Absurdist & Shitposts

Surreal, deep-fried, ironic, and absurdist humor.

486 moments in this segment.

2009-05-21 — Three Wolf Moon. is a t-shirt that ironically made into one of the top selling apparel items on Amazon thanks to the tongue-in-cheek customer reviews.
2009-05-21 — Three Wolf Moon ("Colors of The Wind" - Pocahontas Parody). )
2009-08-15 — Banff Crasher Squirrel: The Movie! - Alberta, Canada
2009-09-25 — AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
2010-08-06 — AMERICA F#K YEAH! MUSIC VIDEO Team America World Police THEME SONG
2011-07-18 — final fantasy ff 4 IV 2 you spoony bard bard!. !
2012-06-15 — Where Is Your God Now?. ?" is a popular catchphrase often used as a caption for cursed or menacing images or pictures that depict something defying the normal order of things. The meme originates from a viral YTMND page of the King from Burger King advertisements in the 2000s. The phrase has also been repurposed as the "Where Is Your X Now?" snowclone.
2012 — Rok Nardin - Where is Your God Now. · 3:07
2012-06-20 — The Wikipedia Game
2012-07-16 — Todd Lamb standup "Notes From Chris" from Joe's Pub NYC
2012-11-12 — Interior Monologue Captioning. is a practice which involves placing randomly dispersed text on top of an image to represent what the subject is thinking or feeling, typically using the Comic Sans font.
2013-02-14 — Snoop Dogg- 420 [Blaze Up] feat. Devin The Dude, Wiz Khalfia, & Dj Battlecat (Official Audio). )
2013-02-21 — thats the evilest thing i can imagine meme, powerpuff girls. · 0:17
2013-05-30 — Instructions Unclear. ” is an expression used as a preface when joking about accidentally performing a dangerous or inappropriate action due to an absurd misunderstanding of directions. The phrase is typically used in comment sections on the social news site Reddit and in titles on the image hosting site Imgur.
2013-05-30 — Instructions Unclear
2014-01-24 — Tosh.O: Surprise Trust Falls. · 1:06
2014-05-20 — Webdriver Torso. is a YouTube channel that hosts a series of cryptic slideshow videos depicting a red and a blue rectangle in random arrangements with electronic tones. Since its creation on March 7th, 2013, the channel has garnered much online attention due to its enigmatic nature, in similar vein to other mystery projects like the Pronunciation Manual and Cicada 3301. As of May 2014, more than 77,000 videos have been uploaded to the channel.
2014-12-05 — Dank Memes. ”* is an ironic expression used to mock online viral media and in-jokes that are intentionally bizarre or have exhausted their comedic value to the point of being trite or cliché. In this context, the word “dank,” originally coined as a term for high quality marijuana, is satirically used as a synonym for “cool.”
2014-12-05 — Random memes I permanently borrowed PT.1513. · 14:17
2014-12-11 — *Hits Blunt*. * is a catchphrase associated with a series of two-panel image macros that convey inane or absurd thoughts which may run through a person’s head while under the influence of marijuana, especially when it is consumed in the form of a cannabis cigar (more commonly known as a “blunt”), typically accompanied by a photograph of a subject sporting a hooded sweatshirt and looking utterly confused in the typical fashion of a stoner.
2014-12-11 — *HITS BLUNT* most famous memes. · 2:23
2015-01-23 — well meme'd. · 1:53
2015-03-10 — Michael Rosen - Nice. · 0:07
2015-04-07 — 6ix9ine - FEFE ft. Nicki Minaj, Murda Beatz. · 2:59
2015-05-09 — Spiderman Thread Song (SPTV). ) · 2:27
2015-05-19 — "The Struggle" - A Minecraft Original Music Video ♫. ♫ · 4:05
2015-05-19 — STRUGGLE - THE STRUGGLE IS REAL (Ft. AARON LEWIS). ) · 4:11
2016-03-07 — It's Still Shitposting Even If You Are Being Ironic. ” is an expression used to discourage the act of intentional shitposting, or sharing worthless content on purpose, on the imageboard site 4chan. The phrase is usually accompanied by an illustration of the Touhou Project character Keine Kamishirasawa.
2016-05-29 — dude weed lmao
2016-06-21 — Prager's Tales: Down with Cis Bus
2016-07-01 — Dolphin Conspiracy Theories. The *Dolphin Conspiracy Theories* refer to various beliefs that the Cetacean mammals are plotting a scheme against the mankind. Like many other absurd conspiracy theories that have gone viral online, it can be seen as a satire of self-convicted conspiracy theorists.
