: Donald Trump, president · Sean Spicer, press secretary · Tags: Politics, Typo, Twitter 01. 12:06 AM At 12:06 AM Eastern on 31 May 2017 President Donald Trump tweets Despite the constant negative press covfefe. The tweet stays live for nearly six hours before being deleted. By morning the word is on every front page in the country. Saturday Night Live, Jimmy Kimmel, the Merriam-Webster Twitter account, every late-night host, and every congressional Democrat run a covfefe joke that week. "Despite the constant negative press covfefe", @realDonaldTrump, 31 May 2017, 12:06 AM EDT 02. Spicer's Non-Denial Press secretary Sean Spicer tells reporters at the 31 May briefing that the president and a small group of people know exactly what he meant. The line becomes its own meme. Covfefe is the moment the leader of a G7 country's typos become an item on the global meme stack within six hours. The episode is one of the clearest illustrations of the new compression: head of state, sleep tweet, mass humor event, all inside a news cycle. Sources • @realDonaldTrump, Twitter post, 31 May 2017, 00:06 EDT • Aaron Blake, The Washington Post, 'Covfefe: What Trump's typo means and why it matters', 31 May 2017 • KnowYourMeme entry, 'Covfefe'
111. 2017-06-20 - Google Maps Parodies. /r/dankmemes in which a person posts a screenshot of the Google Maps directions between two points with humorous, often lewd names.
112. 2017-07-03 - Le differenze linguistiche. Silvia Baldissera, vincitrice del premio "Irma Battistuzzi"
113. 2017-10-05 - Did This Toy Predict Polish Jerry?
114. 2017-10-10 - Oops! All Berries Box Parodies. ” refered to a series of photoshopped images of the breakfast cereal Cap’n Crunch: Oops All Berries. In the meme, the “berries” part of the image is edited and replaced with something sarcastic in nature.
115. 2017-12-05 - Kim Jong-un Watching Television
116. 2017-12-21 - Google Translate Sings: The Beatles. CHECK OUT MY MUSIC CHANNEL: SUPPORT: Thank you to the WONDERFUL people who submitted their translations!! AnonymousRandomBeing, r adbkl, Christopher Blackwell-Brandt (Christopher Blackwell), ShyScythe, Martin Canine, Niklas Universe, Eric Johnson, Suspicious Windmills, Joseph Kleeman (kitnal)
117. 2018-01-06 - Kids Exercise - Kids Workout At Home. This short and easy workout is suitable for kids who need to exercise at home or in the gym.
118. 2018-01-15 - cockwaffle
119. 2018-01-30 - Parallel Lines. Provided to YouTube by DistroKid Parallel Lines · All We Hold · Gijs-Jan Witkamp · Gijs-Jan Witkamp
120. 2018-03-23 - BEST Free Website Builder - My Top Recommendations
121. 2018-03-27 - You can only save one - who do you choose? - Doug MacKay
122. 2018-05-16 - no smoking doesn't effect my baby 🤥. 🤥.
123. 2018-08-30 - The World If. "The world if X" had happened.
124. 2018-09-19 - Lenny Kravitz's Giant Scarf
125. 2019-01-30 - Funny Master’s Blessing Memes. Use code meme for an Extra 5% discount ($49+)! Use code memes for an Extra 10% discount ($99+)! *These Memes* Compilation(I don't know how these are called lol)
126. 2019-04-04 - Kurzgesagt Explosion. "What If We Detonated All Nuclear Bombs at Once?" These image are typically object-labeled with a bird as the meme's subject and the explosion as the subject's weakness.
127. 2019-04-11 - According To My Calculations... [SFM]. Issa j o k e Credit:
128. 2019-06-20 - We Time Traveled to the Year 2224
129. 2019-07-07 - KADENANG GINTO DANIELA MONDRAGON MEMES GOES TRAVEL KOREA,HK,and,SINGAPORE.
130. 2019-08-13 - Blobo | IED Milano
131. 2019-08-13 - Europes Strongest Man 2015 Stones 2 Dimitar Savatinov
132. 2019-08-15 - NiX - Regretful Hulk
133. 2019-08-29 - I just wanna GRILL for God's sake!!!. !!!
134. 2019-09-04 - Chad Brock - Yes! (Video). )
135. 2019-09-18 - "But doctor, I am Pagliacci" | Watchmen | 2009
136. 2019-10-03 - do you want to see the most illegal thing i own?
