129 Fun Facts About Internet Memes

Who coined the word 'meme' in his 1976 book The Selfish Gene?

He shortened the Greek 'mimeme' ('imitated thing') to rhyme with 'gene', long before anyone shared cat pictures.

Who first used the phrase 'Internet meme', in 1993?

The same Mike Godwin gave us Godwin's law about online arguments drifting toward Hitler comparisons.

Godwin's law says the odds of a comparison to whom approach one as an online discussion grows?

Godwin proposed it in 1990 as an experiment in memetics; a 2021 Harvard study found the effect isn't statistically common on Reddit.

A rickroll bait-and-switches you into the video for which 1987 Rick Astley hit?

It grew out of a 4chan prank called 'duckrolling'; the first rickroll in 2007 replaced a Grand Theft Auto IV trailer.

Rick Astley took rickrolling mainstream by lip-syncing on a float at which 2008 event?

He appeared on a Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends float after Cartoon Network paid him handsomely; many 4chan users then declared the joke dead.

The Doge meme features which breed of dog?

The original dog, Kabosu, was photographed by her owner Atsuko Sato in 2010; the meme peaked in 2013 and spawned Dogecoin.

Doge captions are traditionally written in which font?

The broken-English text ('such wow') represents the dog's inner monologue.

Which cryptocurrency was launched in December 2013 as a joke based on the Doge meme?

Know Your Meme named Doge the top meme of 2013, the same year the coin appeared.

What was Grumpy Cat's real name?

Her permanent scowl came from an underbite and feline dwarfism; she was first posted to Reddit in September 2012.

The Distracted Boyfriend meme comes from a stock photo taken in which country?

Photographer Antonio Guillem shot it in Girona in 2015; its Shutterstock caption began 'Disloyal man walking with his girlfriend'.

The Dancing Baby, one of the first viral videos in 1996, was originally a demo for what?

The 'sk_baby.max' file shipped with Character Studio, a plug-in for 3D Studio Max, and later danced through Ally McBeal.

Nyan Cat flies through space with what for a body?

Chris Torres drew the GIF in April 2011; a YouTuber paired it with a Japanese Vocaloid song and it became 2011's fifth most-viewed video.

The 2013 Harlem Shake craze was set to a track by which producer?

Thousands of videos were uploaded a day at its peak, and it pushed Billboard to start counting YouTube views in the Hot 100.

The Ice Bucket Challenge of 2014 raised money to fight which condition?

It raised over $115 million worldwide that year; nominees had 24 hours to douse themselves or donate.

Which cartoonist created the green frog character from the 2005 comic Boy's Club that became a meme?

Furie later sued groups that turned Pepe into a hate symbol; the 2020 documentary Feels Good Man tells the story.

Keyboard Cat's original footage was filmed in which year?

Charlie Schmidt shot his cat Fatso 'playing' in 1984; the 'Play Him Off' meme took off in 2009, long after Fatso had died.

Success Kid is actually clutching a fistful of what?

His mother's 2007 Flickr photo of him trying to eat sand was titled 'Why I oughta...'; the White House later used it for immigration reform.

The 'woman yelling at a cat' meme pairs a Real Housewives star with a cat named what?

Smudge, from Ottawa, was photographed glaring at a salad; the combo was first tweeted in May 2019.

Which was the first YouTube video to reach one billion views, in December 2012?

Psy's video held the most-viewed crown until See You Again overtook it in 2017.

The Bernie Sanders mittens meme came from a photo taken at which event?

The mittens were made by Vermont teacher Jen Ellis, who was flooded with thousands of requests.

The 'This is fine' dog sitting in a burning room comes from which webcomic?

KC Green drew it in 2013; the comic ran from 2008 to 2014.

The house burning behind Disaster Girl was actually what?

Zoë Roth was four when her father snapped the smirk in Mebane, North Carolina, in 2005.

How many views had 'Charlie Bit My Finger' racked up by January 2026?

The 56-second clip of two English brothers was once YouTube's most-watched video and briefly vanished when YouTube privatised old unlisted videos in 2021.

'Kilroy was here' graffiti became a worldwide meme during which conflict?

American GIs left the bald, big-nosed doodle everywhere; in Britain the same figure was called Mr Chad.

The mangled grammar used in lolcat captions is called what?

'Lolcat' blends the acronym LOL with 'cat'; the images are a type of image macro.

