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After the tumultuous decade we've had, there's one thing that's always pulled us through the weirdest and darkest moments: memes.
From Leonardo DiCaprio's many struts and watergun frolics through to the Internet's favourite cats, the last ten years have thrown up a treasure trove of pop culture history.
We've done some digging and found some of the best memes of the decade to see you through into 2020 - get ready for a nostalgia trip...
2019: Baby Yoda
Runners up: Sorry to this man, Woman yells at cat, Area 51 memes, And I Oop
Even though The Mandalorian has yet to hit the UK, the Star Wars television prequel taken over Twitter with memes of Baby Yoda.
The tiny green puppet (who Werner Herzog has “fallen in love with”) captured the heart of the Internet and prompted a tonne of memes, rounding off 2019 with some of the most wholesome ones to date.
Despite being wildly popular, Disney has chosen to hold back on releasing Baby Yoda merchandise, as Mandalorian showrunner Jon Favreau revealed, “By holding back on that one product, we knew that we may have had the disadvantage of not having toys available [by] day and date, but what we got in exchange was an excitement surrounding the character, because everybody felt like they discovered him together.”
Unfortunately here in the UK, we'll have to wait next year to truly understand the hype around the tiny green puppet when Disney+ arrives.
2018: We are Number One
Runners up: Eric Andre's Let Me In, Woman Squinting, Surprised Pikachu
Kids television show Lazytown became a cult Internet meme when a song sung by its villain, Robbie Rotten, sparked a rush of parodies.
Titled 'We Are Number One', the chaotic yet catchy song began to take off towards the end of 2016 and enjoyed widespread popularity for a while - prompting people to mash it up with songs like 'Bring Me To Life' and 'All Star' mixed in.
Others also began to take the meme more seriously, dropping mixes with a hefty helping of drum and bass thrown in.
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Accounts began to post 10-hour-long videos of the song on a loop, including the official LazyTown account which released a one-hour version.
The meme changed dramatically towards the end of 2016, when Rotten’s actor Stefan Karl Stefansson revealed he had been diagnosed with cancer in a reddit 'Ask Me Anything.'
Following this, lovers of the meme rallied together to launch a GoFundMe campaign to cover his bills while he recovered from pancreatic cancer, far exceeding its goal of $100k.
To thank his fans (who had also voted him Meme of the Year on reddit), he livestreamed a performance of himself and the original cast - sparking a flurry of more recreations in 2017 when the original stems for the song were released for anyone to use.
Sadly, in 2017 he was diagnosed again with cancer and it was announced in June that it had advanced to stage four. Another GoFundMe was set up and more people donated to the campaign - resulting in Stefansson announcing he was finally “free from the disease, the cancer.”
In March 2018, it was announced that Stefansson’s cancer had returned and was inoperable. He wrote a tweet telling his fans, “It’s not until they tell you you’re going to die soon that you realize how short life is. Time is the most valuable thing in life because it never comes back. And whether you spend it in the arms of a loved one or alone in a prison-cell, life is what you make of it. Dream big.”
Stefansson passed away in August, after a spokesperson confirmed to TMZ he had died of cancer complications. To honour him, an entire subreddit started a petition to put a statue of the star in his hometown in Iceland and additionally made sure that the next 43 hours were dedicated solely to posting memes about him. Karl was 43 years old at the time of his death.
His YouTube channel also passed the one million subscriber mark and his family posted a video of Karl from his time on the show putting on his prosthetics, in order to thank those who had subscribed. He was also voted in as reddit’s 2018 meme of the year.
2017: The Distracted Boyfriend
Runners up: Spidermen pointing at each other, Joe Biden and Obama Bromance, Salt Bae, Expanding Brain, White Blinking Guy
2017 was a strong year for memes, but the Distracted Boyfriend format came out on top, continuing to take on a life and context of its own.
The stock photo, taken by a photographer named Antonio Guillem who “didn’t even know what a meme” was, was titled ‘Disloyal Man Walking With his Girlfriend and Looking Amazed at Another Seductive Girl.
Soon after, people began to repurpose the meme.
Others even began to unravel the story behind the pictures as the same models are in a number of different stock photos together. Other photos show the distracted boyfriend eventually proposing to his girlfriend as he stares after the woman in red, then staring again after the same woman.
However, in a turn that one Twitter user hailed the “biggest plot twist of my generation” it was revealed that the distracted boyfriend’s girlfriend eventually left him for the woman he was staring after - resulting in the pair getting married as he cries and stares off into the distance.
Last year, a group also successfully recreated the meme at a Know Your Meme party at the Museum of Moving Image, retweeted by actor Zach Braff.
2016: Harambe
Runners up: Ted Cruz is the Zodiac killer, Dat Boi, Damn Daniel
Like a few other memes, Harambe had dark origins. After a 3 year old boy fell into a silverback gorilla named Harambe’s exhibit at Cincinnati Zoo, the animal was shot and killed by zoo personnel.
As video was released of a part of the incident, it sparked widespread debate online as people argued whether Harambe needed to be killed and who was at fault.
A petition started soon afterwards called Justice For Harambe, which wanted the child’s parents “to be held accountable for the lack of supervision and negligence that caused Harambe to lose his life.” From there, Harambe became an Internet sensation as the gorilla was transformed into a meme online - prompting bizarre photoshopped tributes, parody songs and the rise of the phrase “d***s out for Harambe.”
As time passed, the meme bled into the real world with people choosing to vote for Harambe in the 2016 election and a single Harambe-shaped cheeto selling for $99k.
There was also controversy when racists began to use the meme to draw comparisons between footballer Adam Goodes and Ghostbusters’ Leslie Jones.