137. 2019-10-05 - He screams, for he does not know
138. 2019-10-10 - I'm the Joker Baby
139. 2019-10-29 - 🚨Feds Officially Admit Epstein Didn’t Kill Himself
140. 2019-10-30 - I Made a Self-Aware Robot
141. 2019-10-30 - Hey so um there's this girl and um
142. 2019-11-01 - College Majors be like...
143. 2019-11-03 - Rick and Morty 20 minutes of adventure hilarious😂. 😂
144. 2019-11-03 - The Risk I Took Was Calculated
145. 2019-11-04 - funny frog literally commits arson. at the beginning funny frog kinda forgot his lines and couldn't speak so don't mind the ear-piercing silence petitiob: change.org/p/help-funny-frog-get-a-better-life
146. 2019-11-07 - "I Found A Picture Of My Mother In A 300 Year Old Book" | Creepypasta | Scary Story
147. 2019-11-07 - NiX - Elmo Choosing Cocaine
148. 2019-11-07 - Evolution of Mai Shiranui's Super Moves (1992-2024). )
149. 2019-11-13 - Waylon Smithers frightened by strippers
150. 2019-11-14 - Read nigga, read
151. 2019-11-20 - Yodab
152. 2019-11-21 - Ayo the pizza here (Original meme). ).
153. 2019-11-26 - Reality Check: "Ancestry.com Says I'm Scottish!!!". !!!"
154. 2019-12-04 - Are You In the Right Headspace? | Shaun T | Trust and Believe Podcast
155. 2019-12-23 - Rey Who?
156. 2020-01-15 - A tuba lands on a girl’s head
157. 2020-01-17 - The Council Will Decide Your Fate
158. 2020-01-17 - The Council Will Decide Your Fate
159. 2020-01-20 - the queen has breached containment
160. 2020-01-22 - blin cat. Edit 9/10/17: why does this video have 20k views I just ripped it off a webm thread on /k/ Edit 2/11/18: Please check out the original uploader & upload, this isn't my vid ( I shamelessly stole it from a webm thread and uploaded it after not seeing it anywhere, turns out the original title is in russian so it never turned up in any of my searches.)
161. 2020-01-28 - Wiz Khalifa - See You Again ft. Charlie Puth [Official Video] Furious 7 Soundtrack
162. 2020-02-05 - Borgore Ft. Princess Vitarah - Choke Me
163. 2020-02-12 - kid apollo - hold fire (live). ) · 2:29
164. 2020-02-12 - Mobility Science - Science that airlift 12 Elephant 2000 lbs. 10:14
165. 2020-02-14 - You Get What You f***ing Deserve | Joker | Ultra HD. 4:57
166. 2020-02-19 - Anonymous Asexual. 6:02
167. 2020-02-19 - Bulldog Creates a Dust Storm. 0:44
168. 2020-02-21 - Dog smothers defiant owner. 0:54
169. 2020-02-24 - 8 Behind the Scenes Facts about How THE GRINCH Stole Christmas (Jim Carrey). ) · 3:59
170. 2020-03-02 - Hold Birb Gentle Like Hamburger
171. 2020-03-02 - Hold Gentle Like Hamburger. 0:04
172. 2020-03-03 - The Terrible World-building Of Harry Potter Maps. 10:56
173. 2020-03-09 - Owl City - Shooting Star. 4:08
174. 2020-03-09 - NiX - Baby Beats Computer At Chess. 3:41
175. 2020-03-13 - Gary Spivey, Psychic, Medium and Spiritual Healer. Meet him!. ! · 6:01
176. 2020-03-15 - My Ancestor:). )" refers to a series of exploitable images image macros depicting a character of a designated ethnicity, species, time period or group looking up towards another character (usually a bust, a sarcophagus or a statue) that does not resemble him/her/it at all, and proudly thinking "My Ancestor:)." Though initially used for race-related jokes, the format evolved to include more parody and nonsensical edits.