'All your base are belong to us' comes from the botched translation of which video game?

The line appeared in the 1991 European Mega Drive version of the 1989 arcade shooter.

Leeroy Jenkins became famous for ruining a carefully planned raid in which game?

Blizzard later added him as an official character and a Hearthstone card.

Hide the Pain Harold is a stock-photo model from which country?

András Arató, a retired electrical engineer, became a meme in 2011 thanks to his strained smile.

Gary Brolsma's 2004 'Numa Numa Dance' video had him lip-syncing to a song by which band?

He uploaded it to Newgrounds; the song, Dragostea din tei, is Romanian.

In real life, what colours was 'the dress' that divided the internet in 2015?

More than ten million tweets mentioned it in a week, and retailer Roman Originals made a white-and-gold version for charity.

The photo of 'the dress' was taken ahead of a wedding on which Scottish island?

The bride's mother, Cecilia Bleasdale, photographed it at a Cheshire outlet and the debate spread from there.

The Overly Attached Girlfriend video was an entry in a fan contest run by which pop star?

Laina Morris's clingy 'Girlfriend' parody of Bieber's Boyfriend was later sold as an NFT for $411,000.

Trollface was drawn in 2008 in which program?

Carlos Ramirez, an 18-year-old Oakland student, posted it to DeviantArt in a rage comic mocking trolls.

'Chuck Norris facts' most often reference his fondness for what?

The absurd exaggerations also riff on his beard and Walker, Texas Ranger.

The planking fad, peaking in 2011, involves doing what?

Teenagers invented it repeatedly since the 1980s under names like 'the lying down game'.

Which company's Baby Shark video became the first on YouTube to hit 10 billion views?

The South Korean firm's 2016 version passed Despacito to become the most-viewed video ever in November 2020.

Which YouTube personality's 2013 'Filthy Frank' video kicked off the Harlem Shake meme?

Miller, later the musician Joji, uploaded it on his DizastaMusic channel; the videos never featured the real Harlem dance.

Which activist group's 2008 anti-Scientology protests helped push rickrolling into the mainstream?

That April, YouTube rickrolled everyone for April Fools' Day and fans voted the song as the New York Mets' rally anthem.

Bad Luck Brian's real name is what?

His awkward yearbook photo hit Reddit in 2012 and every caption since has described a fresh catastrophe.

Where did the Leeroy Jenkins clip first appear in May 2005?

The guild Pals for Life posted 'Leeroy!!' there; YouTube itself was only three months old.

Which meme character did the Anti-Defamation League add to its hate-symbol database in 2016?

The ADL noted most uses were not hateful; in 2019 Hong Kong protesters adopted Pepe as a pro-democracy symbol.

The Nyan Cat song features which virtual singer?

'Nyanyanyanyanyanyanya!' was uploaded to Niconico in 2010; 'nya' is the Japanese word for a cat's meow.

The Ice Bucket Challenge was co-founded by Pat Quinn and which former college baseball player?

Both men had ALS; the 2015 relaunch never matched the original wave.

Grumpy Cat, Keyboard Cat and Nyan Cat all shared what?

Ben Lashes represented all three; Grumpy Cat's owner quit her Red Lobster job to manage the cat's schedule.

Harambe, the gorilla whose 2016 death spawned countless memes, lived at which zoo?

He was a western lowland gorilla, shot after a three-year-old boy climbed into his enclosure.

Harambe's name came from a 1988 song by the widow of which reggae legend?

Rita Marley's "Harambe (Working Together for Freedom)" inspired a contest winner; harambee is Swahili for communal labour.

Which baseball team's cap does Scumbag Steve wear backwards in his meme photo?

The 2006 photo of Blake Boston was taken by his mother at their home in Millis, Massachusetts.

Who took the original photograph that became the Scumbag Steve meme?

Blake Boston liked the shot enough to post it on his Myspace page; it exploded on Reddit and 4chan in 2011.

Salt Bae, the meme-famous meat-seasoning chef, is from which country?

Nusret Gökçe, of Kurdish origin, left school in the sixth grade to apprentice as a butcher in Istanbul.

Salt Bae's steakhouse chain is called Nusr-Et; what does "et" mean in Turkish?

The chain has branches from Dubai to New York, and his salt-sprinkling clip went viral in January 2017.

Wojak, the bald "that feel when" cartoon man, is named from a Polish word meaning what?