The zoo became exasperated with the attention, with Cincinnati Zoo director Thane Maynard telling AP, “We are not amused by the memes, petitions and signs about Harambe. Our zoo family is still healing, and the constant mention of Harambe makes moving forward more difficult for us. We are honoring Harambe by redoubling our gorilla conservation efforts and encouraging others to join us.”
2015: Drakeposting
Runners up: Left Shark, Miley What’s Good, Why You Always Lying, Netflix and Chill, Chrissy Teigen’s crying face
As with Leonardo DiCaprio and Keanu Reeves, Drake is popular with meme-makers and the Internet struck gold when he released his music video for Hotline Bling.
The rainbow video inspired a number of jokes at the expense of his unusual dance moves, which saw everything from a tennis racket to a jellyfish-catching net edited into a number of Vines. (Rest in peace, Vine.)
When others began to dub over Drake's dancing with other songs, the rapper saw the funny side and posted his favourite to Instagram with a string of crying emojis.
The interest was so strong it even resulted in a meme format, which featured two panels of Drake looking unimpressed and another of him happy.
While most memes usually die off after overuse, Drake-posting has persisted to this day.
2014: Kim Kardashian breaks the Internet
When Kim Kardashian-West posed for Paper Magazine’s risque cover, the magazine ran it with the tagline “break the Internet Kim Kardashian.”
Kim delivered on that front, with a photo of the star exposing her oiled-up bottom swiftly went viral with people editing her derriere and replacing it with a number of hilarious alternatives.
Others also compared the photo to other objects and even cartoon characters - even the Met Museum got involved.
Paper's Chief Creative Officer talked to the Telegraph about how they'd achieved their Internet-breaking goal and revealed Kim had messaged him. He said, "She was a participant in it and emailed us and was like 'wow we're really doing it - we're breaking the Internet.'"
2013: Doge
Runners up: Harlem Shake, Unexpected John Cena, Goat screaming, What Does the Fox Say?
The Internet collectively fell in love with Shiba Inus in 2013, as memes of the fluffy dogs went viral accompanied by statements such as “much wow so meme” accompanied them in rainbow Comic Sans.
As people imagined what the adorable dogs were thinking in terrible grammar, the meme exploded as the Internet got creative, photoshopping Doge into Ellen DeGeneres’ Oscar selfie and onto the cover of Time.
The meme was so popular that its reign endured into 2014, when it claimed the title of Webby Meme of the Year at the Internet awards ceremony, beating memes including Pharrel's Hat and Hot Dog Legs.
It's also since led to the creation of Dogecoin, a 'peer-to-peer digital currency.'
2012: Grumpy Cat
2012 was a strong year for memes, but it would be remiss of us to leave a cat meme from the decade roundup, so we’ve chosen the Internet's favourite cat - Grumpy Cat - as the meme of 2012.
After a photo of the world’s grumpiest cat, Tardar Sauce, was uploaded to reddit, the feline became an instant hit and a popular meme format online.
The cat became so popular celebrities clamoured to take a picture with her, including Stan Lee and Audrey Plaza.
Grumpy Cat’s owners were also pretty savvy, as an entire line of merchandise was launched and sold through Zazzle and various retailers including Urban Outfitters.
Grumpy Cat sadly passed away earlier this year on May 17 - prompting an outpouring of sorrow from fans around the world.
The news was announced by her owners Tabatha, Bryan and Chrystal Tabansen on Grumpy Cat’s official social media, who revealed she had passed away of a urinary tract infection.
The statement read, “We are unimaginably heartbroken to announce the loss of our beloved Grumpy Cat. Despite care from top professionals, as well as from her very loving family, Grump encountered complications from a recent urinary tract infection that unfortunately became too tough for her to overcome. She passed away peacefully on the morning of Tuesday, May 14, at home in the arms of her mommy, Tabatha.”
One reddit user hailed Grumpy Cat “one of the foundations to this current era of memes” and the Internet paid its respects in the most fitting way - with more memes.
2011: 'Friday'
Runners up: Nope - Chuck Testa, Feminist Ryan Gosling, Planking, Scumbag Steve, Honey Badger
No song has been more impossible to get out of your head than 'Friday', Rebecca Black’s infamous debut single produced by ARK Music Factory.
With stellar lyrics including “gotta be fresh, gotta go downstairs, gotta have my bowl, gotta have cereal”, Black’s song and hilariously awkward music video became an instant hit online - and as of December 2019, it has had a staggering 138.2 million views.
In fact, her song became so popular that celebrities including Katy Perry, Justin Bieber and Glee even covered the track.
Reaction GIFs of her pained friend bopping in a car were used all over the Internet and Black herself even became a popular personality, starring in Perry’s music video for 'Last Friday Night' and hosting that year’s YouTube Rewind.
Sadly, Black was bullied so much she had to drop out of school, but she's since come out on top.
She released a (pretty fantastic) song called 'Saturday' and even did an acoustic cover of it with David Dobrik and Drake and Josh’s Josh Peck.
She's since pursued singing professionally and released a new song last month called 'Sweetheart.'
2010: Strutting Leo
Runners up: Hide yo kids, Sad Keanu/Conspiracy Keanu, Double Rainbow
Leonardo DiCaprio is easily one of the most meme-able stars on the Internet, with numerous viral moments to his name.
From the millions of jokes about his Oscar misses to his Inception ‘We Need to Go Deeper’ panels, he was catapulted to meme fame when a paparazzi shot of him striding through Paris went viral.
Dubbed the ‘Strutting Leo’ meme, people began photoshopping Leo into as many strange situations as possible - from upstaging the Friends cast to striding straight into Mordor.
A few years later, the meme was reignited when Leo was spotted strutting around town again.