177. 2020-03-17 - I’m in a good place right now. Not emotionally, I’m just in Amsterdam.. 1:06
178. 2020-03-17 - money printer go brrr 1080p. couldn't find the hd version
179. 2020-04-08 - The Undertaker returns to attack AJ Styles: WWE Elimination Chamber 2020. 0:48
180. 2020-04-09 - Dolphins and fish: nature moves into spaces left empty by Italian coronavirus quarantine. 1:30
181. 2020-04-10 - CÓMO NO HACER UN COMIC: EL ORIGEN DE NEW GUY. 8:42
182. 2020-04-13 - Woman Served Legal Papers by Man in His Underwear? | Part 1. 3:39
183. 2020-04-17 - T-REX. 4:57
184. 2020-04-20 - Vin Diesel Debuts Dad Bod in Miami. 0:48
185. 2020-04-21 - Gabrielle Union and Her 6-Year-Old Daughter Kaavia Interview Each Other | PEOPLE. 11:06
186. 2020-04-28 - Andy's Birthday Presents HD | Toy Story (1995) | Disney Pixar Studios. 0:31
187. 2020-05-04 - feel like pure shit i just want her back x. 34:10
188. 2020-05-05 - NO I DON'T WANNA BE BREAD. 0:06
189. 2020-05-05 - Glen Powell Destroys Hunters Scene | THE RUNNING MAN (2025) Movie CLIP HD. 7:00
190. 2020-05-10 - 4 Tips to Steam and Froth The Perfect milk for Latte Art. 2:39
191. 2020-05-11 - It smell like bitch in here 😂. 😂 · 1:01
192. 2020-05-12 - Space Marine 2 Defend The Banner Scene - Warhammer 40K. 6:22
193. 2020-05-16 - Linkara running 4k 60fps. 0:05
194. 2020-05-21 - Miko Iino cute blushing after being complimented. 0:36
195. 2020-06-02 - GRAMMYS 2000 FASHION ROAST (society has progressed past the need for the j lo versace dress). ) · 32:36
196. 2020-06-09 - Eric Andre Show - Cop Clip. 0:38
197. 2020-06-25 - Is Dad Winning. 0:32
198. 2020-06-30 - BOOM BOOM FIGHTERS & COOKAH P - I Know a Spot (Visualizer). ) · 2:39
199. 2020-07-09 - actually, quantum mechanics forbids this. 0:06
200. 2020-07-30 - Boneless Pizza | Baku Season 1. 1:03
201. 2020-07-31 - fellas.. if your girl. 0:28
202. 2020-08-02 - You were LIED TO about the "Triggered Feminist" meme lady. 6:17
203. 2020-08-11 - you see Ivan
204. 2020-08-18 - Your Honor... League of Legends.
205. 2020-08-25 - I'm fuckin ballin
206. 2020-09-11 - Imagine Your Card Declines Skit ||MHA x y/n||. 2:43
207. 2020-09-14 - My day be so fine then boom:(. ( · 0:09
208. 2020-09-14 - Crazy Eyes!. ! · 1:18
209. 2020-09-17 - I think you’re the nicest guy I’ve ever dated. 0:04
210. 2020-09-23 - BIG TRAINS in Action #1 | Lots of Trains Pass By | Video for Kids | James Coffey. 4:10
211. 2020-09-24 - They defended Nick Fuentes. Then he went after them.. 11:57
212. 2020-09-28 - DO YOU TRUST ME? WITH EVERY CELL IN MY BODY CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTH ORIGINAL SCENE. 0:24
213. 2020-10-07 - Rocky - I Didn't Hear No Bell!. ! · 1:23
214. 2020-10-20 - Honk Honk / Chen Edits. “Honk Honk” is a nickname given to a 4koma (4-pane) vertical comic strip featuring the Touhou Project character Chen riding a bike, which refers to a sound effect a bike horn made in the strip. The comic has inspired a series of edits and parodies after being shared to 4chan during 2008.
