Editor’s Note: This article is part of Know Your Meme’s annual Top Ten Review series looking back at some of the most memorable and popular memes, events and people that defined the Internet culture in 2015 as we know it.

o no one’s surprise, the Internet in 2015 served as the battleground of many socio-political causes and hot-button issues, in part fueled by the acceleration of gender and cultural identity wars in the social justice blogosphere and the intensification of the Republican presidential candidates’ race to the White House in 2016, not to mention the endless chain of mass shootings, civil unrest and other senseless acts of terrorism that shocked the world with persistence; In the United States, dozens of innocent citizens fell victim to the hands of heavily armed psychopaths in numerous bouts of mass shootings while one too many episode of police brutalities continued to make the headlines in the news and trending topics in the social media, which in turn resulted in the rapid escalation of tensions in the realm of identity politics spanning over gender inequality, body shaming and cultural appropration, as well as heated protests over the current state of political correctness in major cities, suburbs and campus grounds across the country. Meanwhile in Europe, a number of deadly and sinister terrorist attacks undertaken by ISIS rocked the continent, most notably in Paris, where the year began with armed assaults against freedom of speech at the expense of innocent lives and ended with one of the worst terrorist attacks that the world has witnessed since the 9/11 attacks in 2001.

And now, let’s take a moment to reflect upon the top ten most notable events that defined the Internets in 2015.

Charlie Hebdo Terrorist Attack

Charlie Hebdo Terrorist Attack was a mass shooting that took place inside and near the headquarters building of the French weekly satirical news magazine in Paris in early January 2015, which resulted in the deaths of at least 12 people, including many staff journalists and cartoonists, as well as police officers, and left many more wounded. Following the attack, the unknown group of armed assailants fled the scene and the suspects were eventually tracked down and killed by the GIGN following an hostage situation two days after the tragedy.

Jared Fogle Child Porn Investigation

The Jared Fogle Child Porn Investigation was a United States federal investigation that began as an inquiry into the existence of child pornography at the residence of Jared Fogle, the celebrity spokesman for the Subway sandwich chain. The months-long investigation, during which many jokes and parodies ridiculing “Subway Jared” were spawned online, uncovered that Jared had sex with underage girls on several occasions in exchange for money, ultimately resulting in a sentence of 15 years and eight months in prison.

Charleston Church Shooting

Charleston Church Shooting was a mass murder by a lone gunman that resulted in the deaths of nine churchgoers at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in downtown Charleston, South Carolina on the evening of June 17th, 2015. Due to the racially charged nature of the shooting, as all nine victims were black and the suspect identified as a young white male, the act was widely condemned as an act of hate crime in the news and social media. Meanwhile on Twitter and elsewhere online, many pointed out what they perceived as a racial bias in the official and news media description of mass murder suspects, as well as inappropriateness of the Confederate flag flying at the South Carolina State House in Columbia.

Planned Parenthood Body Part Controversy

The Planned Parenthood Sells Parts controversy refers to a viral video campaign by a pro-life organization called the Center for Medical Progress wherein actors, pretending to be medical professionals, secretly filmed a discussion with a Planned Parenthood employee where the employee appears to be suggesting that Planned Parenthood sells fetal body parts it extracts in partial-birth abortions. Months later on November 29th, 52-year-old Kentucky resident Robert Lewis Dear went on a mass shooting spree at a Planned Parenthood clinic office in Colorado, killing three people, including a police officer, and wounding many others. During the police investigation, Dear was quoted as saying “No more baby parts” while expressing his anti-Planned Parenthood sentiments, a reference that was likely pointed to the viral video.

Ahmed Mohamed’s Arrest

On September 14th, 2015, a 14 year-old boy named Ahmed Mohamed was arrested in Irving, Texas, after bringing a home-made electronic clock to school. Police and school administrators described the device as a “hoax bomb,” but later declined filing charges against the student after determining that the device was not designed for any other purpose outside of being a clock. The arrest gathered much attention on social media, ranking high on trending lists and receiving many reactions from notable individuals including US President Barack Obama.

Volkswagen Emission Scandal

Also known as #DieselGate, the Volkswagen Emission Scandal refers to the uncovering of German automaker’s intentional programming of turbocharged direct injection diesel engines to provide fraudulent nitrogen oxide emissions results during laboratory testing. An estimated 11 million cars produced between 2009 and 2015 are estimated to have included programs known as “defeat devices” to manipulate data in order to meet government auto emissions requirements around the world.

United States Supremem Court Gay Marriage Ruling

*_Obergefell v. Hodges_ was a landmark case reviewed by the United States Supreme Court in which the court determined that same-sex marriage is a fundamental right guaranteed by the Due Process Clause and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Upon its ruling on June 26th, the decision effectively legalized same-sex marriage across the country, though one naysayer":http://kymdb.com/memes/events/kim-davis-marriage-license-controversy at the county clerk of Rowan County, Kentucky stirred up a controversy after refusing to issue marriage licenses to gay couples.

European Migrant Crisis

The European Migrant Crisis is the ongoing exodus and resettlement of emigrants from the Middle East, Africa and Central Asia, the majority of whom are Syrian refugees and asylum-seekers displaced by the ongoing civil war in Syria, in European countries. The dramatic growth of migration from Europe’s neighboring regions was observed as early as in 2013, but the trend rapidly escalated to the level of a European humanitarian and political crisis during the summer of 2015.

The 2016 Republican Presidential Primary is the preliminary round in the Republican party’s candidate selection process for the upcoming 2016 general election for the presidency of the United States. The series of state caucuses and primaries will begin in February 2016 and end the following June.

Paris Terrorist Attacks

2015 Paris Terrorist Attacks were a series of coordinated mass shootings and suicide bombings that took place at multiple locations across the Paris Metropolitan Area in France on the evening of November 13th, 2015. As a result of the attacks, at least 129 people have been confirmed as victims of casualties and 415 others who sustained injuries of varying degrees were admitted to hospitals in the area. Immediately after the attacks, which were the deadliest in France since World War II, the French government declared a state of emergency. On November 14th, the Islamic State claimed responsibility for the acts of terrorism in retaliation against the ongoing airstrikes in the group’s strongholds in Iraq and Syria.

hiro Ulv is a 21-years-old IT security consultant living in Brunswick, Georgia. Born Matthew Schimmel, Shiro identifies himself with the growing subculture known as the Otherkin movement. In April 2013, Shiro was featured in Logo TV’s special documentary I Think I Am an Animal. Since the airing of the documentary, Shiro has gained online notoriety for being “The Wolf Guy” after a screenshot of him identifying himself as a “wolf therianthrope” from the program began circulating on Tumblr and elsewhere online. What is more, Shiro has been an active member of the Know Your Meme community for over a year. In the light of this discovery, our longtime research moderator MisterJ reached out to the wolf-man himself to chat about his Internet fame.

Interview

Q: How did you come to appear in the Logo TV documentary?

A: I was contacted because I am the administrator of a large therianthropy and therein website. I originally declined, because the media has a way of portraying our community badly. I was eventually asked to provide background information on the community, and to help fact check. I was then manipulated into appearing on TV.

Q: How do you reflect on your internet fame? And how has others in your life reacted to your internet fame?

A: I have mixed emotions about it. I pretty much joke around about it for the most part. Others in my life think it’s amusing, funny, or cool. I’ve been asked to pose with people on the street. I’ve also gotten a lot of negative backlash. It’s funny, because a lot of the scenes were coached and I was told or encouraged to do certain things. In the famous meme, I was told, by the person filming, “look at the water and give me a bark”.

Q: Do you regret appearing in the documentary?

A: In a sense, very much so. I embarrassed myself and the community I am a part of. In another sense, I met some true friends from the experience as well.

Q: How often were you requested to repeat the famous memetic line thus far?

A: I’d say more times than I can count. It’s become a local trend in my area for people to take Vines with me. I don’t normally bark in real life. Sometimes if I’m with friends and we’re goofing off, sure. Or if I’m asked to for a Vine with someone.

Q: Since your appearance in the documentary, alongside with your identify as a wolf, went viral on the internet, has the attention it gathered resulted in positive consequences on your private or social life, and within the therein community?

A: Well, my girlfriend sort of found me through the documentary. She knew me from High School, and had a crush on me for several years. I had legally changed my name as explained in the documentary, so she was unable to look me up on Facebook or anything. When she saw it, she found my name, we talked, became friends, and now we’ve been together for six months. I’m told by some therians that I have inspired them, but I honestly get sad when I am told this. My behavior on the documentary isn’t an inspiration, it is an example of what NOT to do.

Q: Are you aware of the furry fandom, and would you identify yourself as a member?

A: Aware of the fandom, participate to a slight degree, but am not really a member.

Q: How would you say the otherkin/therian community is treated online and in society at large?

A: Badly. We’re a laughing stock. The most vocal members of our community are idiots, or in my case, portrayed as such. It’s fashionable to make fun of our community, just like it is to make fun of furries. The Tumblr therein community is the worst place to go for info; it’s full of idiots. The community existed long before Tumblr, and like everything else on the internet, Tumblr tends to ruin it. The Tumblr community has decided that it’s okay to identify as objects, and various other nonsense. They’ve also decided they’re a part of the transgender community, and that they need nounself pronouns. I don’t support any of this, by the way.

Q: What would you like people to understand regarding the otherkin/therian community?

A: We’re a bit odd, but we’re also pretty normal. We have jobs, and contribute to society like everyone else. It’s a spiritual and/or psychological belief and nothing more.

Q: Is there any significance behind the name Shiro Ulv?

A: It means White Wolf.

Q: Are there any variations of your meme that you find interesting?

A: The Sonic one. I’m a Sonic fan and I’m actually wearing a Tails shirt right now.

Q: Are there any plans in the future regarding your internet fame?

A: Not much. It’s kind of embarrassing. :P

Q: How did you first find out about the therein community? And how did you find out that your phrase was made famous online?

A: I first found out through my online friend. I was a volunteer staff member of the game Furcadia. I thought I was a furry, but was told therian fits me better.

Q: How did you find out that your phrase was made famous online?

A: A friend of mine showed it to me on Facebook. I figured it’d be pretty well known because I was on TV.

Q: What are some of your go-to sites? Are you active in any specific online communities?

A: I administrate Kinmunity.com

Q: Do you have any favorite internet memes?

A: Sonic Dreams Collection.

Q: Any favorite Internet-famous people?

A:Chad Vader.

Q: You have said you are a fan of the Sonic franchise; have you created an original character related to it?

A: Ew. No.

Q: What would you tell someone who is in a similar situation as you right now? Regarding both otherkin/therian and internet fame.

A: I’d tell them that they shouldn’t let the haters get to them. A lot of people on the internet are mindless drones and hate machines, and there’s no point in paying any attention to them. The positive is better to focus on. Don’t judge somebody you don’t know by a one hour block on television. There’s a lot of things I’d change about the documentary, and I had no editorial control over it. It was filmed over a period of about a week, and cut down to one hour. I was joking around with some of the film people and such, and got friendly, and was willing to do stupid things before I caught myself doing something that probably wouldn’t look good on TV. Over the course of several days, that’s enough material to piece together fake stuff.

Q: To close up the interview: do you still stand by what you say when you said “on all levels except physical I am a wolf”?

A: It’s a lot more complicated than that. I still identify as a wolf in a spiritual and psychological matter, so yes.

Q: You do not bark in real life like you did in the video, correct?

A: No, not normally.

Q: Do you have anything else you would like to add?

A: Yes. My trademark “Woof”.

Shiro Ulv is an American I.T. security consultant and the founder of Kinmunity, an online community and resource website for Otherkins, therianthropes and other individuals who identify themselves as non-human, based in Brunswick, Georgia. In addition to his active presence within the Otherkin subculture, Ulv has spoken at various panels as an advocate of autism rights movement. For more information, visit his official website at shiroulv.me. This interview was conducted over email by Know Your Meme research moderator Mister J in November 2015.

The Ballot

Disclaimer: The list of presidential meme candidates were nominated by the Know Your Meme Council, which consists of both members of the staff and moderators of the community, based on the following qualifications which specify that each entry must be either: A) a mutated, devolved or parodic incarnation of a fictional character or B) a caricature of a politician or electoral candidates in real life, both former and incumbent.

ou either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain, Harvey Dent once said in The Dark Night. But on the night of October 9th, when the microphone was passed on to an audience member named Ken Bone at the presidential town hall debate, he didn’t sign up to be made into an icon, a hero or a villain. All Ken sought to do was to ask the candidates what they would do to tackle the looming energy crisis without ruining the environment. It was America, in desperate search of someone, perhaps anyone, who could save the entire country from moral implosion or existential crisis, even just for a few days, with a moment of levity, that decided to make Ken Bone an icon. What’s more it was also America that set the stage for his fall from grace a few days later. Yet, Ken Bone did not despair, or worse, go on a self-defensive rant and delete his accounts. Instead, Ken did what many sensible nanofamers have been doing in recent years: a popup charitable for-profit project for his local community.

Interview

Q: Let’s start from the night of the debate. You’ve mentioned in previous interviews that you realized your sudden viral fame as soon as you left the venue and turned your phone back on. Could you sum up the feelings and thoughts that were going through your head at that exact moment?

A: Humbled, Excited, Surprised, Confused, Exhausted.

Q: This year’s election memescape (and Halloween!) certainly wouldn’t have been the same without Ken Bone. You must’ve seen a few parodies or Halloween costumes that were inspired by your appearance during the debate. Do you have any favorites that actually made you laugh out loud? Like, until your stomach hurt?

A: The prayer candle proclaiming me “The Patron Saint of Indecision” still gets me.

Made and sold by The Eternal Flame on Etsy

Q: As you would probably agree, much of the online buzz seemed to focus on your attire, from the red sweater to your mustache. But what about that disposable camera? What were you taking pictures of on the stage after the debate ended? And how did they come out?

A: When I get the photos back on Tuesday I’ll share them [note: to be be updated].

Q: Not long after the night of the debate, you hosted an AMA event on Reddit. Clearly, the fact that you had been an active member of the community for over a year made you even bigger of a hero to some. What are some of your favorite subreddits that you like to frequent?

A: r/upliftingnews helps me recharge when the negativity creeps in.

Q: What makes your story of viral fame really stand out from the precedents is the baffling speed at which you went from being hailed “as the American hero we needed” to being labeled “a kind of an awful guy” in the news media. As a family man, it must have been unpleasant to see your reputation and image get toyed around like that in public. Do you have any takeaway or lesson from this fiasco that you’d like to share with us?

A: Any negative media tends to be ignored by those who really know me. They know I’m just a regular guy, flaws and all. Besides, all the negative stuff only affects me, the good I’ve been a part of helps the whole community.

Q: On a related note, social media sleuthing and crowdsourced investigating have increasingly become major variables and powerful forces in online storytelling, which doesn’t always add up to a happy ending for everyone. And as a result of that, the grey area between citizen journalism and invasion of privacy has only gotten greyer. You mentioned in your AMA that you had received a few death threats. What were the motives behind and the nature of these threats?

A:I think the people threatening violence against me are just attention seekers, and it doesn’t really get to me. People threatening violence against my family will be prosecuted if caught.