2016-07-01 — The Dolphin Conspiracy: WTF Are They Hiding From You?. ?
2016-07-07 — Wew Lad
2016-08-04 — Waking up a thankful doggo having a nightmare.
2016-08-10 — Nico Nico Nii (Remix). )
2016-09-07 — Mr. Orange. also known as Orang Min and Orange Lad, is a digital illustration of an anthropomorphic orange, which is often used as a reaction image in ironic meme communities online.
2016-09-07 — Popof - Mr. Orange [HQ]. Popof - Mr. Orange
2016-10-29 — X-Men (Arcade Game) - Welcome to Die
2017-02-01 — whomst.mp4
2017-02-01 — KEK VULT #FreeKekistan
2017-02-17 — Sandsverse
2017-02-28 — Spicy Memes. is an ironic expression used to describe humorous online viral media and in-jokes, which is often used as an alternative to the phrase ”dank memes”.
2017-02-28 — Spicy memes 100
2017-04-25 — ALL OF R/SURREALMEMES
2017-05-01 — The World's Most Famous Teapot: The Utah Teapot
2017-05-05 — WUSS POPPIN JIMBO - Original. This clip belongs to Paramount Pictures not me.WUSS POPPIN GUYS, NEW FRESH MEME ON THE RISE SO TIME TO GET MY YOUTUBE CAREER STARTED WITH THIS BOYOS. Thanks for watching and don't forget to like, share, comment, and subscribe and don't forget to share. My Casting Call Club Profile - My Steam Accounts - My Social Blade -
2017-05-06 — Respect Women. is an image macro series featuring pictures that are ironically captioned with jokes about how the subject represents their “respect” for women.
2017-05-06 — Kendall Jenner, Bella Hadid, and 60 More Celebrities Speak Out For Women’s Rights | W Magazine
2017 — World's most expensive milkshake! - Guinness World Records
2017-06-28 — yo where tf my uber driver takin us rn??. ??
2017-07-20 — The Dark Knight (2008) - Some Men Just Want to Watch the World Burn Scene | Movieclips
2017-08-08 — Not Tim and Eric. refers to a popular description for things that resemble the lo-fi, surreal humor of the comedy team of Tim and Eric but are not affiliated with the duo.
2017-08-08 — Chan: 'Not Jackie Chan' | Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! | Adult Swim
2017-10-17 — Meme Chimera. is an internet slang referring to images that combine two or more meme templates, which are typically used to create an absurd narrative.
2017-10-17 — Teto jockey animation meme
2018-01-04 — The Conker World Championships
2018-01-08 — I Enjoy.... … refers to a shitposting snowclone in which people post about things with the construction, "I enjoy X. They are my favorite Y. When (something good happens), I think to myself “yes”. When (something bad happens), I think to myself “no”." It is often used with sports teams.
2018-01-08 — Depeche Mode - Enjoy the Silence (Official Video). )
2018-01-16 — BORN TO DIE / WORLD IS A FUCK / Kill Em All 2035 / I am memel man / 410,757,864,530 DEAD SVINS
2018-01-19 — Americans Be Eating Cheesed Burger. is a purposeful misspelling of “Americans eat cheeseburgers” that turned into a shitpost snowclone popular on Tumblr in which people write variations on the title text with different groups of people and other purposefully misspelled objects.
2018-01-26 — WordArt Image Macros. refers to a style of image macro in which an image is overlaid with text taken from the Microsoft Word program WordArt to create a shitpost. The style originated on Weird Facebook pages before spreading to other social media sites.
2018-02-01 — titular
2018-02-12 — Chevelle - The Red (Official HD Video). )
2018-02-13 — You're Mom Gay. ” is a satirical insult which typically uses the intentionally grammatically incorrect phrase as a form of shitposting online.
2018-02-27 — Rarted. is a misspelling of the word “retarded,” which is typically referenced as a mock pejorative in various shitposting and circlejerk communities online in a similar vein to the mock insult “you’re [sic] mom gay”.
2018-03-26 — Skillibeng - Big Mood (Official Audio). )
2018-04-01 — WHERE'S THE LAMB SAUCE?! | Hell's Kitchen
2018-06-12 — So Glad I Grew Up Doing This Not This. is a series of two-panel exploitables comparing an image of children of their cellphones to absurd, satirical or explicit images.