215. 2020-10-20 - Boku No Hero Academia - Ochako Uraraka Pukes Rainbows. 0:16
216. 2020-10-29 - Whore. 2:15
217. 2020-11-09 - Cat Vibing To Ievan Polkka (Official Video HD) Cat Vibing To Music | Cat Vibing Meme. 2:55
218. 2020-12-07 - pop pop cat. 0:26
219. 2020-12-07 - TIMMY, TANYA, NO! | OH GOD NO! [Sylvester's Slaughter] - FNF Cartoonmania Cover - WHYT Series Pt. 1. 3:21
220. 2020-12-10 - CityAlight - Yet Not I But Through Christ In Me (Live). ) · 5:32
221. 2020-12-21 - Astral Projection - S1 (Advanced) - Leaving Your Body (Outer Body Experience). ) · 120:04
222. 2020-12-22 - I Love The New Black Wojaks. 11:42
223. 2021-01-12 - Ellen DeGeneres tears up receiving Medal of Freedom. 1:17
224. 2021-02-12 - Goatee Beard Styles: Circle Beard | Gillette STYLER. 2:30
225. 2021-02-27 - babey. 1:05
226. 2021-03-05 - Where Banana Meme (Origin). ) · 0:54
227. 2021-04-29 - JFK Goes, Er, Blanky Mode. 0:03
228. 2021-04-29 - Trollge: "Dead Mall" Incident. 3:00
229. 2021-04-29 - (Oh man, it's our idiot!) Kai and Tsubasa funny moments. 7:16
230. 2021-05-02 - Logan Paul KSI and White Egyptian Pharaoh - Hyperborea Agartha Edit meme. 0:16
231. 2021-05-04 - Me petting my cat before the nuclear blast. 0:12
232. 2021-05-05 - He- Here's your receipt sir! Will there be anything else?. 0:09
233. 2021-05-07 - THERE ARE [federal agents] OUTSIDE [my house]. 0:06
234. 2021-05-31 - That's On Me, I Set The Bar Too Low | Meme Origin | Brooklyn Nine-Nine S04E04 (x New Girl). ) · 0:51
235. 2021-06-02 - Chris Stapleton & Celine Dion - Thank God for Another Day Old ( Powerful Worship Song Lyric 2026 ). ) · 6:19
236. 2021-06-02 - For the Better, Right?. " also known as the Anakin and Padme 4-Panel and Clueless Padme, is an exploitable image macro format based on screenshots from the 2002 film Star Wars: Episode II, Attack of the Clones. The meme format is arranged in a common four-panel layout, with the setup, response and punchline in the following panels. Differing from other four-panel memes, the punchline and setup are combined in the first panel, with the other panels being auxiliary.
237. 2021-06-03 - Time Travel in Fiction Rundown. 8:04
238. 2021-06-11 - They call me 007. 0:09
239. 2021 - What a Week, Huh?. 0:05
240. 2021 - Do I amuse you?. 0:06
241. 2021-06-21 - spongebob narrator in heart locket gif. 0:05
242. 2021-06-28 - How the U.S. Found Saddam Hussein. 21:16
243. 2021-07-05 - Levitating Pizza / Pizzakinesis
244. 2021-07-06 - Its Totally Okay To Let Your Goofy Side Shine Through ✨ Reloaded. 1:42
245. 2021-07-21 - F1nn5ter: E-Girl Pipeline [Animated]. 0:11
246. 2021-07-21 - the unmatched power of the sun. 0:16
247. 2021-07-23 - My new favorite "NIPPLE DJENT" Easycore band right now! ** MUST LISTEN!. ! · 5:10
248. 2021-07-31 - You have no good car ideas. 0:12
249. 2021-09-13 - If You Wear Fragrances But Never Get Compliments, Watch This. 5:06
250. 2021-09-14 - Best Mime Ever Group 5| Incredible India | Classic HD. 5:26
251. 2021-09-17 - The Essex Boys Murder Location. 10:31
252. 2021-10-04 - Watchmen - Rorschach's Death
253. 2021-10-27 - The REAL REASON You Can't "Just Screenshot An NFT" // Meme Theory #20. 3:34
254. 2021-10-29 - Netflix: Are you still watching. Someone’s Daughter. 0:10
255. 2021-10-29 - Walter And Jesse's First Cook | Breaking Bad (S01E01). ) · 3:13
256. 2021-11-03 - Luke, Did I Ever Tell You About Ahsoka Tano?. 1:20
257. 2021-11-03 - brother may I ponder the orb. 7:11
258. 2021-11-05 - Dune: Part Two - Riding the Sandworm- (HDR - 4K - 5.1). ) · 4:59
259. 2021-11-08 - sorry for being a man. 0:08
260. 2021-11-19 - Keke "Kuku" Tang Speaks Chinese (唐可可中国語を話す). (唐可可中国語を話す)
261. 2022-01-04 - peter and ned being a comedic duo. 3:16
262. 2022-01-10 - Dutch Conversation for Beginners | 40 Dutch Phrases to Know. 11:24
263. 2022-01-11 - Cristiano Ronaldo drinking meme HD (full screen). ) · 0:08
264. 2022-01-11 - I Built Dr. Octopus Arms! - Super Strength!!. !! · 22:20
265. 2022-01-12 - Feddy. 0:13
266. 2022-01-18 - Look, Pim... (Smiling Friends Green Screen). ) · 0:10
267. 2022-01-19 - 7L & Esoteric - "Murder-Death-Kill" (feat. Celph Titled) [Official Audio]. 3:03
268. 2022-01-24 - Why Is Megamind Asking “No B*tches?”. ” · 2:21
269. 2022-01-25 - The mysterious disease that affects millions of people worldwide | DW Documentary. 42:26
270. 2022-01-28 - Something Went Terribly Wrong. 0:41
271. 2022-04-04 - Fearless Women Rescue Cat from Rooftop Edge🙏. 🙏 · 1:07
272. 2022-05-02 - White Man Has Been Here. "White man has been here," prompting the other to ask, "How can you tell?" with the third speech bubble and what's found in the snow replaced with a pop culture reference stereotypical of white people. The original image is a painting that was made in 2000 while the template was made in late 2017.