Q: The average life cycle and lifespan of overnight internet stardom has been getting shorter and shorter. Once the election is over, do you have any plans or projects to turn your nano-fame into something more semipermanent? Or are you comfortable with staying in the #BONEZONE until it lasts?

A: I don’t plan to try to drag out my time in the spotlight. I may start a YouTube channel, but I don’t really know what to talk about. Other than that I will only be responding to incoming media requests like always. I don’t do anything to try to get back on the air.

Q: Could you tell us about your charitable t-shirt campaign to raise money for the homeless? How’s it going?

A: I don’t want to mislead anyone into thinking it was pure charity. I made a profit from the shirts too. I gave 10% of my profits to St. Patrick’s Center, totaling over $7,000, in addition to a contribution from the shirt company. By the time all of my charitable efforts for all the charities I’m trying to help are totaled, we’ll be at over $30,000 between myself, my sponsors, and regular folks donating on my behalf.

Q: We’re well aware that you have repeatedly declined to talk about your choice of candidate in this year’s election, but we gotta give it a try! Have you made up your mind yet?

A: I made up my mind not long after the third debate, but I remain committed to raising voting awareness in a non-partisan way. I won’t be telling anyone who I voted for.

Q: As per our long-running tradition, here’s our final question. What is your favorite meme of all time?

A: I got the most enjoyment from “Shoop Da Whoop”. I still find myself chuckling about “firin’ ma lazor” every now and then.

Ken Bone is an American plant technician who has been working at Prairie State Generating Company since 2010 and currently lives with his wife of 12 years, Heather, and their cat in the suburb outside of St. Louis, Missouri. Shortly after rising to viral fame in early October 2016, Bone launched a t-shirt merchandise line bearing a design of his face in a charitable for-profit campaign to raise money for the homeless in St. Louis. For more information, check out the official merchandise store over at Represent.com!

This interview was conducted via email by the Know Your Meme staff in November 2016.

his year’s race to the White House has undoubtedly been the most scandalous and exhausting presidential election in online history. Memes have never played such a prominent role in shaping public opinions as they do today, nor were they as polarizing and divisive in previous election cycles.

The 2016 election season marked the beginning of a new chapter in political campaigns on social media, with the liberal and conservative spheres of influence reaching a state of equilibrium for the first time (owing much to the rise of the alt-right) and internet-savvy partisans from both sides of the aisle taking their battles online in full-frontal offensives, from the right’s Cult of Kek armed with ancient Egyptian “meme magic”, to the left’s relentless mockeries of Trump’s ever-so-frequent gaffes. On Facebook and Twitter, self-righteous sanctimony and mean-spirited trolling dominated our feeds, leading to vitriolic flamewars, conspicuous social signalling and unfriending declarations.

As we all breathe a sigh of relief that it is finally coming to a close, let’s take a look at some of the biggest memes surrounding both presidential candidates this election cycle, and see how they played out in the end.

Top 5 Donald Trump Memes

As a human meme himself, Trump undoubtedly delivered far more than his fair share of internet memes this election. Much of Trump’s rise online has been attributed to conservative communities on Reddit and 4chan, where worshippers of Kek, the ancient Egyptian god of chaos, used “meme magic” to promote the Republican presidential candidate through manipulation of the media and online trolling. As one of the most polarizing figures ever witnessed in the history of politics, supporters have praised Trump as a Washington outsider capable of challenging corrupt establishment politicians, while critics have denounced him as a xenophobic demagogue who represents an existential threat to humanity.

The Wall

Since Trump initially announced his candidacy back in June 2015, one of his most memorable, and controversial, campaign promises was to construct a giant wall separating the United States from Mexico that he would somehow persuade the Central American country to pay for. The wall subsequently became signature issue for Trump, with supporters praising it as a way to curb illegal immigration, while critics mocked it as an absurd, xenophobic pipe dream. Eventually, Trump amended his plans for the wall, revealing that it would be subsidized by American taxpayers with Mexico reimbursing America for the costs of construction.

Make America Great Again

Trump’s longest-running campaign slogan has also been the most frequently parodied and mocked. Abbreviated as “MAGA” by supporters, the nostalgic call to action was originally used by Reagan during his 1980 campaign, before being adopted by Trump during the summer of 2015. Hats embroidered with the slogan became an iconic symbol of the Trump campaign, leading to numerous parody variations.

A Small Loan of a Million Dollars

One of Trump’s most enduring gaffes that followed him throughout the primary and general election regarded a confession that he was able to jump start his real estate business with “a small loan of a million dollars” provided by his father. The statement was viewed by many as being out of touch with working class people, to whom that amount of money was anything but small. After YouTuber Pyrocynical discussed the gaffe in a video on YouTube, the phrase became a full-blown meme on the video-sharing site, spawning numerous remix and parody videos.

#NeverTrump

Trump’s candidacy also brought with it an unprecedented backlash from his own party, most notably arising in the form of #NeverTrump, a movement led by conservatives determined to prevent him from ever becoming president. In one of the election’s most hilarious moments, Republican strategist and #NeverTrump promoter Rick Wilson described Trump’s alt-right supporters as “childless single men who masturbate to anime,” giving rise a slew of Trump-themed anime memes.

#TrumpTapes

By far the biggest bombshell of the entire election was a 2005 hot microphone recording of Trump discussing his interactions with women while sharing a bus ride with former Access Hollywood host Billy Bush. In the recording, Trump brags that women will allow him to do anything due to his fame, including grabbing them “by the pussy.” After the audio was publicized by The Washington Post in early October, Trump was widely condemned for the comments as if they were an admission of sexual assault. In the fallout of the scandal, Billy Bush was terminated from NBC with a $10 million severance package, which led to a failed online campaign to shame him into donating the money to women’s charities. Meanwhile, photoshops and image macros mocking Trump’s vulgar language spread far and wide across the web.

Top 5 Hillary Clinton Memes

During the primary election, Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders seemed to dominate the left-wing memeosphere. After Clinton secured the party’s nomination at the Democratic National Convention in July, it took some time for many former Sanders supporters to hop on board with their new candidate. Supporters of Clinton have hailed her as one of the most qualified candidates in history, and have praised her for being the first woman nominated by a major party. Meanwhile, critics have accused her of being an untrustworthy career politician, who is beholden to various special interest groups.

I’m With Her

The Clinton’s campaign official slogan, which is often echoed by supporters indicating their allegiance to the Democratic presidential candidate, was kickstarted on the web in social media posts by various celebrities, including pop star Katy Perry, actress Lena Dunham and comedian Amy Schumer. Following several of Clinton’s primary election victories in June, former Bernie Sanders supporters launched the hashtag “#GirlIGuessImWithHer” to indicate their reluctant support of Clinton in the upcoming general election against Trump. Following Clinton campaign’s description of Pepe the Frog as a symbol of “white supremacy,” the puppet Kermit the Frog was adopted by some Clinton supporters as a symbol of anti-bigotry along with the hashtag “#ImWithKer.”

#StickerBoy

During a televised portion of Clinton’s victory speech following the Iowa caucuses in the Democratic primary, Drake University student Peter Clinksales could be seen in the background wearing pro-Clinton stickers all over his face while making a variety of absurd facial expressions. The hashtag #stickerboy immediately became a trending topic on Twitter, with many praising Clinksales for his sense of humor and enthusiasm. Not to be outdone, a Bernie Sanders supporter was subsequently photographed with his entire face covered in Sanders campaign stickers.

Basket of Deplorables

What arguably became Clinton’s biggest gaffe of the election was her infamous “basket of deplorables” speech, in which she described half of Trump’s supporters as bigots. The phrase was subsequently embraced by many on the alt-right, who created a slew of photoshops mocking the gaffe and featuring Pepe the Frog. Then, Donald Trump Jr. reblogged a photoshopped movie poster of the 2010 action film The Expendables, featuring various prominent conservatives standing next to Pepe with the title “The Deplorables." What followed was an absurd round of media hysterics in which Pepe was labeled a symbol of “white nationalism,” forever branding the cartoon character as a sign of hate. While some have tried to repair Pepe’s reputation with the #SavePepe campaign, the green frog’s ultimate fate currently remains unknown.

Hillary for Prison

Since 2013, Clinton was unable to escape a scandal involving her use of a private email server during her time as Secretary of State, which many opponents claim posed a criminal threat to national security. The scandal took the Clinton campaign on a roller coaster ride throughout the entire election, popularizing the slogan “Hillary for Prison” among her detractors. In late October, FBI director James Comey stunned the entire internet by issuing a letter to Congress informing them of the discovery of additional emails that may be related to the Clinton investigation, which were later determined to be messages found on Anthony Weiner’s computer. The hashtag “#HillaryForPrision” subsequently began trending on Twitter, which was intentionally misspelled due to speculation that the social networking site was suppressing anti-Clinton hashtags. In the end, Comey announced that the newly discovered emails had not changed their conclusion that Clinton would not face charges, much to the chagrin of Trump supporters.

#SpiritCooking

Along with the email scandal, another thorn in Clinton’s side this entire election took the form of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, who continuously leaked emails taken from the accounts of those close to the Clinton campaign. With less than a week left in the election, an additional collection of emails from Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta’s hacked account were published, which contained a message from his brother Tony inviting him to a “Spirit Cooking” dinner with performance artist Marina Abramović. Internet sleuths subsequently discovered a video of Abramović’s “Spirit Cooking” art project from 1996, in which she paints a recipe on the wall in pig’s blood containing ingredients like semen and breast milk. Conspiracy theorists had a field day accusing the Clinton campaign using black magic and participating in occult rituals. In an interview with ArtNews, Abramović revealed that John Podesta did not attend the event and that the dinner had a “normal menu.”

artin Shkreli, a 33-year-old Brooklyn native, pharmaceutical executive and hedge-fund manager, is certainly no stranger to online controversy. In September 2015, Shkreli sparked massive outrage on social media after it was widely reported that his company, Turing Pharmaceuticals, had drastically increased the price of the AIDS medication Daraprim by 5000%. But strangely enough, despite being branded an internet supervillain complete with the nickname “Pharma Bro,” it almost seemed as if he was glad to face the music, out in the open. In the weeks and months after the wake of the scandal, Shkreli kept himself busier than ever; he went on a media blitz in trying to explain himself, set up a YouTube channel and a Periscope livestream feed to interact with curious strangers online, and he even managed to make another viral splash after buying Wu-Tang Clan’s single-copy album for millions of dollars. And Shkreli didn’t just stop there. More recently, he dove head first into meme culture and appointed himself a public defender of Harambe the gorilla, while deftly leveraging his notoriety to launch a new career in rap music, something that he says has been a longtime passion.

We reached out to Shkreli to find out about his experiences with online fame and what plans he has for the future.

Interview

Q: How are you? What have you been up to lately?

A: Everything is great! I started a new software company to try and challenge myself in a new industry. That’s what I’m spending most of my time on.

Q: Let’s get the elephant in the room out of the way. Just over a year ago, you skyrocketed to online notoriety in the wake of the Daraprim price hike scandal, with news outlets and people on the social media calling you “the most hated man in America.” Without prejudice, when you look back at it now, has this experience changed you in anyway?

A: I’ve learned a lot about the media, how people perceive and receive news.

Q:Clearly, you are not the first corporate executive to be vilified as a “public enemy” on the Internet, but what set you apart from many others who had gotten on the wrong side of social media is that you didn’t go off the grid or hide away from the criticisms, as many tend to do. What drove you to embrace the attention?

A: I believe in honesty and transparency. I’m a capitalist, and a ruthless and determined one, at that. I think it’s dishonest to pretend otherwise. That disgusts some people, but it is immensely attractive to others. I don’t see any problem “being myself” and being honest about it..

Q: Since the scandal broke, you’ve kept yourself pretty busy on social media, from hosting video lessons on finance and live streams to offering commentaries on hip hop music and internet meme culture. Which brings us to this question: how long have you been following memes and how were you introduced to it? Is this a recent development or is it something you’ve been casually into before you became famous?

A: I love memes! I’m a creature of the Internet, having spent most of my waking life online, starting with AOL in 1993. I started with icanhascheezburger/LOLcats. We’ve come a long way, but I still like cat memes.

Q: Last year, you reportedly spent $2 million to obtain Wu-Tang Clan’s album Once Upon a Time in Shaolin. Was it worth it?

A: I thought it was important to make a statement about the value of music. Rich people love buying paintings and homes as trophies, but when I got wealthy, this purchase made way more sense to me. Music is so important to us but we are reluctant to consume it the same way we view fine art.

[Note: Shortly after our e-mail correspondence, Shkreli release excerpts of tracks from the album via livestream, which he had promised to deliver if the Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump won the election.]

Q:More recently, you made the headlines for expressing interest in buying 4chan. What happened with that?

A: The 4chan people have a price in mind for their business that is different from mine. I am a very, very cheap investor--they are too smart to be taken advantage of by me. Having said that, a good deal exists for the right investor/buyer. I just like great deals and they were not willing to sell themselves as short as I would have liked.

Q: We’ve noticed you like to play League of Legends. What is your current rank? Who are your favorite competitive teams?

A: I’m Platinum on my main account--I hit diamond and stopped playing. I don’t follow the pro scene too much.

Q: Who did you vote for in this year’s presidential election?

A: I don’t vote--it’s too much work and I’m too busy. But I would’ve voted for Trump.

Q: What’s next? Do you have any new projects in mind for 2017?

A: My biggest project is getting a “not guilty” verdict in my jury trial! Other than that, launching the software company, dropping a sick album would be the other two main goals.

Q: Finally, what is your favorite internet meme?

A: My favorite meme is this really stupid Chris Brown (I think) photo that is captioned “after you get a free sample and you pretending you might actually buy it”. I also love Vince McMahon memes and any “urban” or hood meme.

Martin Shkreli is an American entrepreneur and pharmaceutical executive who is the founder and former CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals, the co-founder of MSMB Capital Management and the co-founder and former CEO of Retrophin. This interview was conducted via email by the Know Your Meme staff in October 2016.

Dear Readers,

It is that time again to vote for the single most awesome meme of the year! To cast your vote, simply log in to your Know Your Meme account and click the red button on the meme entry of your choice (that was submitted on, or after, January 1st, 2016). The voting begins today and it will stay open until 11:59 p.m. (EST) on December 15th, Thursday.

How to Cast Your Vote

Step 1: Login or create an account at Know Your Meme. You must be logged in to participate.

Step 2: Proceed to the entry of a specific meme or browse the complete list and choose an entry.

Step 3: Once you’re on the entry page, you will see a light-grey background voting widget at the top of the article. Click the red button to cast your vote and click “OK” to confirm. Remember: the widget is only visible in entries of memes that were born on, or after, January 1st, 2016.

Step 4: You are only allowed to vote once. To recall your vote for an alternative choice, click the green button.

Step 5: Thanks for voting!

The poll will stay open until 11:59 p.m. (EST) on December 15th, Thursday. The results will be announced shortly thereafter. In the meantime, keep an eye out for Know Your Meme’s annual end-of-year meme review series!

Eligibility

Is your favorite meme from this year missing on the ballot? File a request in the comments section below!

