Two thousand seventeen, the year: Will it be better than its predecessor, which was full of dead celebrities, dead apes, and a presidential election that never seemed to end (until it did)? Maybe! All we can really say for now is that it will be full of memes, and some of them will be good, provoking a laugh or capturing some current of emotion within the culture. Here’s our running list of the best memes of the year.
The best memes of 2017: January
1. Saltbae
Turkish restaurateur Nusret Gökçe captured the public’s imagination with an Instagram video that showed him applying salt to a steak like it was some kind of shimmering fairy dust. The hot butcher was soon dubbed “salt bae,” and he used his fame to expand his business into Britain and the U.S.
The saltbae “sprinkling” image can be used to indicate that you’re either adding a little extra flair to something, or you’re completely overdoing it.
2. Italian Memes
x2k284/Reddit
Memesters spent January obsessed with the idea that everyone and everything in Italy is made of pizza, pasta, and meatballs. It all started with joke about a Google Image search for “Italian navy” that just returned images of floating pizzas, and it escalated into the idea that Italy’s planes have pizza wings, their aircraft carriers are pizza peels, and their bombs are meatballs raining from the sky.
This, of course, meshed will with the existing “colorized historical images” meme, and created an alternate history where part of World War II was fought by Italian food. That’s a spicy meme-ball.
3. Lamb Sauce
Celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay entered the pantheon of memes thanks to a decade-old clip from Hell’s Kitchen where he shouts at his team, “Where is the lamb sauce?!” Someone distorted the photo, added glowing red laser eyes and the caption “Lamb sauce: Located,” and the rest is meme history.
Lamb Sauce is one of those total non-sequitur memes that’s funny for its sheer weirdness. Because it barely means anything, it can be used in any context, and that’s what makes it one of the year’s new classics.
4. I Have Never Been to Prague
Did President Donald Trump‘s special counsel, Michael Cohen, meet with Russian officials in Prague in August 2016? Probably not, but the way Cohen tried to clear himself on Twitter was so ridiculous that it turned into a meme.
“I have never been to Prague in my life,” he tweeted, with a photo of the front of his passport. People found it bizarre that he would show a photo that proves nothing—the stamps are on the inside, bro—and immediately began mocking him.
It was the first good political meme of the year.
5. Brother May I Have Some Öats
This meme started with an October 2016 tweet, but it didn’t come into its own until 2017. When markyannna posted a painting of two pigs and captioned it with one asking the other “bröther may i have some öats,” some found it extremely funny, but no one knew it would become a big deal on 4chan.
Throughout January, posters on 4chan were engaged in “oatposting,” spamming boards with variations on “bröther may i have some öats” and Photoshopping the pigs into various images.
Just as oatposting died down on 4chan, it made the leap to Reddit, and oats memes went mainstream.
What’s the meaning of the pigs and oats? There may not even be one, and that’s what makes it funny.
6. Hollyweed Sign
When a prankster changed L.A.’s iconic Hollywood sign to “Hollyweed,” the internet reacted by posting their owned edited signs, often with the caption “They changed the Hollywood sign again.”
And what did they change it to? Anything and everything.
“The Warriors blew a 3-1 lead.” “Bush did 9/11/.” That System of a Down album cover. The script of Bee Movie and the first verse of Smash Mouth’s “All Star.” The longer they got, the funnier they got. The real-life sign has been changed back, but we’ll never look at it the same way again.
7. Trump’s Executive Order
skinkbaa/reddit
President Donald Trump’s first executive order authorized agencies to stop implementing parts of the Affordable Care Act. It also offered America a blank sheet of paper onto which it could Photoshop whatever the heck it wanted.
And what did America—or at least, it’s internet-dwelling shitlords—want to see? How about an anime ban, a shutdown of derivative meme websites 9gag and iFunny, and an order to deport all furries? Oh, 4chan, you never change.
8. Chancellor Palpatine Memes
For some reason, Revenge of the Sith, the best of the bad Star Wars prequels, became a rich source of memes in January. And no character benefitted more than the nefarious Chancellor Palpatine.