Wojak, also called Feels Guy, first surfaced on the Polish imageboard Vichan as ciepłatwarz.jpg, or warmface.jpg.

The endlessly parodied four-panel comic "Loss" comes from which gaming webcomic?

Tim Buckley's strip depicted a miscarriage, a jarring tonal shift that critics attacked and the internet abstracted into lines.

In "Damn Daniel", Daniel is praised for being "back at it again" with what?

Vans gave Daniel Lara a lifetime supply of shoes on Ellen, which he donated to a children's hospital.

Left Shark stole the show during whose Super Bowl XLIX halftime performance?

Dancer Bryan Gaw was later revealed as the offbeat shark, dancing during "Teenage Dream" and "California Gurls".

Chewbacca Mask Lady Candace Payne bought her famous mask at which retailer?

The mask sold out everywhere and Kohl's rewarded her with gift cards, Star Wars toys and reward points.

On which platform did Candace Payne post her Chewbacca mask video in May 2016?

Mark Zuckerberg invited her to Facebook headquarters after the video passed 140 million views.

Ken Bone became a meme after asking a question at a 2016 debate while wearing what?

The Illinois power plant worker gained over 80,000 Twitter followers immediately after the debate.

Ken Bone posed his viral question at a debate between Donald Trump and whom?

He was an undecided voter from Belleville, Illinois, invited to the October 9, 2016 debate.

Which organisation produced the viral 2012 short film Kony 2012?

It aimed to make Ugandan war criminal Joseph Kony famous enough to be arrested by the end of 2012.

Which actor's face from a 1971 film is used in the sarcastic "Condescending Wonka" meme?

Ironically the scene it comes from shows Wonka's dreamy anticipation, not sarcasm.

Slender Man was created in 2009 by a user of which forum?

Eric Knudsen, posting as Victor Surge, made the tall faceless figure for a paranormal photo-editing thread.

Which Minecraft mob was inspired by Slender Man?

Slender Man also appears as The Operator in the web series Marble Hornets.

Bongo Cat first went viral drumming along to a track from which video game?

The May 2018 edit set the cat-like blob to "Athletic" from the game's soundtrack.

Big Chungus is a still of Bugs Bunny from which 1941 cartoon?

The meme began as fake video-game box art shared by a GameStop manager in Colorado Springs in December 2018.

Ugandan Knuckles avatars flooded which virtual-reality game in late 2017?

Their catchphrases "Do you know da wae?" come from the 2010 Ugandan film Who Killed Captain Alex?

Which talk show launched Danielle Bregoli's "Cash me outside" catchphrase in 2016?

Her rap career later made her the youngest female rapper to chart on the Billboard Hot 100.

What was the first popular caption on the Success Kid photo, before it meant triumph?

The 2011 caption suggested the boy had just destroyed another child's sandcastle.

In 2015 the Success Kid family used the meme to raise money for what?

Sammy Griner's photo had earlier been used by the White House to promote immigration reform.

Disaster Girl's photo was taken in which US state?

Zoë Roth was four when her father photographed her in Mebane in 2005; it won a JPG magazine contest in 2008.

Hide the Pain Harold, András Arató, was a retired what before becoming a stock model?

His vacation photos on the Hungarian site iWiW caught a photographer's eye.

Which teenager drew Trollface in 2008?

The Oakland college student published it on his DeviantArt page "Whynne" and later announced an NFT sale in 2021.

The milk crate challenge went viral in August 2021 on which platform?

TikTok later removed search results for it under its policy against dangerous acts.

Which company makes Tide Pods, the detergent at the centre of a 2018 meme challenge?

P&G had already made the containers opaque and added a bitter chemical after children ate the pods.

Which song usually played in the background of Mannequin Challenge videos?

The November 2016 trend is believed to have started at Edward H. White High School in Jacksonville, Florida.

A 2016 talent-show clip of Mike Senatore popularised which fad?

The stunt had appeared on Minute to Win It in 2010, and the thuds soon got it banned in schools worldwide.

"Tebowing" imitates a quarterback dropping to one knee to do what?

Tim Tebow led the Denver Broncos to a playoff win in 2011 before being traded to the New York Jets.

Which anime character occasionally performed the dab decades before it became a 2014 fad?

As The Great Saiyaman in Dragon Ball Z he struck the pose, known in Japan as a "Sentai move".

Cinnamon challenge participants try to swallow a spoonful of cinnamon in under how long?