Editor’s Note: This article is part of Know Your Meme’s annual Top Ten Review series looking back at some of the most memorable and popular memes, events and people that defined internet culture in 2016 as we know it. For controversies and scandals related to the 2016 election, please refer to Election Memes of 2016.

his year was filled to the brim with so much drama, scandal and absurdity that by now, it seems like everyone is just waiting for 2016 to end already. Thanks to the climate set by the United States’ historically polarizing presidential election, online tensions reached unimaginable heights, leading to explosions of outrage for even the most minor of controversies.

As the online culture wars heated up, several overzealous young activists were immortalized as internet memes after being captured on camera acting like college students so often do. Two young men filmed a Trump rally in St. Louis were dubbed Carl the Cuck and AIDS Skrillex for their smug debate tactics and invocation of Godwin’s Law. A young woman throwing a rather spectacular temper tantrum during a talk titled “The Triggering” at the University of Massachusetts Amherst earned herself the title “Trigglypuff”. More recently, a yellow beanie-wearing student who told a police officer he “didn’t see anything” immediately after witnessing an assault was nicknamed “Smugglypuff”.

Other viral videos drew the internet’s ire as well. A Texas-based mattress store released a “Twin Towers Sale” ad, featuring a tasteless September 11th joke. Meanwhile, a drunk Lyft passenger was widely derided after she foolishly filmed herself berating her driver as “racist” for having a Hawaiian bobblehead on his dashboard.

In the online media world, many were outraged by the verdict in Hulk Hogan’s lawsuit against Gawker Media, effectively bankrupting the company and leading their acquisition by Univision. After it was discovered that Peter Thiel had been secretly funding Hogan’s lawsuit, the Silicon Valley billionaire was widely blamed for destroying the controversial media empire.

Without further adieu, let’s take a look back at what really rustled the internet’s jimmies this year. And going forward, let’s all try to calm down a little bit, shall we?

Fine Brothers’ “React World” Controversy

The year started off with the Fine Brothers announcing their terribly misguided “React World” licensing plan, which many interpreted as an attempt to trademark the reaction video web series format. While they initially vehemently denied any wrongdoing, the brothers were met with a swift and brutal backlash from YouTube’s passionate community, leading them to abandon the concept entirely.

Not to be outdone, YouTube managed to infuriate their user base several many additional times over the course of the year, with controversial copyright enforcement policies, new “advertiser friendly guildelines” and the widely unpopular YouTube Heroes program.

More recently, even the video-sharing site’s most subscribed user PewDiePie joined in on the hate, claiming that he will delete his channel in protest of YouTube’s policies once he hits 50 million subscribers.

Ghostbusters Reboot

In entertainment drama, an all-female reboot of the 1980s comedy film franchise Ghostbusters stirred up an online shitstorm of epic proportions. While the backlash started in early 2015, it really kicked into high gear with the release of the official trailer this March, which received an enormous amount of dislikes as it circulated across the web. Shortly after, James Rolfe (a.k.a. The Angry Video Game Nerd) stirred the pot even more by announcing he would not review the upcoming film in an act of protest.

In July, Twitter permanently suspended Milo Yiannopoulos for tweeting various insulting messages at Ghostbusters actress Leslie Jones, claiming he was inciting harassment. The following month, Jones’ personal website was vandalized by an unknown hacker, who posted sexually explicit photographs of the actress stolen from her iCloud account.

Tracer’s Pose in Overwatch

In March, Blizzard Entertainment’s forums became the site of an enormous flame war after a user complained that a victory pose for the Overwatch character Tracer was gratuitously sexual in nature. After hundreds chimed in with their opinion on the absurd debate, a Blizzard staff member replied that the pose would be replaced and apologized for any offense. Over the next two weeks, many criticized Blizzard for succumbing to the demands of puritanical “social justice warriors”, until the company released a revamped pose inspired by a classic pin-up poster.

#TheTriggering

If social media platforms held a contest for “Most Dramatic,” Twitter would win in a landslide. As the web’s #1 outlet for self-righteous sanctimony, vitriol and terrible jokes, it’s no wonder the site hosted so many controversial incidents.

On March 9th, the conservative political commentator Lauren Southern launched the hashtag #TheTriggering for participants to share provocative or offensive messages in order to tease, aggravate and disturb radical members of the social justice movement, becoming a worldwide trending topic for much of the day.

The event seems to have inspired a slew of other trolling campaigns, which for some reason large numbers of people took the bait. In June, Twitter user @JackNForTweets launched t#HeteroSexualPrideDay, ostensibly in celebration of heterosexuality. The hashtag was subsequently circulated far and wide among those who took offense, falling right into @JackNForTweets’ trap. At the end of the month, he revealed it was all just a satirical trolling scheme.

Most recently, the social media platform has received both criticism and praise for preemptively banning accounts associated with the alt-right, including white nationalist Richard Spencer and American hacker Andrew Auernheimer (a.k.a. Weev).

SFSU Dreadlocks Controversy

As one of the more intellectually incoherent debates in identity politics, the fight over what constitutes cultural appropriation continued along its frustrating course.

On March 28th, 2016, a video of a white student at San Francisco State University being confronted by another student for wearing dreadlocks widely circulated online, with many expressing outrage over the young man being bullied for his hairstyle. Even Tay Zonday chimed in on Twitter, stating that the agitator exuded “profound intellectually poverty” in confronting the student about his hair.

The following month, the woman spoke out about the video in a post on Facebook, saying she had receiving numerous “death threats, rape threats, sexual harassment and anti-Black speech,” and claiming the video didn’t provide the full context of the incident.

Harambe the Gorilla’s Death

Coming off of last year’s tragic killing of Cecil the Lion, an unfortunate circumstance led another animal to fall into internet martyrdom.

In May, the 17-year-old Western lowland gorilla Harambe was shot and killed after he was seen dragging a child who fell into his enclosure at the Cincinnati Zoo. The incident was endlessly discussed on social media, with many expressing outrage over the killing and demanding the child’s parents be punished.

Two months later, Harambe underwent a bizarre transformation from viral outrage story to ironic internet meme when comedian Brandon Wardell popularized the slogan “dicks out for Harambe.” Jokes about the deceased gorilla were suddenly ubiquitous, confusing many of those unacquainted with the internet’s obsession with irony. Some have speculated Harambe’s shift was actually a form of social commentary about the absurdity of online outrage culture, while others claim it was just for the lulz.

And along with the overflowing salt following the election of Donald Trump, an unsubstantiated rumor that “thousands” voted for the gorilla as a write-in candidate lead many distraught voters to curse the shitposting electorate.

#LochteGate

Olympic swimmer Ryan Lochte never had a reputation for being very bright. In previous years, videos of the athlete making a fool out of himself spread far and wide across the web, leading many to think of him as a bit of a goof.

At the Summer Olympics in Brazil this August, Lochte found himself at the center of a huge scandal after he foolishly told his mother he had been robbed at gun point following a drunk altercation at a local gas station. After Lochte’s mother told the lie to a shocked news reporter in a hilarious twist of fate, Lochte doubled down on the falsehood. It didn’t take long for his story to unravel, with his fellow teammates admitting to the story’s fabrication. Lochte has since apologized for the mess, but his reputation may never recover.

Hugh Mungus

Every once in awhile, an internet outrage controversy actually ends up doing some good. In August, a video began circulating in which activist Zarna Joshi aggressively accuses a man of “sexual harassment” for identifying himself as “Hugh Mungus”. Joshi was widely derided as an emotionally unhinged bully, drawing criticism from notable YouTubers H3h3productions and Anthony Fantano. In October, she launched a crowdfunding campaign in attempt to capitalize on her newfound infamy, along with a series of videos discussing various feminist theories. The following month, H3h3productions launched a competing crowdfunding campaign to help Hugh Mungus pay for his rapidly accumulating healthcare costs, which gathered an impressive $148,000 in donations.

Nazi Pepe

All the way back in October 2015, Trump famously tweeted a Pepe the Frog-themed illustration of himself, causing the character to surge in popularity in pro-Trump communities like the /r/The_Donald subreddit.

In May this year, The Daily Beast wrote an article titled “How Pepe the Frog Became a Nazi Trump Supporter and Alt Right Symbol,” which interviewed the creators of two anonymous Twitter accounts who revealed their nefarious plot to “reclaim Pepe from normies” by spreading distasteful and offensive variations of the character.

In September, Donald Trump Jr. reblogged a photoshopped movie poster featuring various prominent conservatives standing next to Pepe the Frog with the title “The Deplorables,” mocking a gaffe made by Hillary Clinton. Shortly after, Heidi Beirich of the Southern Poverty Law Center began calling Pepe a “white nationalist symbol” in interviews with various news media publications. Then, not to let the political opportunity go to waste, the Clinton campaign published an “explainer” about Pepe, labeling the character as “sinister” and a “symbol associated with white supremacy.” What followed can only be described as pure media hysteria, eventually leading to the Anti-Defamation League adding Pepe to their list of hate symbols.

Pepe’s creator Matt Furie has since launched the #SavePepe campaign in an attempt to repair the character’s reputation on line, but, unfortunately, the formerly beloved green frog may be forever branded as a meme pariah.

Censorship of /r/The_Donald

Over the course of this year’s presidential election, Reddit’s /r/The_Donald subreddit rapidly grew to become one of the site’s most active, and controversial, communities of all time. The passionate Donald Trump supporters’, affectionately referring to themselves as “centipedes,”
had their first wave of controversy in February, when stickied posts on the subreddit kept reaching Reddit’s /r/all front page. In June, following accusations that Reddit staff prevented /r/The_Donald posts regarding the Orlando nightclub shooting from reaching the front page, CEO Steven Huffman (a.k.a. “Spez”) announced new algorithm changes that would provide “more variety in /r/all.”

Then came the news media coverage. In July, Vice’s tech news site Motherboard published an article referring to the subreddit as a “melting pot of frustration and hate.” Later that same month, the left-leaning news site Slate referred to the community as a “hate speech forum.”

More recently, things got extra dicey when Huffman modified comments by /r/The_Donald users, editing insulting messages to be directed at /r/The_Donald moderators, rather than himself. In the aftermath, Huffman apologized for the incident, blaming frustration brought on by the recent Pizzagate debacle.

Editor’s Note: This article is part of Know Your Meme’s annual Top Ten Review series looking back at some of the most memorable and popular memes, events and people that defined Internet culture in 2016 as we know it.

he music memes in 2016 were marked by a visible presence and solid ideas created by independent musicians, for independent musicians on the internet. 2016’s music memes sprang from the underground, from musicians and humorists who found inspiration from the most obscure sources and turned them into memes.

It was the year of the Word Replacement Remix. It was the year where Gabe the Dog spread everywhere. It was the year that absurdism left a strong footprint in the remix culture, with a level of madness in soundscape that hasn’t been seen since the rise of the YouTube Poop subculture in the late 2000s. And it was the year that Smash Mouth’s ""All Star" (1999) and Santana’s “Smooth” (1999) reached new heights of memedom, much thanks to the staying power of 90s nostalgia that has taken the meme-making community by storm.

But this is not to say that mainstream music has lost its place on the Internet. Big name recording artists like Drake and Beyonce continued to make splashes on the social media with their new releases and edgy music videos, Taylor Swift and Kanye West had a second round of their long-running celebrity feud on Twitter, while Jay-Z attempted to pave a new a road in online music streaming with his subscription-based venture Tidal. One thing is for certain: In 2016, the spotlight on the stage of music memes heavily shifted away from pop stars to internet musicians.

But above all else, we got some dankass jams out of it, not to mention some pretty good laughs. Without further ado, check out our list of ten most noteworthy music memes of the year 2016.

“You Reposted In the Wrong Neighborhood”

The way a song becomes a meme is usually pretty straightforward. Either a pop song goes insanely viral and achieves instant meme status (Gangnam Style, Hotline Bling), an old, canonically popular song gets recontextualized in new remix videos (Sound of Silence,Mad World), or a song is designed to go viral through its absurdity (Crazy Frog’s “Axel F,” Peanut Butter Jelly Time). You Reposted In the Wrong Neighborhood, however, became a meme without following the path of any of its predecessors. Instead, it just sort of… appeared, and kept reappearing until it became practically obligatory that every popular remix fad of 2016 have a “You Reposted in the Wrong Neighborhood” version. Charizard and Dragonite Dance Remixes,All Star, and even Kahoot all had popular “You Reposted…” remixes.

So what an obscure Soundcloud song so popular? ＳＨＯＫＫ青’s mashup of Nate Dogg and Eminem’s “Shake That” and “Casin” by glue70 strikes a perfect balance between being crass and sublimely funky. The instrumental recalls the upbeat end of Vaporwave with its late 70s disco glitz, which makes Nate’s supremely crass opening couplet (“Two to the One to the One to the Three/ I like good pussy and I like good trees.”) incredibly funny. It’s a perfect blend of hilarious and catchy, and the beat somehow seems to go with everything. Some of the best pop artists wish they released a song this good in 2016.

The Nutshack Theme

It’s. The. Nutshack. And It’s. The. Mother of all noun replacement memes that spread like crazy during the second half of 2016. The Nutshack theme, if you haven’t already heard it, is an edgelord’s wet dream, a repetitive rap seeping with DGAFATTITUDE that introduces all the characters and their motivations. It’s phenomenally stupid, which made it a phenomenally good vehicle for an old Youtube poop trend in which every noun or every “Nutshack” is replaced with something else.

The popularity of The Nutshack theme led to increasingly surreal and increasingly long remixes. Should you choose, you could watch “the nutshack theme but every nutshack is replaced with macintosh plus” for 2 hours, or “the nutshack theme but every nutshack is replaced with the entire bee movie script” for 14. The Nutshack Theme became the place where seemingly every 2016 meme collapsed in on itself, a meme of pure madness where the joke was simply the insanity of the remix. Nutshack Theme edits are a post-modern hellscape that exist to take up empty space in the internet. Even the creators don’t know what they’re doing; many of the remixes are uploaded by creators who admit in the “About” sections that they don’t understand why they made it. The Nutshack calls to them. Start the clock until we get the Nutshack Remix where every Nutshack is replaced by the KnowYourMeme summary of The Nutshack Theme.

“We Are Number One”

I once spent a few months living with my sister and her baby daughter, and in that time, I watched so much bad children’s television. It was hell; you don’t know what the heat death of the universe will be like until you’ve heard “The Hot Dog Dance” from Mickey Mouse Clubhouse six times a day every day for weeks on end. But this time did give me the ability to appreciate children’s TV when it’s good, so I have to give props to LazyTown. The Icelandic children’s show may look like neon dystopic creation of Spy Kids’ Floop, but it has churned out some pretty great songs. And this year, Cooking By The Book finally had its successor: We Are Number One.

Robbie Rotten’s Klezmer-cribbing anthem is a cute instructional song to his villainous clones, who, naturally, are bumbling morons. The track, however, became ripe for the memeing in 2016 when remix-king SiIvaGunner found it. His mix of “We Are Number One” into a certified club-banger has hit nearly a million views and launched over a hundred variations.

The variations have gone the way of The Nutshack Theme in that seemingly each new one became more shitpost that the last, but that remixers found it necessary to wring every last drop of blood from this horse is a testament to the infectious awesomeness of “We Are Number One.”