Two of his lines from the film, “I am the Senate!” and “Did you ever hear the tragedy of Darth Plagueis the wise?” became shitposting catchphrases and inspired countless Photoshops. General Grievous’ collection of lightsabers and Obi Wan Kenobi’s higher ground in his duel with Anakin also became memes, but Palpatine proved to be the true winner of the Episode III resurgence.
The best memes of 2017: February
9. Cash Me Ousside, how bow Dah?
Teenage Dr. Phil guest Danielle Bregoli proudly admitted to stealing cars and hitting her mom, and when the show’s audience challenged her on it, she challenged them back: “Cash me ousside, how bow dah?”
You’re forgiven if you need some explanation, because Dr. Phil did, too. It’s “Catch me outside, how about that?”—in other words, let’s go outside and fight about it. Bregoli’s unintelligible accent—she says it comes from “the street”—made her fodder for one of the biggest memes of late January and early February.
If you object to a situation, or to someone’s behavior, just tell ‘em to cash you ousside.
10. Roll Safe
Roll Safe originated in Kayode Ewumi’s 2015 webseries “Hood Documentary,” as the type of streetwise London guy who acts like he knows everything. The meme version of the character, developed by Black Twitter in February, focuses on one frame of Ewumi pointing knowingly at his own head. Roll Safe has it all figured out, but he also has it all wrong.
“If I don’t check my bank balance, I can’t be broke” and “you can’t disappoint your family if you’ve never made them proud in the first place,” are typical Roll Safe sentiments. Even if you instantly recognize that his logic doesn’t hold up, you might be able to relate to the feeling behind it: there has to be some clever way out of our dismal failures, right? The meme broke in late January but really hit its stride in February.
11. Trash Dove
Trash Dove, a cute purple pigeon, is a character from an iPhone sticker pack by designer Syd Weiler. It’s also a nonsensical bit of Facebook spam that flooded the comment sections of popular pages throughout February.
Trash Dove first went viral in Thailand, where it’s apparently part of a sex joke that puns on the Thai word for bird. The practice of spamming the headbanging pigeon quickly made the jump to the U.S., where even the New York Times wasn’t immune from the attack. People started to ask whether it would possible for Facebook to ban Trash Dove altogether.
Dank meme heads on sites like 4chan consider the bird a “cancerous” mainstream meme, and there was even a brief attempt to kill it off by associating it with Nazis and the white supremacist alt-right. Trash Dove isn’t the new Pepe the Frog, though. It’s just a bird.
READ MORE:
- 34 surprising exceptions to Rule 34
- The unbearable dankness of memes
- Donald Trump memes are making the internet great again
- On Shitposting
12. White Guy Blinking
When Drew Scanlon, of the video game site Giant Bomb, reacted on video to one of his friends making a dumb joke, he had no idea he was launching the blink heard ‘round the world. The video is from 2013, but in February 2017, a couple seconds of Drew’s bemused blinking has turned into one of the most popular reaction GIFs on Twitter.
If you need to express surprise, confusion, or bewilderment at something, Drew’s your guy—your blinking white guy.
13. Whomst
“Whom” sounds smarter and more formal than “who,” even though many people don’t use it correctly. And if is whom is smart, then “whomst” has to be really smart, right? And forget about whomst’d and whomst’dn’tve; they’re for geniuses only.
The rise of “whomst” on Reddit in early February also helped popularize a new meme format, a grid of three or more glowing brains, signifying increasing excitement about the subjects next to them.
“Whom” is meh. “Whomst’d” is where you want to be.
Best memes of 2017: March
14. Mike Pence Is Race Bannon
Vice President Mike Pence bears a strong resemblance to secret agent Race Bannon from the classic cartoon Jonny Quest, a fact that memers are using to put Pence into all kinds of adventurous situations. And, given Pence’s anti-LGBTQ positions and his alleged support for “conversion therapy,” they’re also using it to make edgy jokes about Pence plotting against gay people. Are these memes meant to mock Pence or celebrate him? Given the pro-Trump bent of many meme communities, it can sometimes be hard to tell.
15. I Have a Better Idea
How do everything things get their names? According to the “I have a better idea” meme, someone steals credit for an invention and slaps their own name on it, screwing over the original inventor. These are sometimes called “Bill and Phil” memes, due to the canonical version of the joke:
What should we call this giant advertising board?