Interest peaked abruptly in January 2012, with Twitter mentions nearing 70,000 per day.

Roughly how many people actually turned up at Area 51 on "Storm Area 51" day in 2019?

More than 2 million had clicked "going" on Matty Roberts's joke Facebook event.

The Crying Jordan photo was taken at what 2009 event?

AP photographer Stephan Savoia captured it; the cut-out head first appeared on the Boxden forum in 2014.

The head-tapping "Roll Safe" meme features actor Kayode Ewumi from which web series?

Ewumi's character Reece Simpson had first appeared on Vine in 2015; the meme peaked in January 2017.

The Coffin Dance pallbearers come from which country?

Benjamin Aidoo started the Prampram group as a regular pallbearer service in 2003 before adding choreography.

Which EDM track soundtracks the Coffin Dance meme?

The BBC had first profiled the dancing pallbearers in a 2017 feature story.

Whose 2021 cover of "Wellerman" sparked the sea shanty craze?

The song is a New Zealand ballad about the Weller brothers' whaling supply ships.

Star Wars Kid Ghyslain Raza swung which object as a lightsaber in his 2002 video?

He was imitating Darth Maul, and the tape was found by schoolmates and uploaded without his consent.

Star Wars Kid was a high schooler in which Canadian province?

Raza, from Trois-Rivières, later spoke publicly about the bullying the video caused.

Which caption in the "Chocolate Rain" video explains why Tay Zonday keeps stepping back?

The song, uploaded in April 2007, is a metaphor for racism against African Americans.

Paul "Bear" Vasquez filmed his ecstatic "Double Rainbow" video near which national park?

He was a prolific uploader who published thousands of videos from his Mariposa County property.

Which question does 7-year-old David famously ask in "David After Dentist"?

He was groggy from anaesthesia after having an extra tooth removed for hyperdontia in 2008.

The "Dramatic Chipmunk" is actually which animal?

The clip came from the Japanese variety show Hello! Morning, with a dramatic sting from a 1974 Mel Brooks score.

The Hampster Dance page was created in 1997 on which free web-hosting service?

Canadian art student Deidre LaCarte was in a web-traffic contest with her sister and best friend.

The Hampster Dance's sped-up song comes from which Disney film?

It samples Roger Miller's "Whistle-Stop"; CNET named the page the number-one web fad in 2005.

How many badgers do callisthenics in the "Badger Badger Badger" animation?

Jonti Picking, aka Mr Weebl, said the placeholder lyrics stuck, much like Nik Kershaw's "The Riddle".

Which phrase is the standard "O RLY?" reply meaning "Yeah, really"?

"NO WAI!!" and "NO RLY." round out the owl family of retorts.

Know Your Meme began in 2007 as a video series within which vlog?

Its founders jokingly called themselves the Rocketboom Entity for Internet Studies.

Longcat, the famously lengthy white cat, was from which country?

Shiro reportedly measured 65 centimetres and had a colour-inverted nemesis called Tacgnol.

Whose "worst video ever made" tweet sent Rebecca Black's "Friday" viral?

The Mystery Science Theater 3000 alum's post, plus a Tosh.0 blog feature, sent views surging in March 2011.

Kermit's tea-sipping "None of My Business" meme comes from an ad for which brand?

The 2014 "Be More Kermit" ad was adapted by comedians on the Tumblr blog Kermit the Snitch.

Which platform's November 2019 video pushed "OK boomer" into wide public attention?

The phrase had appeared in a Reddit comment as early as September 2009.

The "Karen" meme surged after a 2020 birdwatching confrontation at which New York location?

The Guardian called 2020 "the year of Karen".

Before his name was revealed, Baby Yoda was officially credited as what?

Grogu was raised at the Jedi Temple on Coruscant and later formally adopted as Din Grogu.

Impact, the classic meme font, was designed in 1965 by whom?

Released by Sheffield's Stephenson Blake foundry, it shipped with Windows from Windows 98.

Bernie Sanders' famous inauguration mittens were made by whom?

Jen Ellis's mittens were captured by AFP photographer Brendan Smialowski on January 20, 2021.

Which Real Housewives star is the "woman yelling at a cat"?

The still is from "Malibu Beach Party from Hell", a 2011 Beverly Hills episode; the cat, Smudge, is from Ottawa.

Which Spanish city was the Distracted Boyfriend stock photo shot in?