But It Keeps Getting Faster

From the Undertale fandom sprang the most anxiety-inducing music meme of 2016: songs that keep getting faster. 2016 found the spread of pop songs remixed such that they slowly turn into hyper-fast, chipmunk-voiced abominations. Tumblr user stainedinlavenderblood published the first example using the song “Bonetrousle” from the Undertale soundtrack.

The idea stayed in the Undertale community for a few months until August, when a Tumblr devoted to the remix style, Keeps-Getting-Faster, began posting remixes of classic pop songs. Britney Spears’ “Toxic,” A-ha’s “Take On Me,” The Killers’ “Mr. Brightside,” and more were all subject to the “keeps getting faster” treatment, making them all sound like the audio equivalent of a roller-coaster going off the rails. For my money, the best remix is of the title track from “Phantom of the Opera.” Reducing such a melodramatic song to pipsqueaks makes for comedy gold. Perhaps fittingly, the fad has seemed to lose steam after its initial popularity, but the library of tracks the fad spiralled into madness will be funny for years to come.

“Smooth”

I don’t know what caused this. I don’t know why it was Smooth featuring Rob Thomas and not, say, “Game of Love” featuring Michelle Branch. Maybe it’s Santana’s slick guitar lick that announces before Rob Thomas that “Smooth” will be a “hot one.” Or maybe it’s Rob Thomas’s weird grunge accent that is more frozen in the late-90s/early-2000s than frosted tips. But holy shit, did “Smooth” blow up this year.

The classic 1999 jam about sex and hot weather had been slowly generating ironic fandom, reaching a fever pitch in 2016 when Redbubble created a shirt that simply read: “I’d Rather Be Listening to Grammy-Award Winning 1999 Hit Smooth By Santana Feat. Rob Thomas of Matchbox Twenty.” The shirt drew the attention of Rob Thomas, who retweeted a picture of a fan wearing it. “Smooth” even made an appearance at the 2016 Summer Olympics, and led Vox to wonder just why the hell this was happening. No definitive conclusion was ever reached-- “Smooth” is just a great song everyone remembers, loves, and decided to resuscitate as a meme.

“The Boys Are Back in Town”

Since Thin Lizzy’s The Boys Are Back In Town was released in 1976, people have generally agreed that it’s a great classic rock song. In 2016, however, Twitter suddenly came to the consensus that it was the best song of all time. Like many great internet goofs, this is largely the fault of Weird Twitter hero @dril, who on November 29th, 2015 tweeted “its fucked up how there are like 1000 christmas songs but only 1 song aboutr the boys being back in town.”

This set in motion a wild surge of jokes in which the mere reference to Thin Lizzy’s hit was a recipe for comedy gold. That, and the discovery of a single-serving Twitter account devoted to posting the entirety of “The Boys Are Back in Town” in word form in a never-ending loop led one Twitter user to to tweet a scenario where he describes Twitter to his mother as “it’s a website where we disagree about everything except that referencing ‘the boys are back in town’ is funny.”

GiIvaSunner / SiIvaGunner

GiIvaSunner is 2016’s undeniable king of the bait-and-switch. His first high-quality rips work on such a good premise: video-game music that suddenly becomes the theme from The Flinstones. It’s somehow funny every time.

But GiIvaSunner does more than just upload bait-and-switches and certified bangers. He also uses his account to create ARG’s. He develops different characters in the world of his high quality rips, like Mr. Rental. GiIvaSunner, who later changed to SiIvaGunner, puts a stunning amount of detail that’s supposedly just for music and laughs. He had an incredible 2016 before deciding to end his channel in September--that is, before he started uploading again. The future may have more high quality rips for us yet.

“All Star”

Someday, we may see the end of Shrek memes, but by god, “All Star” will never die. In 200 years when an asteroid hits the earth and ushers in a second ice age, with our frostbitten fingers we will make videos where footage of the asteroid’s impact fits perfectly in time with “some-BODYONCETOLD ME…” Did you know that in 2016, searches for “Smash Mouth All Star” are higher than they’ve ever been? We have yet to see the peak of “All Star” memes and it’s been 17 years since the song was first released.

Perhaps the absurdity of 2016 led people back to “All Star” in the same way a child would a security blanket. Perhaps Smash Mouth’s optimism in the face of global warming in the song’s second verse led people to latch on to it as a joyous distraction as the world ostensibly goes to hell. Whatever the reason, 2016 had its fair share of entries into the “All Star” lore. Dozens upon dozens of new “All Star” remixes entered our lives this year, many of which work surprisingly well. Then some guy (Jon Sudano) stopped making remixes altogether and just sang the song over dozens of pop instrumentals. “All Star” is rapidly proving itself one of the most adaptable songs ever, the Shakespeare’s Hamlet of trash 90s pop rock. And it will always be there for us as the ice we skate gets thinner and thinner.

The Life of Pablo

Oh yeah, Kanye West. Boy, did that guy have a year. From fashion industry meltdowns to Trump endorsements to butt-play rumors, Kanye West arguably had himself his wackiest year yet. In the center of his media nexus was The Life of Pablo, a sprawling, sometimes transcendent but very inconsistent album that kept the internet buzzing in the way everything West does keeps the internet buzzing. Here’s what the majority agreed on: opener “Ultralight Beam” is incredibly dope. The beginning of “Father Stretch My Hands pt. 2” is awesome. “Wolves” desperately needs to be fixed. It should’ve been called “Swish.” Also, that cover is terrible.

You’d think that supposedly one of the most visionary artists of our generation wouldn’t go full Graphic Design is My Passion for his album cover, but that’s Kanye. The Life of Pablo cover is deeply ripe for parody, a fact not lost on meme makers who quickly photoshopped a bunch of text overlapping some more text and pasted a poorly-integrated picture onto an orange background. It was the start of a bizarre year for Kanye, one that eventually found him in the hospital due to exhaustion. It seems like Kanye West needs a break, and perhaps we could all use a break from him.

J. Cole Went Platinum With No Features

Nothing gets the internet going like the catchphrases of internet numbskulls. Think It’s about ethics in gaming journalism or Jet Fuel Can’t Melt Steel Beams. In hip-hop, that phrase is J. Cole went platinum with no features, a refrain of overzealous J. Cole fans who are deeply impressed with the fact their favorite rapper went platinum with his third studio album, 2014 Forest Hills Drive, without the help of guest artists.

First off, J. Cole is, let’s say, a divisive figure in hip-hop. He’s a love-him-or-hate-him kind of artist. When J. Cole fans brag about his success without the help of guest artists, they’re trying to prove that he’s intrinsically talented enough to sell records on his own. Does that make him a good rapper? Many don’t seem to think so, and the zealotry of his fans illustrated a good reason why. “J. Cole went platinum with no features” is that line said by that guy who thinks Suicide Squad was good because Jared Leto’s Joker had a comic-accurate back tattoo or that Han shot first. It’s fandom taken to its irritating extremes, and it got the mockery it deserved in 2016.

Editor’s Note: This article is part of Know Your Meme’s annual Top Ten Review series looking back at some of the most memorable and popular memes, events and people that defined the Internet culture in 2016 as we know it.

early everything about 2016 was Bad, except for sports, which were Extremely Good. It was a year of broken curses, stunning upsets, the impossible becoming possible, and hell freezing over in various other ways. In 2016, sports memes were regularly referenced by the White House. Sports snark came deeply into its own in 2016, particularly at Deadspin, which is now the strongest Gawker affiliate thanks to a fake sports star, one Hulk Hogan. All of my favorite sports teams sucked hard, but even that was okay, because there were some prime memes to get me through. Here’s a look back at some of the best sports goofs that got us through 2016.

The Warriors Blew a 3-1 Lead

The 2015-2016 Golden State Warriors were arguably the greatest team in NBA history. They beat the Chicago Bulls record for the most wins in a single season, finishing the year at an astonishing 73-9. They had the league’s first unanimous MVP in Stephen Curry, who shattered records as easily as he hit 3-point shots from 30+ feet away. They reached the NBA Finals and won 3 of the first 4 games against the Cleveland Cavaliers. They needed to win one more game, and two of the final three games would be on their home court. And they blew it.

Thus launched the summer’s sports iteration of “stay woke.” “The Warriors Blew a 3-1 Lead” became the refrain of phony conspiracy theories, a punchline to remind sports fans how the supposed greatest team ever couldn’t win just one more game.

It was a way of Cleveland and Cavaliers fans to celebrate the city’s first major championship in decades, rubbing it in the face of bandwagon fans who only liked The Warriors because of their quest to be the greatest team in NBA history. But karma is a fickle mistress, and sure enough, during the World Series, it would be Cleveland’s turn to blow a 3-1 lead. Which brings us to…

The Last Time The Cubs Won The World Series

Holy crap, the Cubs won the World Series! For the first time in 108 years, the Chicago Cubs are world series champions after beating the Cleveland Indians in a Game 7 that will go down in history as one of the greatest, if not THE greatest game in Major League Baseball history. Arguably the most heartwarming thing to come out of 2016 were videos of elderly Cubs fans overjoyed that their team finally won it all.

But of course, there were memes. Playful jokes mocking the Cubs’ drought have been popular, but they reached a fever pitch during the world series, particularly after Neil DeGrasse Tyson began tweeting various facts about 1908. On Twitter, a great sporting event mixed with ire for Tyson created a great moment where everyone was tweeting a bunch of random crap about the last time the cubs won the World Series. It was a fun way to spend a stressful evening the week before the 2016 United States Presidential Election -- a fact not lost on some.

Crying Michael Jordan

The crying face of the greatest basketball player of all time made a strong case to be considered the greatest meme of all-time in 2016. Crying Michael Jordan has had one of the longest meme cycles in recent memory, only recently peaking when the freaking President addressed it while giving Jordan the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Why has Crying Jordan survived? One reason is its obvious versatility as a sad reaction image, but the success of Crying Jordan is also due to the photoshoppers who used it in increasingly clever and subtle ways. It became sports’ answer to Loss Edits, a template for artists to build off of in brilliant ways. That creativity kept Crying Jordan fresh for much longer than it had any right to be. In some ways, it was the meme that defined 2016. While outwardly America have been the This Is Fine dog, inside, it had become Crying Jordan.

Phelpsface

The 2016 Summer Olympics didn’t give us very much in the way of memes-- though everyone seemed to enjoy ragging on Rio -- but the one enduring image the Rio Olympics gave us was that of Angry Michael Phelps, sitting hooded and scowling while South African competitor Chad Le Clos juked and jive just a few feet away.

It reminded many of McKayla Maroney, another scowling Olympian, but whereas Maroney’s face was the product of disappointment, Phelps’ face looked like the product of pure, unbridled rage. Many compared it to the look on Anakin Skywalker’s face right before he went and slaughtered a bunch of children. That it came from an American golden boy (marijuana charges not withstanding) and arguably the greatest athlete of all time made for a prime meme and a good sensible chuckle… right up until he referenced it in a commercial with the Bazinga guy.

The New Day

Wrestling in 2016 was the way wrestling alwas is: a whole lotta bad with a few moments of sweet, mind-blowing greatness sprinkled on top. In the former category, there was a slog of a Wrestlemania, a never-ending, never-succeeding push to get Roman Reigns popular with fans, the popular developmental brand NXT getting drained of all its talent, and 90% of Monday Night Raw episodes. In the latter, there was GOLDBERG, Shinsuke Nakamura, “The Man With Two Hands” James Ellsworth, and 90% of Smackdown Live episodes.

But perhaps the most consistent thing about wrestling this year was The New Day. The tag team of Xavier Woods, Kofi Kingston, and Big E held the tag team belts for the entire year and as of the time I’m writing this, look poised to hold the belts longer than any team in history. This is obviously a pretty impressive feat but it wouldn’t be noteworthy for KnowYourMeme.com were it not for the unabashed nerdiness of The New Day. These guys entered Wrestlemania XXXII dressed as characters from Dragon Ball. They regularly reference memes of the week in their promos-- just a few weeks ago, they referenced the UNameIt Challenge to an audience that didn’t understand what the hell they were talking about. Xavier Woods grew a very successful Let’s Play channel in 2016 called UpUpDownDown. When Pokemon GO was huge, Woods proudly told a wrestling arena that he was Team Valor.

The New Day embody a changing pro-wrestling fandom, one that moves away from the sexism and racism that defined the Attitude Era and embraces the diversity of the internet, the dorks who who read up on what’s going behind the scenes and play a lot of video games and make memes. Their shtick may finally be getting tired, but for all of 2016, The New Day was the most consistently, inclusively fun in the whole company. New. Day Rocks.

Bartolo Colon

At the start of the 2016 season, the New York Mets had 4 of the best young pitchers in baseball in their starting pitching rotation, and Bartolo Colon, a 90 year old pitcher who weighs 800 pounds. By the end of the season, the entire pitching staff was on the disabled list except for Colon, who somehow had an incredible season throwing pretty much only 89 MPH fastballs down the middle of the plate. While that alone is remarkable, that is not why he’s on this list. This is:

On May 8th, Bartolo Colon, he of Bartolo Colon At Bat memes, he who stands in the batters box if he hits a ground ball, did the impossible: he hit a home run. As he rumbled around the bases (for a loooong time), the shock of it all set in. Had the Cubs not won the World Series, this would be the most unbelievable thing that happened in baseball in 2016. In many ways, 2016 proved that Hell has frozen over. Bartolo Colon was the first to demonstrate that.

Sidelined Chris Martin

Oh, Chris. You almost feel bad for the Coldplay lead singer. At Super Bowl 50, Chris Martin’s band, arguably the biggest rock band in the world, got tapped to perform the biggest concert of the year: the Super Bowl halftime show. It should have been one of the proudest moments of Martin’s career. Instead, the National Football League tapped Beyonce and Bruno Mars to also perform at the show, and the result was the undeniable upstaging of Chris Martin.

Look at that picture. Martin barely fits in the frame. Once Beyonce came out with a blistering performance of her latest single, “Formation,” the meme was ripe for the making. Coldplay had warmed up the crowd with a performance of their milquetoast, midtempo ballad, “Paradise,” hardly a fiery crowd-pleaser. Then Bruno Mars came out, did Uptown Funk, followed by Beyonce, and it was over. Coldplay got embarrassed. The shot of the three performers in the frame, Chris trying his best to look like he was having fun while his show got utterly hijacked, was the icing on the cake.

Crying Messi

Even the greatest athletes screw up sometime. And then they get turned into memes. Such was the fate of Lionel Messi, one of the all-time greatest soccer players, after he missed his penalty kick in the shootout of the 2016 Copa America final against Chile. It was a sad cap to Messi’s international football career, as his miss helped Chile win their first international tournament ever, but for the internet, Messi’s face that left the most lasting impression.

Messi is living proof of a new adage for the internet era: you either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become a meme. His failure led to great schadenfreude, which was only exacerbated a couple weeks later when Messi and his father were found guilty of tax evasion. But that was less memorable than the captions, gags, and of course, Crying Jordans the internet made in farewell to one of the game’s greatest players from the international stage.