— Borscht the T is silent (@InternetHippo) April 6, 2015
PHIL: A philboard
BILL: I have a better idea
There’s even an entire subreddit, called r/billandphil, dedicated to posting new variations on this format for bad puns.
16. Why Not Visit? (Biomemes)
The “Why Not Visit?” meme is part of the internet’s grand tradition of giving silly names to everyday things—calling dogs “doge” or fire ants “spicy boys”—but applied to the flora and fauna of specific environments. Why not visit the ocean? We got spikes, scrundls, and blobl blobl!
These grids of six weird animals, which popped up all over Reddit’s r/me_irl in mid-March, were later named “biomemes,” a clever portmanteau of “biome” and meme.
17. Student Athlete Memes
Student athletes never stop their grind. But more importantly, they never stop documenting their grind on social media, usually with tons of emoji. Student athlete memes mock these kids’ mistaken conviction that they’re working so much harder than the rest of the world, and they were apparently the release valve people on Twitter needed
18. Italian Hand Memes
Following on from February’s Italian Memes trend, where things from Italian history and culture were replaced by pizza, spaghetti, and meatballs, this month’s big Italian meme is “How Italians do things.”
The basic idea is that you replace any hand in a photo with the stereotypical Italian chef hand gesture, fingertips held together as if to say, “That’s-a spicy meatball.”
The meme relies on a totally cultural stereotype, but it’s such a goofy, over-the-top one that it’s still funny—especially because the best ones are pictures of people fumbling through basic tasks with their fingers held together.
https://twitter.com/donny_drama/status/841370322720968705
19. Meryl Streep Finishing Song Lyrics
One of the most fun memes of March 2017 comes from a two-year-old screengrab of Meryl Streep cheering for Debbie Reynolds at the 2015 SAG Awards, which has now been co-opted as “Meryl Streep finishes song lyrics.” Just take the line of any song that you can’t help but finish, slot it into the meme, and you’ve got comedy gold.
Best memes of 2017: April
20. I Had to Grind for This View
“I had to grind for this view” is a meme that’s all about hard work and prosperity but actually makes fun of people who brag about their material wealth on social media. The gorgeous landscapes that people had to “grind for” are all backgrounds from video games like Minecraft.
21. Soundcloud vs. Bandcamp
Soundcloud and Bandcamp are the two biggest online hubs for artists to upload their own music, but they couldn’t be more different: one thrives on hip hop and party music, the other on hipster indie rock. In April, a meme broke out that made fun of the contrast using side-by-side photos of things or people that are metaphorically “Soundcloud” or “Bandcamp.”
These two pics of Donald Glover (a.k.a. Childish Gambino) say it all:
22. Kendrick Lamar’s DAMN. album cover
With the release of DAMN. on April 14, rapper Kendrick Lamar officially inserted himself into the meme pantheon. The photo of a disgruntled K. Dot, with DAMN. in plain serif lettering on top, was instantly iconic online—so much so that people suspected Lamar had made a memeworthy cover on purpose. The possibilities for edits and captions are limitless.
23. The Scroll of Truth
Tate Parker’s “Scroll of Truth” webcomic is all about coming face to face with uncomfortable reality. The main character has been searching for the scroll of truth for a long time, but when he doesn’t like what it tells him, he throws it away. Meme-makers could put any text they wanted on the scroll, which turned it into a Reddit sensation, with everyone applying their own politics to the comic.
24. Your Eyes on Drugs
In 2014, Vice published photos purporting to show what people’s eyes looked like under the effects of various drugs. In April 2017, those eyes became a meme, with people adding their own “drugs” below beer, marijuana, and cocaine. Most of the entries referenced pop culture—especially cartoons—some were totally vulgar, and others referred back to previous memes. Unsurprisingly, the meme popped up around 4/20, the internationally recognized weed holiday.
25. Welcome to Your Tape
https://twitter.com/LeoBlakeCarter/status/853497485360340992
“Welcome to your tape” was a repeated phrase from the hit Netflix show 13 Reasons Why, released in April. The show centered around a teenage girl who had committed suicide and left behind a box of tapes, addressing each person she blamed for her death. In the show, “welcome to your tape” prefaced some very serious, truly horrible accusations. As a meme, it was a way of joking that trivial things make you want to kill yourself.
