Top five online lols: the year in memes
At the risk of sounding geriatric, what exactly is a meme? We only ask because we have been given the task of pulling together the best memes of the year, and before we do that, we guess we should probably work out exactly what it is that we’re looking for.
We typed “what is a meme” into Google, which definitely made us feel geriatric, and this is what it told us: “[A meme] is an image, video, piece of text, etc, typically humorous in nature, that is copied and spread rapidly by internet users, often with slight variations.” Anything funny on the internet, then? Well, that clears that up.
When Donald Trump tweeted an image of himself with the caption, “Sanctions are Coming” earlier this year, he was riffing on the expression “Winter is Coming” from Game of Thrones. Apparently that was a meme, too.
1. The distracted boyfriend
As dynamic as it is simple, the distracted boyfriend meme can be used to hammer home political points, self-deprecate or comment on how short an attention span we all have. The meme is of a man and woman walking hand in hand, but the man is, er, distracted by another woman. Although the origins of the meme date from last year, it really came to wider prominence in 2018, when it has been used by celebrities such as Dolly Parton. But it is not without controversy. The Swedish advertising standard watchdog branded it sexist – because it portrays women as a “sex object” and stereotypes men – after it was used by an internet provider advertising job vacancies on Facebook and Instagram.
2. Knickers the giant steer
Seeing 1.94-metre Holstein Friesian “Knickers” tower over his petit Wagyu friends in Australia inspired much disbelief – as well as a knowing grimace from freakishly tall human sympathisers. Memes soon started appearing with captions such as “Archive shot of time I tried yoga” and “Me on the Tube”. But the best part of the story was that old mate Knickers was too big for the abattoir and will now live out his days peacefully on a farm. No news yet on what happened to his buddy “Bra”.
3. Gym Kardashian
There’s not much to this one – it’s a Photoshopped image of Kim Kardashian, which makes her look buff, all muscly arms and popping veins. But it’s the comments accompanying these images that make the meme. These mostly have something to do with achieving a run-of-the-mill physical feat, such as: “When you open the water bottle for someone.”
4. American Chopper
You may remember – but probably don’t – a US reality television show called American Chopper, which stopped airing in 2010, that documented the goings-on at a motorcycle-manufacturing company. In an early episode, a father-and-son team who owned the company had a blazing row. The meme, which exploded in 2018, captures each frame of their argument and allows internet users to insert their own arguments. The key to a good American Chopper meme is in highlighting the juxtaposition between the images (handlebar moustaches; chairs being thrown) and a highbrow argument (“There is a 25 per cent pay disparity between men and women!” “That disparity disappears when you control for variables like occupational choices!”).
5. Theresa May dancing
It started with a muchmocked attempt at dancing on a tour of South Africa and ended with British Prime Minister Theresa May arriving on stage at the Tory party conference to Abba’s Dancing Queen.
This soon became a meme, with people splicing the images of May arriving on stage with other songs, including The Imperial March from Star Wars and the theme tune to The Addams Family.