Confused Nick Young

Nick Young is a solid NBA basketball player, averaging about 18 points a game with the Los Angeles Lakers, but perhaps his greatest talent is looking confused. And what a confused face he has: incredulous, bemused, and conspiratorial. His is a face that asks you, “Are you seeing this shit?”

Chances are you saw Confused Nick Young reacting to ridiculous scenarios involving relationships, parents, politics, and more. It’s the Jim Halpert stare of Black Twitter, a relatable look of disbelief that captures that says more than a dozen witty captions ever could.

Stare Kid

Sometimes when God leaves you wide open in the corner, you gotta shoot your shot. That’s what Sammy DiDonato, Nebraskan college baseball game-attendee, did on June 24th when he and an ESPN camera locked eyes for a long, uncomfortable minute. While most fans upon seeing a television camera focused on them do an awkward wave and smile, DiDonato opted for… well…

DiDonato’s weirdly sensual eye flirt with the camera is one of the reasons to love sports. Wait, let me rephrase that: sports are at their most fun when things as minute and routine as crowd-reaction shots go in unexpected ways. A pubescent kid in the crowd’s commitment to being funny during a game no one will remember made for one of the silliest goofs of the year. That’s just good wholesome fun.

Editor’s Note: This article is part of Know Your Meme’s annual review series looking back at some of the most memorable and popular memes, events and people that defined Internet culture in 2016 as we know it.

he spread of false information online has became one of the year’s biggest hot-button issues in the aftermath of the 2016 United States presidential election, with many blaming “fake news” sites for tilting the odds in favor of President-elect Donald Trump. While some have called on companies like Facebook and Google to censor content from these questionable online sources, others have called for initiatives promoting media literacy and critical thinking among the electorate. But these sites aren’t the only ones responsible for spreading unsubstantiated rumors across the web.

Immediately following the election, reports that “thousands” of voters wrote-in Harambe for president began circulating on Twitter, sparking outrage among Clinton supporters mourning their candidate’s loss. The rumor seemed largely based off a handful of trolling social media posts, featuring photographs of paper ballots with “Harambe” placed in the write-in candidate field. While it’s certainly possible that some actually voted for the deceased gorilla, no official data has been released to support the claim.

Following the death of Fidel Castro, a rumor that Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was actually the former Cuban dictator’s illegitimate son was born on 4chan’s /pol/ board. After circulating outside of 4chan among critics of the liberal politician, many of whom took issue his controversial statement regarding Castro’s death, Snopes was forced to publish an article debunking the hilarious theory.

In entertainment rumors, Lindsay Lohan found herself at the center of a bizarre conspiracy theory alleging that the actress was being manipulated to spread propaganda in support of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, based off video clips in which she praised the Turkish government for freedoms they provide to women. On YouTube, fans of vlogger Marina Joyce came up with an elaborate conspiracy theory that she had been kidnapped after spending way too much time analyzing her make-up tutorial and fashion videos, eventually leading the police to investigate the matter.

Even The Guardian appears to have been massively trolled this year by printing an anonymous confessional, in which a man claims to have narrowly avoided becoming a racist after exposing himself to internet personalities Sam Harris and Milo Yiannopoulos. Twitter satirist Godfrey Elfwick later took responsibility for the work, providing images of an earlier draft as evidence.

Let’s take a look back at some of the other viral rumors and hoaxes that spread online this year, both serious and satirical in nature.

Bernie Sanders Glowsticks

An infographic urging supporters of Bernie Sanders in the 2016 Democratic presidential primary to create homemade glowsticks by mixing ingredients to make chlorine bombs.

• Duration: March 2016 – May 2016

• How It Started: An infographic aimed at tricking supporters of the 2016 Democratic presidential primary candidate Bernie Sanders into making chlorine bombs by providing false instructions for making homemade luminescent light sticks began circulating on Tumblr, 4chan and Facebook.

• How It Unraveled: Snopes published an article titled “Bernie’s Blow Sticks” explaining how the viral image contained dangerous instructions for making chlorine-based explosives.

NAMBLA Donation Hoax

A false rumor that Donald Trump refused to disclose his tax returns because it would reveal charitable donations to the North American Man/Boy Love Association (NAMBLA).

• Duration: July 2016 – August 2016

• How It Started: In response to a post on the /r/politics subreddit about Trump’s refusal to disclose his tax returns, a Redditor jokingly speculated that the Republican presidential candidate was attempting to conceal donations made to NAMBLA.

• How It Unraveled: Snopes published an article listing the rumor as “False” on August 10th, 2016.

Vote From Home

Fake Hillary Clinton campaign images spread the false rumor that United States citizens could place their vote for the 2016 Democratic presidential candidate via text message or social media.

• Duration: June 2016 – November 2016

• How It Started: Photoshopped images urging Clinton supporters to vote for the candidate by posting “Hillary” along with the hashtag “#PresidentialElection” on their Facebook and Twitter accounts began circulating in various pro-Trump communities in June.

• How It Unraveled: Physicist Robert McNees launched a campaign against the hoax prior to the election in early November, leading Twitter to ban several accounts spreading the fake campaign ads.

Taylor Swift Is a Satanist Clone

A satirical conspiracy claiming that singer-songwriter Taylor Swift is a clone of the former Church of Satan spokesperson Zeena Schreck.

• Duration: May 2013 – June 2016

• How It Started: In May 2013, BuzzFeed highlighted several screenshots of Schreck taken from various television interviews conducted while she was the spokesperson for the Church of Satan in an article jokingly titled “Proof That Taylor Swift is Actually a Satanist.” This year, the mock conspiracy theory saw a significant online resurgence on Twitter, Tumblr and Instagram.

Great White Shark Photo

A digitally edited image of a great white shark erupting from the ocean falsely circulated as an award-winning photograph from National Geographic.

• Duration: December 2016

• How It Started: An image of a great white shark jumping out of the water originally posted by Russian 3D graphic artist Alexyz3d on Shutterstock began circulating online with the erroneous caption that it was taken by fictional National Geographic reporter Bob Burton.

• How It Unraveled: Twitter user @foomandoonian revealed that the photographs had originated on Shutterstock and that there was no photographer named “Bob Burton” at National Geographic.

Fake Election News Sites

Websites containing fake news stories published numerous articles related to the election, many of which circulated among Trump supporters on Facebook.

• Duration: All of 2016

• How It Started: Throughout 2016, residents of the Macedonian town of Veles launched 140 United States politics sites, including WorldPoliticus.com, TrumpVision365.com, USConservativeToday.com, DonaldTrumpNews.co and USADailyPolitics.com. The sites published a high volume of fabricated news stories, some of which were widely circulated by supporters of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump on Facebook.

• How It Unraveled: In early November, BuzzFeed published an article titled “How Teens in the Balkans Are Duping Trump Supporters With Fake News”, which included interviews with founders of several Macedonian fake news sites who revealed they launched the sites to make money from the advertising revenue.

“Sam Hyde is the Shooter”

During initial reports regarding violent attacks that occurred over the year, posts falsely identifying the attacker as Sam Hyde circulated on social media.

• Duration: 2015 – Now

• How It Started: Starting in 2015, internet trolls began falsely identifying comedian Sam Hyde as the gunman responsible for shootings across the United States.

• How It Unraveled: Following reports that Hyde was responsible for the June 2016 UCLA shooting, Forbes published an article titled “How 4chan Tricked The Internet Into Believing This Comedian is a Mass Shooter.”

Ted Cruz the Zodiac Killer

A mock conspiracy theory alleging that 2016 Republican presidential primary candidate Ted Cruz was the unidentified serial killed nickanmed the “Zodiac Killer.”

• Duration: March 2013 – April 2016

• How It Started: In March 2013, the @RedPillAmerica Twitter feed joked that Cruz was delivering a speech titled “This Is The Zodiac Speaking.” Over the next several years, similar jokes circulated on Twitter and Facebook, gaining a significant surge in popularity during the 2016 Republican primary election.

• How It Unraveled: Many news sites reported on the rumor as a satirical internet meme in February 2016, including NPR and The Verge.

Shakira Law

Images warning about Muslim extremists attempting to bring “Shakira Law” to the United States.

• Duration: November 2016 – December 2016

• How It Started: An image of United States President Barack Obama standing next to DJ Khaled erroneously identifying the rapper as the “leader of ISIS” attempting to “implement Shakira Law in America” began circulating on Facebook, an intentional misspelling of “Sharia” Islamic law. The following month, a image of a donut with Orkish script from the Lord of the Rings trilogy began circulating with a caption referring to it as an “Islamic donut” with Arabic script calling for “Shakira Law in America.”

• How It Unraveled: Several news sites published articles identifying the viral images as parodies, including NME and Snopes.

Pizzagate

A conspiracy theory regarding a secret society of pedophiles operating out of the Comet Ping Pong pizza restaurant based on leaked messages from John Podesta’s email account.

• Duration: November 2016 – Now

• How It Started: After Wikileaks published 20,000 messages taken from John Podesta’s compromised email account, 4chan users began posting threads speculating about coded messages in the emails regarding an underground pedophile ring. Rumors about the restaurant Comet Ping Pong’s involvement in the fabricated conspiracy subsequently circulated on both 4chan and Reddit, with innocuous pictures taken from the owner’s Instagram account provided as evidence.

• How It Unraveled: After the conspiracy theory continued to pick up steam following Donald Trump’s victory in the 2016 United States presidential election, the proprietor of Comet Ping Pong was repeatedly harassed and threatened by those who believed he was running an underground pedophile ring. In December, Snopes published an article listing Pizzagate as “False,” noting that they were unable to substantiate any of the claims made by proponents of the theory. Most recently, a man was arrested after firing a gun inside Comet Ping Pong, claiming he was there to investigate the Pizzagate rumors.

Editor’s Note: This article is part of Know Your Meme’s annual review series looking back at some of the most memorable and popular memes, events and people that defined the Internet culture in 2016 as we know it.

rony in 2016 was the universe’s answer to an extremely chaotic set of circumstances. As the world got weirder, so did the memes. There was new random shit being meme’d daily, which created the need for a meme stock market. Weird Facebook grew into a thriving subcommunity of pages filled with bizarre aesthetics and depressed texts, which Mark Zuckerberg started attacking for reasons unknown. Youtube poops came back. People just read the entire script to Bee Movie, for reasons they didn’t understand. It was as though every sad emotion could be shared with the aesthetic and voice of a Sonic the Hedgehog cartoon and that was just how the internet worked this year. It was madness, a chaotic war of meme magic and meme lords. A time traveling meme even showed up in the end. The ironic memes of 2016 were a returned to the sort of anti-humor that characterized the early internet, only with a lot more darkness behind them. But we also got wholesome memes, Dat Boi, visions of a more wholesome, positive new day. The meme war may be over, but the battle for meme souls still rages.

Layers of Irony

(Extremely Tim & Eric voice) Layers of Irony… what a concept. Made famous by one Meme Man comic, “Layers of Irony” came to define 2016 meme culture. You don’t understand a meme going around? Well then, you’re just not on enough layers of irony, my dude. From the deepest levels came some of the most bizarre, short-lived, but weirdly hilarious memes without punchlines or context. They simply appeared, and you had to be in the know. Or not; part of the fun of the ironic meme surge was just going along for the ride. What are we talking about today? Long Boy? Okay, sure. BIGBOYZONE.

It’s absurd yet it makes perfect sense. In the original comic’s fourth panel, when Meme Man’s eyes light up as he says “SUCC,” it is understood that he has seen irony levels you and I could never dream of reaching. He is within the deepest layer of irony, manipulating us little babies by giving us new memes we are too stupid to understand. And we are grateful, for, like nirvana, the deepest layer of irony is impossible to achieve, yet is the most noble of goals.

Dat Boi

Here he is. It is the frog on the unicycle. It is dat boi who says “o shit waddap.”

Dat Boi was truly the moment which demonstrated that memes have changed. No longer does a meme need to be a pop culture reference or a relatable joke. Dat Boi proved a meme could be successful as a self-contained entity, shared for nothing other than some strange sense of obligation. And sure enough, soon he rode through social media, brightening the days of those he passed. “O shit waddap,” they said. “It’s dat boi!” He’s like that one car everyone in your neighborhood knows because it looks super weird, or the guy who wanders around dressed like a wizard every day. Dat Boi was just there, no context or meaning behind him, just a jovial little dude on a unicycle who became one of the memes of the year. Now that’s a beat we can all O Shit Waddap to.

The Meme Renaissance of Me_IRL

Picture it: October, 2016. It’s been a week since the last good meme had quenched the Reddit’s everpresent thirst. Forced memes had been trickling through the Me_IRL subreddit, but they could not sustain the populace. People starved. Children wept as their mothers cradled them, praying that God may bless them with a new meme. And then, he came. A savior. A bear. In a Big Blue House_.

On October 4th, 2016, redditor Zonemasta8 submitted a post titled [BREAKINGNEWS] Bear in the big house meme speculated to be meme of the month during the prolonged meme drought to /r/memeeconomy speculating that Bear In The Big Blue House memes could be the possible solution the the Great Meme Drought of October. And he was. Zonemasta8’s post made the Reddit front page that day. But no one could anticipate what would happen next. Soon, the meme economy grew unstable. Memes lived and died in the span of hours. People spent their life savings on Trebuchets memes, only to watch the stock plummet like a 90kg projectile thrown over 300 meters. It was a wild, unpredictable time, but it revived the meme economy by flooding the market. Many memes that may have lived wonderful lives died in that time. Bionicle. Watch Those Wrist Rockets. Today, we honor their sacrifice.

/r/MemeEconomy

With so many memes flooding the market, it can be difficult to tell which are worthy of your time and which are simply flashes in the pan. Luckily, a subreddit community devoted to tracking memes came to help. /r/MemeEconomy became a thriving subreddit in which users debate the long-term sustainability of memes, ultimately asking the age-old question: sell or buy?

Sure, there isn’t actual money involved, but that doesn’t make the work done at /r/MemeEconomy any less important. Rather than cash, users of the subreddit trade using Good Boy Points (GBP), and GBP is literally invaluable. For example, one may have thought that the recent rise in How Many Upvotes for Our Boys in Blue? memes may have made it a valuable property, but aficionados at /r/MemeEconomy knew that the shelf life of the meme would be short lived. Those in the subreddit who advocated selling shares of the meme likely made a killing.

In all seriousness, the meteoric rise of /r/MemeEconomy demonstrates that memes are something people want to take seriously--while not actually being all that serious about them. That a subreddit which works on the premise of a meme stock market took off in 2016 illustrates that people follow memes extremely closely and likely, if they really wanted to, would buy and sell shares if there was real money involved. That’s wild.

Meme Lord

The idea of a Meme Lord grew to prominence in 2016 as memes became a cultural force in 2016. To know memes was to know a language of the internet everyone else struggled to understand. Suddenly, knowing memes garnered cultural credibility. And followers of so-called meme lords responded in kind with devotion and praise to those who deliver daily keks.

The idea of a meme lord underscores the importance memes took on in 2016. It also helps illustrate the seemingly random happenings of the meme universe, making it easy to believe that, like Gods, the meme lords are working in mysterious ways. It’s an imaginary title only few can achieve. Even I, who work all day on the memes, cannot yet claim the title of Meme Lord. For There can only be one Lord of the Meme. And he does not share power.