Hannah Baker: Can I get a milkshake?
McDonald’s: Sorry out machine is broken
Hannah Baker: Welcome to your tape
#13ReasonsWhy— Trending Tweets (@trendy__tweets) April 20, 2017
“Welcome to your tape” was perhaps the most controversial meme of April. The joke about overreacting to small things was kind of funny, but many also felt it made light of suicide and depression.
26. Spotify Playlist Memes
After a woman confessed to her crush by spelling out a note using track names on a Spotify playlist, the streaming music site became the locus of a new meme craze. People all over the internet—but especially on Twitter—were writing their own, mostly jokey Spotify messages. Some of them brought back old memes (like Rickrolling), but others added entirely new jokes to the canon. This playlist about owls was particularly inspired:
Best memes of 2017: May
27. Mocking Spongebob
The latest, and possibly greatest, in a long line of Spongebob Squarepants memes, Mocking Spongebob is a sarcastic response to … well, anything. Using a screengrab from an episode where Spongebob acts like a chicken, it also employs mIxEd CaPiTaLiZaTiOn to repeat someone’s statement back to them in a mocking, sarcastic tone. President Donald Trump has become a favorite target.
28. Trump Touches the Orb
On President Trump’s first trip abroad, he was photographed touching a glowing orb in Saudi Arabia. The sinister lighting and the way Trump posed with Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi made the image an instant meme. Most jokes feigned awe at the orb and set it up as a powerful magical artifact:
This meme will still be funny when the orb controls the global economy and rules us all.
29. Skeleton and Bullet
Taken from the video game Sniper Elite 4, the skeleton and bullet meme is a metaphor for anything ruining something else. The skeleton is the U.K., the bullet is Brexit. The skeleton is Smash Mouth, the bullet is the movie Shrek. Replace with the victim of your choice, and the force that threatens to destroy it.
30. Cracking Open a Cold One With the Boys
A great meme for summer, “cracking open a cold one with the boys” implies all the enjoyment of sharing a refreshing beer with your bros, but its humor is metaphorical. Rather than showing friends opening cold beers, it depicts anything cracking open anything else. You just have to label the boys, the cold one, and the cracking.
If you’re thinking this is a lot like the skeleton and bullet meme, you’re not wrong. Cracking open a cold one with the boys is less about conveying what’s wrong with the world and more about whimsical fun, though.
31. History of the World memes
Bill Wurtz, creator of 2016’s smash-hit viral video “History of Japan,” made waves again in May with his “History of the Entire World (I Guess).” It’s extremely funny, somewhat educational, and an absolute gold mine for meme creators.
Dozens of screenshots from “History of the Entire World” have gone modestly viral, and at 20 minutes long, it has the potential for plenty more jokes. Who’s making this meme so popular? Merchants, probably.
32. Bone Hurting Juice
Bone Hurting Juice first appeared in a 2016 edit of a webcomic strip featuring Winnie the Pooh. Pooh thinks he’s eating honey, but he’s really eating bone hurting juice, a juice that causes your bones to hurt. The joke of the meme (more of an anti-joke, really) is that no such substance exists, but “owww, my bones” is a great punchline.
Underappreciated in its own time, bone hurting juice became a real meme in late April and early May 2017, and it filled up a thriving subreddit with material. Ow, my funnybone!
Best memes of 2017: June
33. Mr. Worldwide
Pitbull, the singer with the larger-than-life moniker “Mr. Worldwide,” became a different kind of icon in June: a meme. The “Mr. Worldwide” meme, which shows Pitbull holding the Earth in one hand, is a wry, self-deprecating joke about people who are definitely not worldly. You can be “Mr. Worldwide” if you know the word “Hola,” eat at Panda Express, or watch anime with subtitles instead of dubbing. That’s all it takes.