Antonio Guillem's Shutterstock caption read "Disloyal man walking with his girlfriend and looking amazed at another seductive girl".

What is Pepe the Frog's signature catchphrase from his original Boy's Club appearance?

It also became the title of the 2020 documentary about Matt Furie's fight to reclaim the character.

Since 2014, collectible Pepe images traded like cards have been called what?

Protesters in Hong Kong adopted Pepe in 2019, far from his alt-right associations.

What was the name of the Shiba Inu in the original Doge photo?

The 2010 photo took off in late 2013, when Know Your Meme named Doge its top meme of the year.

Which single word most often ends a Doge utterance?

The first word of each phrase is nearly always one of "so", "such", "many", "much" or "very".

Grumpy Cat's scowl was caused by feline dwarfism and what other condition?

Her brother Pokey was also born with a flat face, bubble eyes and a short tail.

Rickrolling grew out of an earlier 4chan bait-and-switch trick called what?

4chan user Shawn Cotter posted the first true rickroll on May 15, 2007, and it spread across the web that year.

The first rickroll replaced the trailer for which video game?

Web users later voted "Never Gonna Give You Up" the New York Mets' rally song in an April 2008 poll.

Nyan Cat's creator drew the Pop-Tart cat during a fundraiser for which charity?

Two viewers of his Livestream suggested a Pop-Tart and a cat; the GIF appeared on April 2, 2011.

What was the name of the original Keyboard Cat?

Charlie Schmidt of Spokane manipulated the cat's paws under a blue T-shirt on an Ensoniq Mirage keyboard.

Whose music video did "Gangnam Style" overtake as YouTube's most viewed in November 2012?

Psy's hit peaked at number two on the Billboard Hot 100 and won Best Video at the MTV Europe Music Awards.

Which retailer sold "the dress" and made a white-and-gold version for charity?

The bride's mother had photographed it at Cheshire Oaks Designer Outlet north of Chester.

Vine videos were limited to how many seconds?

Twitter bought the app for $30 million in 2012, four months after it was founded, and shut it down in January 2017.

Roughly how much money did the Ice Bucket Challenge raise worldwide in 2014 alone?

Nominees typically had 24 hours to comply or donate; a 2015 revival never matched the original.

Which Filthy Frank Show character appears in the video that began the Harlem Shake meme?

Despite the name, the meme has nothing to do with the real Harlem Shake, a 1980s street dance from New York.

Which 1996 PBS series became a meme source in 2016 through a still of a clenched fist?

"Arthur's fist" became shorthand for barely contained frustration.

Which Pokémon appears with a blank look and open mouth in a popular reaction meme?

"Surprised Pikachu" is used when an entirely predictable outcome nonetheless catches someone off guard.

Which animation tool, published free by Valve, is used to make every Skibidi Toilet episode?

Creator Alexey Gerasimov borrows some assets from Half-Life 2 and Counter-Strike; the first episode ran just 11 seconds.

Which blockbuster director was reported in 2024 to be in talks to adapt Skibidi Toilet?

Producing partner Adam Goodman said the adaptation might be a live-action/animation hybrid.

When did the Mocking SpongeBob meme make alternating caps the standard way to mock in text?

The text style is also called studly caps, sticky caps or, after the meme, spongecase; BBS users had employed it since the 1980s.

What was the mishap that angered the author of the very first rage comic, posted to 4chan in 2008?

The four-panel strip ended on a zoomed-in Rage Guy screaming 'FFFFFFUUUUUU-', and users quickly remixed it into new scenarios.

What are rage comics known as in China, where artist Wang Nima's site was banned in 2018?

Shortened to Baoman, the site once received 5,000 to 8,000 comic submissions a day; Netflix's 2018 film Next Gen adapted one of Wang's comics.

How old was Kabosu, the Shiba Inu behind the Doge meme, when she died in May 2024?

A monument to her had been installed in Sakura, Chiba, in 2023, followed by a manhole cover bearing her image in 2024.

How much was Grenade Beverage ordered to pay Grumpy Cat Limited in a 2018 verdict?

The dispute began over 'Grumppuccino' iced coffee; the jury also awarded a symbolic $1 for breach of contract.

For its 2008 April Fools' joke, where did YouTube send every video link on its home page?

Organisers cleared it with Astley's label Sony BMG first; according to an executive, Astley liked the idea.