Meme Magic

If you were to tell me in January that 2016 would see a surge in a thing called Meme Magic, I would have laughed in your face, but one election later and suddenly I believe in the Cult of Kek.

The evidence is undeniable. Did you know The Cult of Kek values the number 7? And that the 77777777th post on 4chan said “Trump Will Win”? Do you think this is mere coincidence?

Or maybe people like to invent fun ironic conspiracies to keep themselves entertained in this wild and crazy world. Either way, the magic of kek inspired the internet this year, and considering what transpired, meme magic is as good an explanation for 2016 as anything else I’ve heard.

Wholesome Memes

Memes undoubtedly became more than just vehicles for jokes in 2016. For many, they became practically a legitimate form of communication. Nothing demonstrated this phenomenon more than Wholesome Memes, a trend where familiar meme templates used genuine, supportive text instead of jokes.

Wholesome Memes achieve the goal of relating positive and intimate emotions while remaining safely behind a layer of irony, which is extremely useful for the emotionally stunted mememakers of the internet. From an outside perspective, the memes provide a much-needed breather from snark, irony, and jokes that punch down, the general modus operandi for memes. It feels weird to add memes whose very point is sincerity to a list of “ironic memes,” but a look at the reactions to some wholesome memes will reveal just how many people can’t wrap their head around a meme that is genuinely supportive. Love them or hate them, you have to admit it’s nice to see some good-natured memes now and again.

Meme Wars

This year brought the greatest meme war of the modern era. The 2016 meme war had genuine, real life consequences. Think about Pepe the Frog, The Deplorables, the alt-right. It was ugly and bloody, and it may have actually helped elect Donald Trump. There will never be another like it.

The Meme War of 2016 proved that people want to participate in politics, even if that participation is as silly as editing swastikas onto a cartoon frog. Memes grew into weapons of counterculture, the trade of trolls who suddenly had the eyes of the mainstream media. The campaign for Hillary Goddamn Clinton wrote a post condemning Pepe after a 4chan guy shouted the name of Matt Furie’s frog at her for the lulz. The lulz shook America like they never have before. Our grandparents regale us with stories of when they stormed the beaches at Normandy. We will regale our children with stories of whether we were on the side of Pepe or Kermit.

This Meme Is From the Future

The year of ironic memes, shitposts, and random popular images concluded with one final hurrah: This Meme Is From the Future. A post by Redditor DanknessIn_MemesOut on Me_IRL lampooned the year in irony by posting a photo of an old man falling with the caption “This meme is from the future. You don’t get the reference yet.”

The joke is a simple wink to the randomness of the year’s memes, but that didn’t stop it from taking on a lore of its own. Soon the old man was understood to be from the year of 42069 (because of course he is), where he was the meme from December of that year and traveled back to our time. It then inspired a number of variations as folks reveled in the randomness of the future. As a meme, it bizarrely summed up the year in irony. The meme needed no context. Memes this year could have come from any time, with a reference point totally optional. The future looks bright and dank.

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Editor’s Note: This article is part of Know Your Meme’s annual review series looking back at some of the most memorable and popular memes, events and people that defined the Internet culture in 2016 as we know it.

ideo games can always be counted on to provide a steady flow of spicy memes for the internet’s insatiable appetite, and this year was no exception.

In the console world, Nintendo dominated the meme game in 2016 with the release of two new titles in the Pokemon franchise, which celebrated its 20th anniversary in February, Pokemon GO and Pokemon Sun and Moon, while SEGA continued to ride out the Internet’s meme obsession with Sonic the Hedgehog franchise, which also celebrated its 25th anniversary in June, through the announcement of Sonic Mania and Project Sonic 2017 and witty commentaries from @Sonic_Hedgehog on Twitter.

There were no shortage of video game controversies this year either, from the utterly disappointing reception of the Kickstarter-funded open-world survival game No Man’s Sky to a major gambling scandal that exposed a massive speculative market for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive skins among YouTube gaming vloggers in June. Meanwhile, Zoe Quinn of GamerGate fame popped back on the radar after she accused Nintendo of ridiculing her in its then newly-released title Paper Mario: Color Splash in what became known as the #Shufflegate.

In the PC gaming world, the year’s biggest winner was clearly Overwatch, Blizzard Entertainment’s new team-based multiplayer first-person shooter that instantly became a worldwide hit upon its release among the gaming and meme communities alike, with many of the playable characters (known as Heroes) spawning fan memes of their own. Reflecting its universally positive reception, Overwatch earned the honor of the Game of the Year at The Game Awards held in LA earlier this month, beating out other heavyweight titles like Doom, Uncharted 4 and Titanfall 2.

Now, without further ado, here are some of the biggest internet memes to go out of the video game world this year.

Overwatch Play of the Game Parodies

Title: Overwatch

One of the most unique features in Blizzard’s enormously successful multiplayer shooter Overwatch are the “Play of the Game” clips, which showcase impressive feats performed by a player during the match. The highlights were ripe for parody, leading YouTubers to splice in scenes from television and film, or even FAIL videos.

Yungoos Trump

Title: Pokémon Sun and Moon

The mongoose-like Pokémon Yungoos became a viral hit after being revealed during Nintendo’s Treehouse livestream at this year’s Electronic Entertainment Expo, where many fans noticed a resemblance between the creature’s tuft of yellow fur and Donald Trump’s signature hairstyle. The comparison took off once again after Yungoos evolved form Gumshoos was revealed in a Sun and Moon trailer that August, revealing an even more Trump-like variation of the grumpy-looking Pokémon.

Choose Your Class

Title: Various Role-Playing Games

The character selection screen commonly found in role-playing video games inspired one of the year’s more hilarious exploitables, featuring a template for absurd representations of the archetypal RPG classes. Keeping with the internet zeitgeist, it didn’t take long till meta and ironic variations were made, referencing the some of the year’s more absurd memes like Rick Harrison, Spongegar and Dat Boi.

Norman Reedus Holding Things

Title: Death Stranding

Hideo Kojima’s upcoming open world action video game Death Stranding has been widely hyped since it was announced at E3 in June. In a computer animated teaser for the game, the protagonist (played by Norman Reedus) is shown cradling an infant in his arms while crying on a desolate beach, which subsequently inspired a slew of photoshops featuring Reedus holding video game characters, internet memes and even Kojima himself.

Doom 2016 Cover Art Parodies

Title: Doom

After Conan O’Brien posted a first look at the box art for Bethesda’s reboot of the the Doom franchise, a thread on the NeoGAF forums kicked off an explosion of hilarious photoshops. While initial edits featured characters from other games like Metroid’s Samus, meme-themed variations including Paul Blart and Expand Dong inevitably followed.

Pokemon GO In-Game Screenshots

Title: Pokémon GO

Immediately after the Pokémon GO mobile game was released this summer, people around the world were glued to their phone screens chasing down virtual creatures out in the wild. It didn’t take long for enthusiasts to begin sharing screenshots of Pokémon overlaid in the real world using the game’s augmented reality viewfinder. The jokes started out tame enough but quickly devolved into shots of Diglett and Caterpie erupting out of crotches.

Super Mario 64 Glitch Exploits

Title: Super Mario 64

YouTuber pannenkoek2012 gained much notoriety on 4chan’s /v/ (video games) this year after releasing instructional videos to exploit glitches found in the 1996 platformer game Super Mario 64. Many chan users found his bizarre vocabulary endearing, referring to game states as “parallel universes” and telling viewers to use “half” button presses to perform certain exploits. Other elements of pannenkoek2012’s video were subsequently memed as well, including the Super Mario 64 Scuttlebug monster and 12 hour speed build-up used to execute some of the game’s more bizarre glitches.

Lord Tachanka

Title: Rainbow Six Siege

The Defending Operator character Tachanka from Rainbow Six Siege became an internet legend this year, earning the title “Lord Tachanka” for his poorly designed and under-powered abilities. While he has received several buffs in subsequent patches and updates, making him slightly less useless than before, the character continues to live on in Rainbow Six shitposts and circlejerks.

Watch Those Wrist Rockets

Title: Star Wars: Battlefront 2

Over the summer, the Star Wars Battlefront II-core ironic Facebook page brought back a blast from the past by posting images referencing the “Watch for those wrist rockets” line uttered by clone troopers in the 2005 video game Star Wars: Battlefront 2. It didn’t take long for it to be embraced by Reddit’s meme-loving me_irl community, who quickly drove it into the ground. More recently, me_irl briefly resurrected memes about LEGO Star Wars video games as part of their ongoing “Meme Renaissance”, which shows no signs of abatement.

Big Smoke’s Order

Title: Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas

In the 2004 game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, one cut scene featuring an extremely large fast food order for the gang member character Big Smoke has been mocked online for many years. It recently saw an enormous resurgence in popularity after YouTuber ComradeWarbear published an impressive, in-depth analysis, in which he tries to figure out the items purchased in the scene.

Editor’s Note: This article is part of Know Your Meme’s annual review series looking back at some of the most memorable and popular memes, events and people that defined the Internet culture in 2016 as we know it.

Language is a wonderful thing. It’s ever-malleable, evolving with humanity as it approaches the heights of its existence on this planet. Why, not one year ago would we have ever dreamed that everyone in every political discussion would have been called a “Cuck” by years end. Now that’s beautiful.

Seriously though, 2016 sucked and a lot of the slang that came out of this year reflected that. It was the year of the Dumpster Fire. It was the year progressives were belittled away with the label “Bernie Bro.” Trans people needed to come up with a term for when Facebook deleted their accounts for “not using their real name.” And everyone, everywhere, all the time, needed to Stay Woke. It was exhausting and difficult. But while a lot of slang reflected deeening cultural anxieties, 2016 also brought us words like Doggo, Succ, Thicc, and if new words cute dogs, blowjobs, and asses aren’t signs of positive changes in the world, then I don’t want to live on this planet anymore.

Anyway, here it is fam, the most deadass lit slang of 2016.

Cuck

There were a lot of great insults and pejoratives bandied about in 2016, but none was as pervasive and hilarious as Cuck. Everyone was a cuck this year, as the only qualification to be a “cuck” was to be slightly left of the far right. Ted Cruz? Cuck. John Kasich? Definitely a cuck. Chris Christie? Probably the biggest cuck of them all. As Donald Trump ran through the Republican primary belittling literally the entire field of chumps, he began to take on an alpha-aura. He wasn’t just beating these guys. He was taking their manhood.

Thus began the great American cuckhunt, as cuck-hungry conservatives rallied around Trump’s candidacy. In him, they saw a man who would finally get lobbying out of politics. He would repeal Obamacare. He would build a wall between Mexico and the United States. And then, after he was elected, he has reversed his position on literally all those things. The cuckers became the cuckees. You can’t cuck the Trump.

Fam

Ah, fam. Only good things precede “fam.” You call someone “fam” after you say “I gotchu” or “say no more.” It’s the gender-inclusive update to “bro” we needed in 2016. It also became part of a few great memes, such as The Barber.

Not to get sentimental about a monosyllabic word, but “fam” is genuinely one of the best platonic nicknames. It’s short for family, after all, and the general idea is that one would do anything for family. So when you’re called “fam” by your buddy, it’s like being told, “hey, you’re part of the family, what do you need?” It’s a nice, cheerful way to spread camaraderie, which the year desperately needed.

Zucked

In 2016, some of the best Weird Facebook pages disappeared without warning. It was yet another example of Zuckerberg screwing over creators, or “Zucking” them, which has been happening since the dawn of Facebook. But when he came for the memes, a new iteration of Zuck was born: “Zucc.”

“Zucc,” a play on Succ, became the blanket term for when mememakers and trans folk who don’t go by their given name on Facebook have their accounts suddenly deleted. Zuccing was just one of the many problems Facebook faced this year, bizarrely going after meme pages and trans people when their algorithm allowed for the proliferation of fake news. For his part, Zuckerberg seemed completely unaware of the issue, as demonstrated in a notorious video where he asks, “what is Zucc?”

Thicc

Thicc is not pronounced like “thick.” Rather, it is pronounced “thiiiiick” with a deep appreciation for the gloriousness of a fine butt, like this one:

Now that’s thicc. “Thicc” is another pickup from African American Vernacular English that made its way to the memesphere via application to everything under the sun, including Pokemon Sun and Moon character Wicke, Spongebob’s“Bubble Bass,” and this couch:

Any way we can show appreciation for butts gets an A in my book, making “thicc” more than worthy of its spot on this list.

Deadass

If you grew up in the northeast quadrant of the United States around New York City, chances are you’ve heard Deadass in more contexts than you can count. By the working definition shown below, it’s entirely possible to have a conversation like this:

1: Deadass?
2: Deadass!
3: Deadassssss.

Generally, “Deadass” means “seriously,” and it remained one of the most consistent slang words of the 21st century in 2016, particularly when Timbs started getting big as a meme on Black Twitter. It’s pretty great slang that’s simple enough to understand, but a word of caution: use it wrong and you’re going to How Do You Do, Fellow Kids? yourself.

Dumpster Fire

The Dumpster Fire is 2016 in a nutshell: a literal pile of garbage, lit ablaze and smelling up the entire world, and probably doing some permanent damage to the climate while it’s at it. Mother Jones called “Dumpster Fire” the meme of the year, and who could blame them? Look at the below gif and tell me it doesn’t sum up the entire election/year.

The one issue with calling 2016 a dumpster fire is that dumpster fires are contained and put out eventually. Not the case for 2016. No, the dumpster fire of a year rages on and seems to grow more by the day, burning everything in its path like Sherman’s March (Google it). Soon they’ll have to come up with a new word to describe how bad things are. What’s next? Nuclear holocaust?

Yuge

Ahh, the good ol’ days, when we could all laugh at how Donald Trump pronounces “huge.” “It’s gonna be YUGE!” we’d say to each other with a knowing wink. “Yuge” was Trump’s first Bushism, one of his go-to words (along with “tremendous,” “the best,” etc.) when describing the future of America.

Of course, Trump isn’t the only one to pronounce it “yooge.” Bernie Sanders does it too, as do many who talk with a mid-twentieth century New York City dialect. But Trump’s “Yooge” is a trademark, arguably the second-most well-known Trumpism behind “You’re Fired.” It was widely tossed around in the days when a Trump candidacy seemed like folly. Now that he’s ascended to the yugest office in the United States, not so much.

Stay Woke

“Shit is happening all the time. All you need to do to see it is open your eyes. Stay Woke.” So might go a phrase that was simultaneously silly and deeply serious in 2016. In many cases, terrible things were happening everywhere from the Black Lives Matter movement to the Democratic Party corruption revealed by Wikileaks. These were things that desperately needed attention and because of the never-ending shitstream that was 2016, could get washed away by our short attention spans.

But it was also applied to jokes. People joked about staying woke to The Warriors Blew a 3-1 Lead, Jet Fuel Can’t Melt Steel Beams, etc. It made for a very sleepless year, as I stayed woke through every controversy, gag, and conspiracy that passed us by in 2016. After this year, we could all use a nap.