34. Understandable, Have a Great Day
Basketball legend Shaquille O’Neal, one of the most popular personalities in the meme world, returns with the “Understandable, Have a Great Day” meme. In the three-panel meme, Shaq pulls up to McDonald’s, only to find out that the “food broke.” “Understandable,” Shaq says, “have a great day.” It’s the latest big entry in the “deep-fried” genre of memes, distinguished by glowing eyes and layer upon layer of distorting Photoshop filters, and the “understandable” punchline, which has been applied to all kinds of other scenarios.
35. One Thicc Bih
The Ditty app sings any text you put into it, and the text everyone was entering in June was “One thicc bih.” It all started with a meme about Spongebob Squarepants character Mr. Krabs: “Mr. Krabs is one thicc bih / let me see that krussy,” and then expanded into songs about other “thicc” characters, including former FBI director James Comey and horror movie icon The Babadook. Good luck getting the song out of your head.
36. Milkshake Duck
A Milkshake Duck is a popular internet personality who inevitably ends up disappointing their audience by expressing unpopular or offensive views. The term was coined in 2016 by Twitter user Pixelated Boat, but it became a meme in June after the creator of a popular video game appeared to align himself with the conservative Gamergate movement and against “social justice.” Milkshake Duck became enough of a Thing that even the Oxford Dictionaries acknowledged it.
37. The Floor Is …
The internet resurgence of the childhood game “the floor is lava“—where the object is to avoid stepping on the floor at all costs—has led to a versatile meme where the floor can be anything. Each panel features a character high above the floor, which represents whatever they don’t like or can’t attain. The most common version features a guy jumping off a wall and doing the splits in the air, but he’s sometimes replaced with other characters. An alternate version, where the floor is something good, shows someone pressed against the ground or trapped in a hole.
38. Gay Babadook
When horror flick The Babadook was accidentally filed under “LGBT movies” on Netflix, people on Tumblr decided to take the classification and run with it, declaring the title character a new gay icon. There’s nothing to suggest the Babadook is queer—it’s kind of a physical representation of anger and sadness—but there’s nothing to say it’s not, either. And because June is Pride Month, it was the perfect time for the “B” in LGBT to stand for “Babadook.”
Best 2017 memes: July
39. Boneless Pizza
Pizza doesn’t generally have bones on it, but that didn’t stop YouTuber Sethical from ordering “Boneless Pizza” in a prank that reverberated through the meme internet. “Boneless Pizza” became a video series and spawned several catchphrases, including “deadass,” “lemme get uhhhh” and “swear on Yeezy.”
40. CNN Blackmail
In June, meme fans on Reddit went to war with news network CNN after accusations that CNN had blackmailed the creator of a pro-Donald-Trump meme. The wide-ranging meme war insulted CNN in every format imaginable, including classics like “Who would win?” and Drake memes. Never cross memers; their arsenal of propaganda is extremely deep.
41. I’m The Sheriff
A meme born on Twitter, “I’m the sheriff” uses emoji art to create themed characters. They’re all the “sheriff” of something, whether it’s vegetables, socialism, cats, dogs, copyright… or even the sheriff of sheriffs. Twitter doesn’t always lend itself to visually creative memes, but emoji was a natural fit, and once the first sheriff showed up, the game of creating new ones became unstoppable.
Best 2017 memes: August
42. Crash Bandicoot’s “Woah!”
The reboot of the classic game franchise Crash Bandicoot ended up making a meme out of a streamer who shouted “Woah!” whenever Crash jumped. “Woah!” has now been mashed up with every meme-y song or video you can think of, and it’s amazing.
43. Right in Front of My Salad
This one comes from a gay porn clip starring a woman who ends up unexpectedly watching two men have sex while she eats. “Seriously? Right in front of my salad?!” has now become a general catchphrase used to express shock or disgust. The woman, a model named Nikki V., has become a meme star as a result of her viral performance.
44. Distracted Boyfriend
The meme that ruled August was Distracted Boyfriend, a stock photo showing a man walking with one girl while turning to check out another. It spoke to the fickleness and distractibility rampant in contemporary online culture, and people loved it. The photographer and the models were shocked that their goofy stock image had become a meme, though.
45. Mr. Incredible Has Time
The dad from The Incredibles has time for everything, whether it’s stopping a robbery or checking out someone’s sweet Bionicle collection. A screengrab of Mr. Incredible saying “I’ve got time” became a meme in August, sometimes with the caption edited down to form a new punchline.