273. 2022-06-27 - Everything Reminds Me Of Her / Him. 1988 film The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! and became the subject of memes around 2017.
274. 2022-09-01 - A Secret Third Thing. "A Secret, More Complex Third Thing," is a catchphrase and phrasal template popularized on Twitter in the summer of 2022 with the template, "I am neither X nor Y but a secret third thing."
275. 2022-09-14 - Objects In The Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear. Objects In Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear refers to an exploitable illustration of a car’s right rearview mirror featuring the text “Objects in mirror are closer than they appear.” What is written in the mirror is usually a humorous reference to something imminent.
276. 2022-09-26 - Sorry For X, It Will Happen Again
277. 2022-10-19 - Guy Pointing At Himself In The Mirror. Guy Pointing To Himself In The Mirror is a WikiHow image macro of a man looking stern while pointing to himself in the mirror. The image originated from a WikiHow article titled "How To Resist Sexual Temptation," although the image has since been removed and the article has been renamed to "How To Control Sexual Urges." The image macro is used as a meme that signifies reassuring or hyping oneself up.
278. 2022-11-01 - Heidi Klum's Worm Costume. 's 2022 Halloween costume that was a giant worm suit. The creepy, hyper-realistic costume was photographed on the red carpet of Klum's Hallowe'en Party in October 2022 and soon landed on Twitter where it was paired with various captions in subsequent memes. Additionally, the costume caused a resurgence in references to the Would You Still Love Me If I Was A Worm? meme.
279. 2022-12-28 - Hi! My Name Is Jason / Remembering People's Names. Hi! My Name Is Jason refers to a viral webcomic titled "Remembering People's Names" by artist The Jenkins where a man named Jason introduces himself to another man who instantly forgets his name, as his brain prioritizes a memory about the specific order of a deck of cards from 2012. The comic was posted online in May 2020 and became a viral exploitable format over the following years, with users replacing the text in the comic to reference specific fandoms and memories.
280. 2023-01-02 - 550 ÷ 2 = 225. 550/2 refers to a series of math memes, mostly image macros, expressing shock that 550 divided by 2 does not equal 225, but instead equals 275. Memes about the equation started spreading on Vietnamese social media as early as 2019 and went viral on English-speaking social media in late 2022. The equation is similar to 33 + 77 = 100, which became the subject of similar memes in early 2022.
281. 2023-02-09 - You Think Coming Out As Gay Is Hard? Try Telling People X. "you think coming out as gay is hard? Try telling people X. See how much acceptance you get from the tolerant left," with "X" being recaptioned by something ironically more difficult than coming out as gay. The phrase was first posted to Whisper in 2017 and inspired variations over the following years.
282. 2023-03-24 - There Is No Hoes Here, You're Going To Die. 's Clues in a dangerous location under the phrasal template "There is no hoes here, it's X you're going to die," X being the location. The meme became popularized throughout 2021 on sites including Instagram and Reddit.
283. 2023-03-28 - Moushley. Ashley Graham as A Mouse is a Twitter fan art trend that draws Resident Evil 4 Remake character Ashley Graham as a tiny mouse. The mouse version of Ashley Graham has inspired several works of fan art in less than a week since its inception.