Becky

This year, Beyoncé dropped Lemonade, an epic album that featured a line many couldn’t forget about a certain “Becky with the good hair” who had attracted the attention of her man. In the context of an album that seemed to be explicitly about Jay-Z’s infidelity, the internet immediately started wondering who “Becky with the good hair” might be. For my money, the answer was pretty obvious:

But in all seriousness, while we never found out who the real “Becky” was, the line instantly made “Becky” a slang word for a woman whom a man cheats on. Prior to Lemonade, “Becky” had previously been slang for a generic white girl. Honestly, Becky is a fine name, but it sure did get dragged through the mud in 2016.

Daddy

Daddy culture is one of those subcultures that gives many the heebie-jeebies. The name implies a fetish that plays on the idea that the guy in a sexual encounter is banging his daughter. It’s certainly a subculture many don’t know a lot about and choose to ignore. However, “Daddy” wouldn’t be on this list without the help of a tweet rant that spawned #Daddygate.

One Twitter user named @shanley skyrocketed to Twitter infamy when she found it necessary to eviscerate the phonies who were “appropriating daddy culture” by calling celebrities daddy or using “daddy” in a cute screen name. It’s one of the greatest Twitter rants of all time, and birthed plenty of handclap-laden tweets like “DON’T APPROPRIATETRANSFORMERSCULTURE IF YOUARENOT A SOLDIER IN THEFIGHTAGAINSTMEGATRON,” for example. #Daddygate was one of Twitter’s best moments, combining bizarre, social-justice overreaction with an uncomfortable fetish many giggle about. Everyone had a good laugh about it… well, except @shanley.

Editor’s Note: This article is part of Know Your Meme’s annual review series looking back at some of the most memorable and popular memes, events and people that defined Internet culture in 2016 as we know it.

iral challenges tend to be pretty stupid. Remember the #WhackYourselfInTheFaceWithA2x4 challenge? You don’t, because I just made it up, but you thought it was possible for a second, didn’t you?

2016’s crop of challenges didn’t buck that trend. For the most part, it was another year of people hurting themselves for the clicks and retweets, much to the chagrin of those who find these trends tiresome after they see two examples (i.e. everyone). But there were a few really good ones. These challenges are at their best when they inspire participants to be creative, and a few challenges gave us some incredible videos and photos to remember 2016 by. So here they are, the best, dumbest, and feed-cloggingest viral challenges of 2016!

Mannequin Challenge

The Mannqeuin Challenge is one of the best viral challenges we’ve gotten since viral challenges became a thing. It requires creativity and dedication from a large group of people, which are two extremely rare things. The premise: stay perfectly still while a camera person moves through the scene, creating the illusion that the camera is moving through a frozen moment in time. It’s usually pretty clever and enjoyable, even when the Kardashians do it.

It spread like wildfire through the country in the weeks leading up to the election, prompting Hillary Clinton to once again butcher a meme by doing a mannequin challenge called “don’t stay still on election day” or something. But while the high-profile mannequin challenges were cool, the best by far was one made by Black Lives Matter activists that showed recreations of various police shootings in the past year. A meme made for social change that actually is powerful and affecting is a rare, glorious thing.

One Finger Selfie Challenge

The One Finger Selfie Challenge is one of the most devious challenges ever created. The idea is to take mirror-nude selfies using one finger to cover your naughty bits. I suspect an extremely small number of people actually participated in this, but combine nudity with the phrase “viral challenge” and you have a story that’s a click-hunting website’s dream.

The One Finger Selfie Challenge was sexy and stupid and gained the attention of the media because it’s a story that has sold papers since the dawn of time: the TEENS are doing WEIRDSEXTHINGS. Also it inspired a lot of hentai, which was just a blast to look at while researching this, thanks.

Corn Drill Challenge

When Al Gore invented the internet, this is what he envisioned: a utopia where men and women from all over the world stuck corn to power drills and spun them on their face.

The Corn Drill Challenge is some prime internet, harkening back to the days when people made people made harmless, stupid videos for fun. Well… almost harmless. Of course, it wouldn’t be classic internet unless someone got seriously injured, and luckily, the Corn Drill Challenge came through.

UNameIt

Things people love: Thanksgiving, Grandmas, Gospel, Hip-hop, Beans, Greens, Potatoes, Tomatoes, Lambs, Rams, YOUNAAAAAAME IT.

Great remixes always make for good memes, and the #UNameItChallenge provided one of the year’s best when Shirley Caesar’s list from the gospel song “Hold My Mule” got the club-banger treatment. It became one of the best Thanksgiving memes ever with its great beat and family-friendly message. It even inspired a rap that made “tofu turkey” almost sound appealing to non-Vegans, which is an impossible task for anything, let alone a meme.

Grey Sweatpants Challenge

Dicks. We love ‘em! And dick-lovers love seein’ em outlined in grey sweatpants. But when one thirsty Twitter user asked to see some dicks in some sweatpants, the men of Twitter responded by showing just how big they could get their bulges to go.

The Grey Sweatpants Challenge found men shoving a lot of shit down their pants in a kooky reversal of the typical “responding to requests for nudes with goofs” games of the internet. It was good wholesome fun mocking the perpetually horny online culture, and got some creative responses. Everything was PG and nothing hurt and yes I’m pretending no one responded seriously to the challenge.

Kirby’s Dreamland Challenge

Few songs are as fun and infectious as the Kirby’s Dreamland theme. You can’t help but be happy when you hear it. That’s why setting it to dancing that doesn’t fit is hilarious every time.

The Kirby’s Dreamland Challenge asks participants to set videos to the Kirby’s Dreamland theme. Not the hardest challenge in the world to pull off, but man, did it yield results. The playfulness of the song injected any video with pure joy. Stuff like the Kirby’s Dreamland Challenge will be missed once Vine goes under.

#M7Challenge

On July 12th, 2016, Ugandan president Yoweri Kaguta Museveni sat by the side of the road to take a phone call. People thought this was hilarious.

What happened next is what happens whenever the internet gets whiff of a good photoshop contest: the #M7Challenge. Suddenly Ugandans and other Africans began adopting Museveni’s pose, taking phone calls in chairs in extremely ridiculous places, eventually leading one challenger to get hit by a car in the middle of the road. Other than that terrible event, the #M7Challenge was pretty funny, if only because it all started from a politician sitting in a chair taking a phone call. That, and it led to some pretty incredible photos.

Bottle Flipping

One of the most innocuous but hardest fads of 2016 was bottle flipping. The premise is simple enough: you flip a half-full water bottle and get it to land vertically. But if there’s any doubt as to how hard it is, take a listen to the reaction one teen gets to the accomplishment in the video that started it all:

After Mike Senatore’s epic video, the craze was afoot. Teens everywhere were flipping bottles. The trend made it to the Dude Perfect channel, where five guys performed the stunt in increasingly ridiculous settings:

The simplicity of the idea and its difficulty made it one of the most enduring viral trends of 2016. The latest example of bottle flipping finds NBA superstar and meme-participator Lebron James trying to pull it off as his Cavaliers utterly wrecked the New York Knicks. But no matter how intense the videos get, none will be as epic as the original.

Name a More Iconic Duo

In September this year, Twitter was inundated with people naming iconic duos. Why? They were making fun of a Kardashian fan, of course.

@negansvoid innocent tweet challenged the internet to think of any duo who could possibly be “more iconic” than Kylie and Kendall Jenner, and Twitter was happy to try. They picked Hall & Oates. Hoda and Kathy Lee. Beyoncé and Kelly (and not the other one).

@negansvoid learned two lessons of Being Online the hard way when she sparked the “Name a More Iconic Duo” meme. 1) Never challenge the internet. 2) Especially when it involves the Kardashian family.

Backpack Challenge

After researching so many challenges that find The Teens doing Stupid Shit (see: the Huh challenge), it warms my heart to see them get pelted by backpacks.

The Backpack Challenge is just that: teenagers getting pelted by backpacks. Much like how citizens of biblical times would stone women found unfaithful to their husbands, teens of 2016 gathered up their friends and filled their backpacks and threw them at their peers. This is a challenge only in name. There is no winning. There is only suffering and pain amidst the laughter of 15 year-olds. Which, honestly, makes it pretty fun. As Jesus basically said, Let He Among Us Without Sin Be the First to Throw Thy Backpack at This Idiot.

Editor’s Note: This article is part of Know Your Meme’s annual Top Ten Review series looking back at some of the most memorable and popular memes, events and people that defined the Internet culture in 2016 as we know it.

he many creatures we share this planet with have remained a constant source of entertainment on the web. In today’s internet meme landscape, animals provide some of the best online content, from viral videos to adorable photos, and are even some of our biggest celebrities on social media.

In anthropomorphic animals, the unicycle-riding frog Dat Boi briefly became a ubiquitous internet joke, before quickly wearing out its welcome. Pepe the Frog had perhaps his biggest year yet, becoming a national news story following a well organized campaign to brand the character a “hate symbol.” Most recently, the character Biggie Cheese from the 2006 animated comedy film Barnyard saw a resurgence online after screenshots of a bizarre erotic chat conversation about the rapping mouse circulated across the web.

In reptile memes, a picture of a blue-tongued skink preparing to drinnk a beer was dubbed Friday Lizard on Australian Twitter. The muppet Kermit the Frog became known as Tea Lizard thanks to Twitter troll @Triballins. Meanwhile, a Tyrannosaurus rex dinosaur costume became the new horse head mask on YouTube, with people donning the outfit to perform various pranks and stunts.

Let’s look back on the year’s top 10 animal memes to grace the web, listed in no particular order.

Harambe the Gorilla

Species: Gorilla (Gorilla gorilla) Debut: May 1999 Breakout: #DicksOutForHarambe Profile: Western lowland silverback gorilla who was tragically shot and killed at the Cincinnati Zoo after a child fell into his enclosure in May. Following a long mourning period, Harambe transitioned into an ironic internet meme with the hashtag #DicksOutForHarambe. Primary Habitat: Facebook Highlights: Clinton Did Harambe | Baby Costume | Tell Me About 2016

Doggo

Species: Dog (Canis familiaris) Debut: May 2014 Breakout: “What are aninmals?” Profile: A type of dog often described as a “big ol’ pupper.” Not to be confused with “Doge”. Primary Habitat: Facebook Highlights: Doggo Button | Snip Snap Doggos

Snek

Species: Various species in the suborder Serpentes Debut: January 201r Breakout: This Is Snek Profile: Photographs of adorable snakes with interior monologue captions. Primary Habitat: Facebook Highlights: Snek Anatomy | No Step On Snek | Hello, Snek?

Persian Cat Room Guardian

Species: Cat (Felis catus) Debut: August 2013 Breakout: @RatchetPeopleMeet Instagram Profile: A stuffed toy cat seated on a box with outstretched arms. Often used as a reaction image captioned with frustrating or annoying situations. Primary Habitat: DeviantArt Highlights: Confused Travolta | Magician | Road Rage

Gabe the Dog

Species: Dog (Canis familiaris) Debut: January 2013 Breakout: Dog Pleasure Night Profile: A white minature American Eskimo and Pomeranian mix whose adorable bark is often used in remix videos synced to various pop songs. Primary Habitat: YouTube Highlights: Doggos React | Borkquiem for a Dream | Borkrica

Punched Kangaroo

Species: Eastern grey kangaroo (Macropus giganteus) Debut: June 2016 Breakout: ""Man Punches Kangaroo in the Face":http://knowyourmeme.com/videos/159117-kangaroo-punch-video Profile: A eastern grey kangaroo who latched on to a hunting dog and was then punched in the face in an effort to rescue to the canine. Primary Habitat: YouTube Highlights: Ozzy Man Reviews | Best Anime Fight of 2016 | Movie Trailer Parody

Puppy Monkey Baby

Species: Dog (Canis familiaris_), white-bellied spider monkey (Ateles belzebuth_), human (Homo sapiens) Debut: Super Bowl 50 Breakout: Mountain Dew Kickstart Commercial Profile: A dog-monkey-human hybrid from a Mountain Dew commercial broadcast during Super Bowl 50. The fictional creature was reviled online for its disturbing appearance. Primary Habitat: YouTube Highlights: Patton Oswalt Tweets | Cosplay | Illustration

Cheating Penguin

Species: Magellanic penguin (Spheniscus magellanicus) Debut: November 2016 Breakout: Animal Fight Night: Homewrecking Penguin Profile: A female Magellanic penguin who sparks a violent marital disagreement by cheating on her penguin husband. Primary Habitat: Twitter Highlights: Penguin’s Fist | Crying Jordan | Strong Penguin Fathers

Shocked Capybara

Species: Capybara (Hydrochoerus hydrochaeris) Debut: November 2016 Breakout: Planet Earth 2“Jungles” episode Profile: A stunned-looking capybara rodent witnessing a jaguar visciously hunt a caiman in South America. Primary Habitat: Twitter Highlights: Mother of God | Have I Just Seen That? | Gobsmacked

Planet Earth Iguana

Species: Marine iguana (Amblyrhynchus cristatus) Debut: November 2016 Breakout: Planet Earth 2“Islands” episode Profile: A baby marine iguana who sprints through a guantlet of ravenous snakes across the rocky coast of Galapagos. Primary Habitat: YouTube Highlights: Run Boy Run Remix | Benny Hill Remix | Ozzy Man Reviews

Editor’s Note: This article is part of Know Your Meme’s annual review series looking back at some of the most memorable and popular memes, events and people that defined the Internet culture in 2016 as we know it.

The Year In Review

• A Golden Age of the Meme Culture: Say what you will about the current state of the memescape, but 2016 will soon be remembered as the year when memes broke through another great barrier and stepped into a new realm where no memes have gone before: The Beltway of Washington D.C. About six years ago, we began hearing references to internet memes on network TV shows. In the next few years, we started seeing memes plastered on advertisement, films, and occasionally, headline news. In 2016, we saw President Obama dropping the mic during his speech and the First Lady doing the Mannequin Challenge with star-studded guests in the Blue Room of the White House. If that doesn’t impress, relish the fact that for the first time ever, “memes” was looked up on Google Search more frequently than Jesus and God. So, yeah, memes are sort of a big deal.

• The Dawn of a Post-Factual Era: This year, we saw the Internet getting bought, and getting got, on a scale of efforts and impact that we have never been seen before. Misinformation and disinformation ran amok and spread without a pause, while classified information leaked like a sieve from servers that were thought to be secure, largely driven by endless bouts of clash between the conservatives and liberals on the social media, critical breach and exploits of high-profile email servers by mysterious and highly skilled hackers, and of course, a booming industry of fake U.S. election news manufacturers for-hire in Eastern Europe.

• A Regressive Trend in Quality-of-Meme: In 2016, the self-referential trend of the meme culture (or meta-memeosis as previously referred to in last year’s report) continued to run its course; the steadfast and high pressure winds of “shitposting”:/memes/shitposting not only conventionalized such practice as a norm in the creative process of memes, but they also directly contributed to the regressive trend in quality-of-meme, aesthetics and substance, by lowering the entry barrier under the pretext of being ironic. But as the old wise saying goes, ”it’s still shitposting even if you are being ironic.”

• Politicization of the Meme Culture: This year’s United States presidential election certainly wasn’t the first “social media election” that we’ve studied, but without a doubt, it was by far the most interesting and eventful political spectacle we have observed online in our lifetime. In the heat of the political showdown between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, quite a few memes were openly endorsed and condemned by the two major political parties, most notably Pepe the Frog and “This Is Fine” Dog, while others were enlisted by web-savvy partisans to craft a cult of personality for their candidates in what became known as the Great Meme War of 2016.