46. Looking For
“Looking for” is a new form of Twitter meme that uses the “radio button” emoji to set up a joke. It plays on the typical dating site survey format, “I am a [man], looking for a [woman],” but expands it with additional options, including one or more punchlines.
Best 2017 memes: September
47. Rick and Morty’s ‘20 Minutes Adventure’
Rick and Morty, perhaps the most important animated series on television today, had been surprisingly resistant to mainstream memes until September when “20 Minutes Adventure” broke through. Rick promised his grandson Morty a 20-minute adventure through a portal, but it turned into a six-day nightmare. The screengrab of that moment is now a meme that represents any quagmire that took longer and turned out worse than expected.
48. Elf on the Shelf rhyming memes
You’ve heard of Elf on the Shelf, the creepy Christmas toy, but have you heard of the Elf on the Shelf rhyming meme? This meme is a game of putting something on something else and making sure they both rhyme. Shrek on the Deck and Waluigi on the Squeegee were two good early examples. Due to its simplicity and one-joke nature, the meme burned brightly but flamed out at the beginning of the month.
49. Expanding Heart
Expanding Heart is a meme all about what makes your heart beats faster. It’s a positive, wholesome answer to the Expanding Brain meme, which has been used to sarcastically describe things as smart. By contrast, memers are using Expanding Heart to describe the love of a parent or significant other. It can also apply to things that literally make the heart beat faster, like exercise or terror, but it’s mostly very sweet.
50. Bear Grylls: Adapt, Improvise, Overcome
Bear Grylls, the outdoorsman who famously starred in a 2010 meme about drinking his own urine, made a comeback in September as the face of adapting, improvising, and overcoming. This reusable image is perfect for describing any hilarious problem solved by an on-the-fly solution.
51. Omae wa mou shindeiru (You are already dead)
A catchphrase from the anime Fist of the North Star, “omae wa mou shindeiru” means “you are already dead.” In the show, it’s used by the protagonist just before opponents explode from his powerful combat techniques. In meme form, it’s used to mark trends or jokes that are “dead” or “over,” and it’s also become part of many surreal YouTube remixes.
52. Monkey getting a haircut
What’s the meaning of a monkey getting a haircut? Well, who said it had to mean anything? It’s weird, it’s cute, and it was Photoshopped into just about every situation imaginable in late September.
Best 2017 memes: October
53. Pretentious Rick and Morty fans
Rick and Morty is a smart cartoon, but its fans have a reputation for acting like its jokes are literally rocket science and for identifying a little too strongly with genius main character Rick. “To be fair,” a mocking internet catchphrase goes, “you have to have a pretty high IQ to appreciate Rick and Morty.” After fans of the show became enraged at McDonald’s for failing to stock enough of the Szechuan dipping sauce Rick likes, the stereotype of the “bad fan” only grew more prominent.
54. First of all …
Coming straight out of Black Twitter, the “first of all” Twitter meme provides a perfect way to correct someone and shut them down in the same stroke. It also implies that there’s SO much more you could say, but you’re restraining yourself because you’re a civil person and Twitter has a character limit. The phrase is surprisingly versatile: You can even “first of all” yourself to make a self-deprecating joke.
55. Young Sheldon memes
Young Sheldon, the Big Bang Theory spinoff show that launched in September, has been absolutely lambasted online since its first episode. Most of the Young Sheldon memes revolve around the child genius saying something insufferable and provoking his family to physical violence (or even murder). Some people really don’t like this show, but there’s nothing they can do: It’s inevitably going to be a hit.
56. Bella Hadid’s “Homeboy can get it”
https://twitter.com/zekNcashe/status/916027985219768321
Supermodel Bella Hadid’s unnatural use of slang while sneaker shopping for a Complex video has given rise to two very catchy phrases: “It’s quiet for him” and “homeboy can get it.” Which one applies depends on which shoes homeboy comes through in. As you might expect, a lot of the jokes around this involved pictures of hideous shoes.