284. 2023-03-29 - The Greatest Thread in the History of Forums, Locked by a Moderator After 12,239 Pages of Heated Debate. Is Wario a Libertarian? is a phrasal template inspired by a tweet from Twitter user Dril that reads, "'Is Wario A Libertarian', the greatest thread in the history of forums, locked by a moderator after 12,239 pages of heated debate," [sic]. The tweet has become one of the most prevalently referenced Dril tweets on the platform, as posters have used it in memes that replace "Is Wario a Libertarian?" with a similarly trivial question.
285. 2023-04-20 - Beetlejuice "What Are You Doing?" Just Hanging Around. "What are you doing?" to which he replies, "Nothing… Me? Just hanging around." The original video shows Beetlejuice in a hotel room talking about why he went off the grid and it was posted to Instagram in late 2021 by his manager Robert Rooney (@bobbyrooney175). In early 2023, the video became a greenscreen template in video memes on TikTok, many of which used a CapCut template. The video was used to portray humorous ignorance about being caught in a given scenario.
286. 2023-05-04 - Goblin Keeshee Mischief. Here’s a compilation of silly little animations of a cryptid version of Keeshee, which a lot of people seem to like Some of these date back to 2020 I believe. If you’d like to see more of my content, please subscribe or go to the links down below ⬇️ Find me here: Wanna help support what I do?:
287. 2023-07-25 - Oppenheimer Smile / Oppenheimer If He Invented Something Fun. Oppenheimer Smile or Oppenheimer If He Invented Something Fun refers to a series of memes, including image macros, where an image of Cillian Murphy playing Oppenheimer edited to show him smiling is paried with quotes using the phrasal template "Oppenheimer if he invented X," "X" being something that is considered fun or enjoyable as opposed to the atomic bomb. The meme became popularized on Twitter in late 2023 and gained viral spread on platforms like Facebook and Instagram.
288. 2023-10-23 - Pomni Dread Zoom-In. 2023.
289. 2023-11-29 - Can I try rizzing you up?
290. 2023-12-12 - Me Genuinely Tweaking. 's used to caption videos of animals, characters and people freaking out to symbolize a scenario that would cause someone to lose their cool. The meme trended on TikTok in 2023, with most of the memes using the Animatronic Tweaking video, a video of a horse neighing and an animation of a man laughing in a bathroom.
291. 2024-01-05 - Mr. Bill Collector. Provided to YouTube by The Orchard Enterprises Mr. Bill Collector · Bone Thugs-n-Harmony
292. 2024-04-10 - Dink My Oiter. "dink my oiter," "dink" and "oiter" being a purposeful misspelling of "drink" and "water." The meme was originally posted to Tumblr in March 2022 and inspired redraws and further image macros using misspelled captions over similar images of animals, often cats, drinking or eating.
293. 2024-04-15 - Cocky Want Boing Boing. / X user Dan Hentschel in April 2024 in which he's photoshopped to look like an old bald man who's shirtless at the beach, captioned, "At the beach, Where the hoes at? Cocky want boing boing!" The tweet inspired a slew of redraws and exploitable usage similar to other memes inspired by Hentschel's posts like My Students Are All Morons and Virtual Sin Forgiveness.
294. 2024-05-22 - Can't Let Gang Know I Fw This / Gotta Let Gang Know I Fw This. Can't Let Gang Know I Fw This refers to a catchphrase meme often used in image macros featuring music, TV shows or movies that someone secretly is fond of. The meme was popularized on TikTok in early April 2024, inspiring the reverse phrase Gotta Let Gang Know I Fw This in which people shared things they like and want their friends to know about.
295. 2024-05-28 - Please Don't Make Me Get a Job!!!!!!!!. !!!!!!!! refers to a series of image macros that use the catchphrase "Please don't make me get a job" (with multiple exclamation points) to caption a photo of an objectively pathetic activity that is most often a video game and food or beverage, the combination of which infers that the person is an immature adult. The original iteration used a photo of Ben and Jerry's "core" ice cream and the Zelda game Ocarina of Time 3D on a Nintendo 3DS.
296. 2024-08-21 - Are They Lovers? Worse.. Akatsuki No Yona of the Dusk Till Dawn. Business Inquiries: ushyy.biz@gmail.com
297. 2024-11-25 - Big Brother is Watching. ’s not a thought crime… yet.
298. 2024-12-12 - Divine Light Severed. 0:07
299. 2025-01-27 - potato jeremys
300. 2025-05-06 - Rhymes with Grug. Since we’re on the subject, I personally believe The Croods is one of the best animated movies ever. I’m glad it’s getting more recognition.

…and 3,518 more moments.