• The Wave of the Early Aughts Nostalgia: It is only logical that our nostalgia of the past also ages with passage of time. This year, Smash Mouth’s late 90s hit “All star” and Santana’s Grammy-winning “Smooth” spearheaded the wave of 90s nostalgia, while other one-hit-wonders and hits from the early 2000s began popping up on the social media.

Memes of 2016

Check out our annual review series to get in the know with the rest of must-see memes from 2016. Be sure to check the homepage this weekend for more reviews by categories, including this year’s most notable events, people, apps and sites, and fandoms.

Editor’s Note: This article is part of Know Your Meme’s annual review series looking back at some of the most memorable and popular memes, events and people that defined the Internet culture in 2016 as we know it.

kay, let’s get it out of our system. If we had to choose one person to remember the memes in 2016 by, it would be none other than Donald Trump, the most prolific soundbite generator we’ve seen in this century and the next leader of the Free World. As the presidential candidate of the Republican party, Trump effortlessly established himself as the game changer and X-factor of this year’s election by waging an open war against the news media while forging an alliance with the ultraconservatives on the social media. Nevertheless, Donald Trump clearly wasn’t the only person of interest that people talked about on the Internet this year. And so here it is, the ten most influential content producers, vloggers and groups of the year 2016:

Keemstar

DJ Keemstar (also known as Killer Keemstar) is the online handle of video blogger Daniel Keem, who is best known for his YouTube news web series Drama Alert. Within the vlogging community on YouTube, Keemstar is considered a highly divisive figure due to his history of frequent feuds and hostile exchanges with other YouTube content producers.

Gilvasunner

GiIvaSunner is a YouTube account imitating the original video game music ripper, GilvaSunner, by using a name similar in appearance with a capitalized I in place of the L. Unlike the original, which uploads video game soundtracks, this parody account uploads bait and switch videos. The songs often follow soundclown jokes or are remixed.

iDubbbz

iDubbbz is a YouTuber who is widely known for his Kickstarter Crap videos, his Content Cop videos, specifically his one directed at Jinx, and his videos with the YouTuber Filthy Frank.

LeafyIsHere

LeafyIsHere is the YouTube handle of Calvin Vail, an American video game streamer and vlogger known for his satirical commentaries and narrations while playing a variety of first-person video games, most notably the surf mode in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive.

Hydraulic Press Channel

Hydraulic Press Channel is a YouTube channel devoted to compressing and crushing a variety of objects with a high-powered industrial-strength hydraulic press. Since its launch by Finnish factory owner Lauri Vuohensilta in October 2015, the web series has gained online fame and a large audience on YouTube, mainly due to its oddly satisfying appeal.

h3h3Production

h3h3 Productions is a YouTube channel run by the married couple Ethan and Hila Klein, which typically feature videos reacting to content uploaded by pranksters and hip hop artists (specifically producer DJ Khaled) on the video sharing platform.

Milo Yiannopoulos

Milo Yiannopoulos is a British journalist who is an technology editor at the conservative news and opinion site Breitbart. He has gained much notoriety online for frequently covering the Gamergate controversy and for being an outspoken critic of third-wave feminism.

Guccifer 2.0

Guccifer 2.0, not to be confused with the convicted Romanian hacker Guccifer, is a mysterious hacker of unknown identity who gained online notoriety in June 2016 after claiming responsibility for breaching the servers of at least two major committees within the United States Democratic Party, namely the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), that resulted in the massive leak of private e-mails and internal memos, as well as personal contact information of Democratic officials and lawmakers.

Alt Right

The Alt-Right refers to a loosely defined segment of right-wing conservative principles, as well as the faction of politicians and constituents, often characterized by a vehement opposition to multiculturalism, feminism, socialism and identity politics in the United States. Additionally, the movement has been widely reported as “white nationalist,” though this claim has been disputed by some. Presented as an alternative to mainstream American conservatism, the alt-right is known for its vocal support for 2016 Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump, and use of internet memes on political discussion boards like 4chan’s /pol/ and Reddit’s /r/The_Donald.

Berniebros

Berniebro is a pejorative term referring to fanatical male supporters of 2016 Democratic Presidential Primary candidate Bernie Sanders who supposedly oppose his rival candidate Hillary Clinton based on sexist cultural biases. Since its coinage in late 2015, many Clinton supporters have asserted that the term accurately underscores the basis of Sanders’ affinity with young male Democrats, while others have dismissed it as a straw man argument or smear tactics aimed at detracting criticisms surrounding Clinton’s campaign platform.

The Ones We Lost in 2016

Editor’s Note: This article is part of Know Your Meme’s annual review series looking back at some of the most memorable and popular memes, events and people that defined the Internet culture in 2016 as we know it.

he year 2016 began on a frightening note with the news of the Zika virus outbreak in Central and South Americas (which infected an estimated 1.5 million people in Brazil alone) and the publication of the Panama Papers, the largest-scale leak in history of data journalism that exposed and implicated more than 214,488 offshore entities in tax evasion. In Europe, xenophobic and Islamophobia permeated throughout the continent in the wake of terrorist attacks in Brussels in March, Istanbul in June and Nice in July, all three of which were either claimed or accused to have been carried out under the direction of the Islamic State (IS), while the steady influx of refugees and migrants from the war-torn Middle East only escalated the tension.

Meanwhile in the United States, the year was heavily dominated by a string of political scandals and controversies involving both presidential candidates of the two major political parties, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, while other unresolved social issues, like police brutality against the black community and equal rights for the LGBTQ community, continued to draw a whole lot of friction on the social media.

Online, virtually every major social media platform struggled to reinvent itself and evolve in one way or another: YouTube’s new “ad-friendly” content guidelines caused quite an uproar among some of the most popular vloggers on the site, Facebook became embroiled in several controversies for its alleged manipulation of the trending news stories and unrestrained circulation of fake news stories and hoaxes relating to the election.

Transgender Bathroom Debate

In March, the social media lit up with discussions on whether transgender people should be legally entitled to access public bathrooms in accord with their self-identified genders, as opposed to their biological sex, after North Carolina State Legislature passed a bill prohibiting people from using public bathrooms of the gender not specified on their birth certificates.

Hulk Hogan’s Sex Tape Lawsuit

In March, Hulk Hogan made the headline news after a Florida jury delivered a verdict in favor of the celebrity professional wrestler in his suit against Gawker, which had published an excerpt of a half-hour long sex tape featuring Hogan, for invasion of his privacy. The shocking verdict, along with the hefty consequence of $140 million, ultimately led the Internet media giant to file bankruptcy and shut down its flagship news site Gawker.com in August. The stories about Hogan were also removed from the site. In November, Hogan and Gawker reached a settlement in which Gawker would pay Hogan $31 million dollars.

Panama Papers Leak

The Panama Papers Leak was a massive disclosure of 11.5 million attorney–client confidential documents by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) which revealed how businesses, government officials and other high-profile figures were using fake companies to evade taxes and cover up various other criminal activities, including bribery, fraud, drug trafficking and human trafficking.

Terrorist Attacks in Europe

2016 Terrorist Attacks in Europe refer to three separate terrorist attacks that were carried out by in Brussels, Belgium, Istanbul, Turkey and Nice, France between March and July, all three of which were either claimed or accused to have been carried out under the direction of the Islamic State (IS).

Brexit

Brexit (short for “British Exit”) refers to the withdrawal of the United Kingdom (UK) from the European Union (EU), a regional political-economic union the country has been a member of since joining its precursor organization, European Economic Community (EEC), in 1973. The historic decision not only upset the climates of the European politics and global economy, but it also left a cultural imprint in the meme world by popularizing the colloquial use of “-exit” as a suffix to describe other sudden or unexpected episodes of rage quitting in various contexts.

Orlando Nightclub Shooting

The Orlando Nightclub Shooting was a mass shooting carried out by a lone gunman at Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, which resulted in the deaths of at least 49 patrons and wounded 53 others on June 12th, 2016. The killing spree has been classified by the authorities as an act of domestic terrorism carried out in allegiance to the Islamic State (IS), making it the deadliest mass shooting and hate crime against LGBT community in modern United States history, as well as the deadliest terrorist attack on American soil since the September 11 attacks in 2001.

Democratic National Committee Email Leak

The 2016 DNC Email Leak was a major political scandal that began with the WikiLeaks’ publication of internal correspondences exchanged among the staff members of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) in July. In the leaked emails, the DNC officials allegedly discussed various tactics and stratagems to undermine the presidential campaign of Bernie Sanders in order to secure Hillary Clinton’s victory in the Democratic primaries. Published just a few day before the Democratic Party’s official nomination of Clinton, the email scandal delivered a significant blow to Clinton’s public stature and prompted investigations by the FBI and CIA on whether Russian government employed cyberwarfare to intervene and sway the outcome of the election in favor of Donald Trump.

2016 Summer Olympics

The 2016 Rio Summer Olympics was the 31st quadrennial international multi-sport event hosted by the city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in August. While the lead-up to the commencement of Games was marked by a jumble of concerns, doubts and controversies, such as the host city’s infrastructural readiness, public safety, health hazards and civil unrest across the rest of Brazil, the Summer Olympics in Rio was generally regarded as a success.

Creepy Clown Sightings

Creepy Clown Sightings were a series of reported sightings of people dressed as clowns in remote parts of various cities and towns across the United States and Europe that first began in late August. Between August and October, the sightings of creepy clowns had spread to Florida and many other states in the South, before turning into a full-fledged transatlantic phenomenon with additional reports from the United Kingdom, Sweden and Germany. Initially thought to be a viral marketing campaign for a horror film, the mysterious trend of “creepy clown scares” eventually hit the plateau

2016 United States Presidential Election

The 2016 United States Presidential Election was the 58th quadrennial presidential election in the U.S. that took place on November 8th, 2016. The two major candidates were former First Lady, Secretary of State and Democrat Senator Hillary Clinton, running with Tim Kaine, and Republican real estate mogul Donald Trump, running with Mike Pence. Donald Trump was elected as 45th president of the United States after defeating Hillary Clinton in electoral votes.

Editor’s Note: This article is part of Know Your Meme’s annual review series looking back at some of the most memorable and popular memes, events and people that defined the Internet culture in 2016 as we know it.

n the world of apps and websites, 2016 made a bold leap into the doorstep of the next-generation techs, like simulated reality and artificial intelligence, with an increasingly visible presence of virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AG) and artificial intelligence (AI) devices and apps in consumer tech market.

Over two decades after RealNetworks’ first major live sports webcast of the Major League Baseball game between Seattle Mariners and New York Yankees in 1995, livestreaming finally became a new standard in social media with Facebook, Tumblr and Twitter introducing their own live video features this year, most likely inspired by the resounding success of early adopters like Periscope and Twitch, while others ventured into entirely new products based on the technology, most notably Vine co-founders’ new mobile app Hype and SnapChat’s Spectacles smartglasses. This isn’t to say, however, that 2016 was a “great” year for social media. The industry giants, namely Facebook, Twitter, Reddit and YouTube, all faced a plenty of housecleaning tasks and PR headaches in the heat of the 2016 presidential election and the ever-growing pressure of paving new revenue streams.

But no other domain within the world of digital media has had a worse year than online journalism. 2016 began on a rocky footing with the death sentence of Gawker Media’s flagship site Gawker.com in the aftermath of its legal battle against the Hulk Machine over sex tape leak; the principle of impartiality and objectivity came under intense scrutiny of the public amidst the stormy coverage of an unprecedented election marked by a candidate who waged an open war against mainstream journalism; accountability and truthfulness took a heavy dive in currency value as the age of “post-truth,” or hyperreal politics, began rearing its ugly head through the rise of alt-right strongholds and fake news factories on social media. And now, here are the top ten apps and sites that defined the memescape in 2016.

/r/The_Donald

/r/The_Donald is a subreddit for supporters of United States president-elect Donald Trump that became a stronghold of the alt right movement on social media. In November 2016, the subreddit became the ground zero of a scandal in which Reddit CEO Steve Huffman admitted to tampering with insulting comments posted at him by Redditors on /r/The_Donald.

Gawker

Gawker Media is a blog network based in New York City, owned and founded by Nick Denton. The network originally consisted of eight blogs, including Gawker, Deadspin, Lifehacker, Gizmodo, io9, Kotaku, Jalopnik and Jezebel. In 2016, the company closed its flagship publication Gawker.com after filing bankruptcy in the wake of Hulk Hogan’s sex tape lawsuit.

DC Leaks

DC Leaks is a website which serves as a repository for leaked emails taken from the accounts of top-ranking officials from around the world. In August 2016, the site was widely publicized for releasing emails hacked from organizations run by business magnate George Soros’, including the grantmaking network Open Society Foundations.

Face Swap Live

Face Swap Live is a mobile application that superimposes a variety of celebrity faces over the user’s face in real time. Videos and GIFs of people using the application are often posted to YouTube and Reddit.

Tay A.I.

Microsoft Tay was an artificial intelligence program that ran a mostly Twitter-based bot, parsing what was Tweeted at it and responding in kind. Tay was meant to be targeted towards people ages 15-24, to better understand their methods of communication. However, once it was released, users online corrupted the bot by teaching it racist and sexist terminology, ironic memes, sending it shitpost tweets, and otherwise attempting to alter its output. After these trolls discovered Tay’s guiding system, Microsoft was forced to remove the bot’s functionality less than 24 hours after its launch.

Breitbart

Breitbart is an alt-right conservative news site known for covering a variety of high-profile political scandals and Internet controversies, including the ACORN undercover videos, Weinergate and Gamergate.

WikiHow

WikiHow is an online resource community that offers step-by-step guides on how to complete various tasks that may require a certain level of prerequisite knowledge or skills.The website features over 190,000 instructional articles on a broad range of tasks, typically accompanied by visual aids, tips and warnings to assist the readers in acquiring the necessary know-hows to achieve their end goals. Since its launch in 2005, many Wikihow articles have gained online notoriety due to the over-explanatory or oversimplified nature of the content.

BuzzFeed Tasty

BuzzFeed Tasty is a series of short food recipe videos produced and distributed by BuzzFeed. Each video shows a meal being prepared and cooked from start to finish, along with a step-by-step instruction, from the top-down view. Since its launch in 2015, the series has gained a large following on the social media, particularly on Facebook, due to its simple and visually to-the-point style of recipe videos.

Geofeedia

Geofeedia is a social media intelligence platform which tracks the geolocation of posts made on various social media platforms in real-time. In October 2016, the service drew criticism from civil rights groups and social media after it was found to have been used as a tracking tool by U.S. law enforcement agencies during protests, most notably during the 2015 Baltimore protests that followed the death of Freddie Gray.

Pokemon Go

Pokémon GO is an augmented reality game for mobile devices developed and published by Niantic in which the player can capture, train and battle digital avatars of Pokémon characters in real-world locations using a GPS-enabled and camera-equipped smartphone. Upon its release in July 2016, Pokémon GO quickly became one of the most downloaded mobile apps to be ever released.