57. Man’s Not Hot
me: gently adds fries into the pot
the oil: pic.twitter.com/GtvnYLNRit— sol ☀️ (@luvrzdream) September 3, 2017
Comedian Michael Dapaah created the character of “Roadman Shaq,” a parody of U.K. rappers, and ushered him to stardom with a hilarious freestyle on BBC Radio. His weak imitation of gun sounds (“the ting go skrrrra”) and his joke (“The girl told me, ‘Take off your jacket’ / I said, ‘Babes, man’s not hot’”) both became instant classics. Remixes and mashups have been everywhere in October, from Twitter to Reddit. Even U.K. politician Jeremy Corbyn has gotten on the bandwagon.
58. Couples Halloween Costumes
https://twitter.com/Iizardbreath/status/921546083972481025
This Halloween, the big meme was “couples costumes” based on character pairs from viral videos. As many pointed out, this was essentially just a rehash of last year’s “name a more iconic duo,” but it gave people a chance to celebrate their current faves. Couples from Vine videos were particularly popular.
59. Ciao Ryan
https://twitter.com/Tslight_24/status/919713478398451712
Remember “Damn, Daniel?” No? Well, anyway, Daniel and his friend were teens who started a popular catchphrase, but they’re over now. In October 2017, it’s all about “Ciao Ryan,” a college student and his friend who have a catchphrase. And that phrase is … “Ciao!” Ryan was awkward at first, but he managed to overcome that and embrace his internet fame. If he can do it, anyone can. Ciao!
Best 2017 memes: November
60. Plums
One of the most important Twitter memes of the year found jokesters parodying William Carlos Williams’ famous poem “This Is Just to Say”—the one about eating the sweet, cold plums from the icebox. Songs by everyone from Weezer to Smash Mouth to Carly Rae Jepsen got the plums treatment, showing the lasting appeal of apologizing for eating someone’s breakfast.
61. Virgin vs. Chad
Incels, unappealing men who describe themselves as “involuntarily celibate,” tend to blame their problems on two groups: women and sexually appealing men. They refer to the latter group, the “alphas,” as Chads. This false dichotomy and oversimplified narrative of sexual competition has spawned a hilarious meme, “Virgin vs. Chad,” which exaggerates the bad qualities of incels and overhypes the positive traits of “Chads.” It’s truly an artifact of its time.
62. Net Neutrality memes
Net neutrality, the principle that all traffic on the internet should be treated equally, with no speed restrictions or additional charges for certain types of content, is on the chopping block. Trump-appointed FCC chairman Ajit Pai looks ready to let Comcast and Time Warner parcel out the internet however they wish, and meme-makers are pissed. Net neutrality memes were basically the only thing on Reddit for an entire week in November, and as of the first week of December, the fight is still going. Will this bipartisan protest meme make a difference? (Update: it didn’t.)
Best 2017 memes: December
63. Thicc Kylo Ren
Adam Driver’s shirtless scene as Kylo Ren in Star Wars: The Last Jedi drove the internet wild. Driver’s buff physique earned him nicknames like thiccboi, wideboi, Thicc Kylo Ren, and, most importantly, Ben Swolo. The Force is T H I C C with this one.
64. Start 2018 properly
A huge meme in December was timing your music (or a TV show or movie) so that the moment of maximum impact happens just as 2017 becomes 2018. You could say these “start 2018 the right way” posts were jokes, but hitting the chorus of Toto’s “Africa” or the drum fill from”In The Air Tonight” is a good omen for any new year, and that’s serious business. Don’t start 2018 wrong.
If you play “Africa” by Toto at exactly 11:58:43pm on New Year’s Eve, the first chorus will play at exactly midnight. Kick off 2018 the way it’s meant to be
— Jeremy (@CorgiWeather) December 17, 2017
65. Sex is cool, but …
yeah sex is cool but have you tried washing your dishes right after you use them so they never pile up in the sink???
— gay matter (@drumforge) November 17, 2017
Sex is cool, but have you tried this meme that got big in December 2017? Basically, the game is to name things you think are better than sex, whether you’re being sincere or ironic. It all started with a joke about “washing your dishes right after you use them so they never pile up in the sink,” but it ended up covering everything from music to memes to clinical depression. A pretty cool meme format indeed.
Editor’s note: This article is regularly updated for relevance.