2018-06-12 — I'm Glad I grew up with this and not this. (Only late 90s & early 00s kids will understand). )
2018-07-02 — reddit's anti memes
2018-08-14 — Kung pow penis
2018-09-11 — Good morning tippity top kekers lets get this bread (Clean Audio). )
2018-09-24 — styropyro throwing car batteries in a pond for 27 seconds
2018-10-03 — M14 Gang RISE UP
2018-10-15 — OK So Basically I'm Monky. refers to a nonsensical catchphrase paired with images of King Kong from the film Kong: Skull Island which gained some popularity after a video using the phrase was posted in a PewDiePie video.
2018-10-15 — so basically I'm monkey
2019-01-22 — GUACAMOLE NIGGA PENIS
2019-01-24 — Do U Want Anyfing From Macdondald / Borgar. Do U Want Anyfing From Macdondald, also known as Borgar, is an anti-meme based on the "Can a Robot Write a Symphony" scene from the 2004 American film "I, Robot". Originally a popular submission on /r/okbuddyretard subreddit, the post spawned other edits based on the template, while the word "borgar" gained popularity as a punchline.
2019-01-24 — Do u want anyfing from macdondald
2019-01-30 — NRBQ "Me And The Boys". "
2019-01-31 — Piranha Plant Gang. sometimes stylized #PlantGang, refers to the semi-ironic fandom for the Piranha Plant fighter in Super Smash Brothers Ultimate. The term has been popularized by notable Super Smash Brothers players such as Mang0 and Alpharad.
2019-01-31 — Plant Gang Attacks [Piranha Plant Montage]. ]
2019-02-10 — Cool Bug Fact's. is a series of image macros featuring a crudely illustrated computer-generated image of a caterpillar next to a nonsensical and/or aggressive statement.
2019-02-10 — Cool bug fact’s
2019-02-19 — Due To Personal Reasons - Jazmine Robinson | Official Music Video | Cat_Series Music
2019-03-15 — Cursed cats
2019-03-15 — Australian Shitposters. refers to the commonly held stereotype that Australian 4chan users are responsible for the vast majority of shitposts created on the site, which is often attributed to the timezone difference preventing mods in the United States from regulating Australian submissions.
2019-04-05 — Pass the boof thanos meme
2019-05-01 — Rick Astley Bro you just posted cringe
2019-05-07 — Poop Dealer
2019-05-16 — Kek or Cringe. refers to a series of ironic memes in which various fictional characters host a show called "Kek or Cringe" where they rate memes as "kek" or "cringe". The format originated on iFunny in March 2019 and was later spread by ironic meme pages on Twitter, Instagram and Reddit.
2019-05-16 — Kek or Cringe with Dutch Van Der Linde
2019-05-21 — Soup Time. is a distorted image of a frog standing next to an image of soup. The post has been the subject of shitposts and videos that animate the image.
2019-05-21 — Soup Time
2019-05-24 — Cringe Normie. refers to an ironic online insult which highlights the changed perception of the word "cringe" as being cringy itself and sometimes also references /r/woooosh subreddit and other aspects of the Reddit culture. The expression gained popularity in ironic communities on iFunny, Instagram and Reddit starting in late 2018.
2019-05-24 — Cringe Normie Advice
2019-06-05 — STONKS UPDATE Made It EASIER To Make REAL ROBUX..
2019-06-07 — Get tf out of my way type way
2019-06-19 — reddit's blessed images
2019-07-18 — Pennis And Also Dicke And Balls (Pee Pee Pee). )
2019-07-24 — Beanos Theme Song [LYRICS]. ]
2019-07-30 — Enslaved Moisture. also known as Ah Yes, Enslaved, refers to a surreal meme slang term for bottled water. It is used in an image macro featuring Meme Man looking at a water bottle and has been used as a reaction image and exploitable.
2019-07-30 — ah yes, enslaved moisture
2019-08-13 — Cursed Emojis. or Cursed Expressions refers to a set of images of non-Unicode emojis which includes Stressed Emoji, Xok, Powercry, Fuckboy Emoji and others. Originally used by artists on Twitter, DeviantArt and Tumblr as a reference for commissions, starting in July 2019 many of the emojis gained popularity online in memes.
2019-08-13 — Cursed emoji
2019-08-13 — I'm Ugly. Wait, What?. ?" refers to a series of four-panel ironic memes based on a fictional exchange between Stranger Things actors Millie Bobby Brown and Finn Wolfhard. The format gained popularity on Instagram in early August 2019.
2019-08-15 — Press F on the World's Smallest Keyboard
2019-09-16 — Kamino, Tima Dee - Vibe Check
2019-10-16 — Ironic Big Chungus Memes. refers to a series of Big Chungus memes that present the character as an evergreen meme that does not subside in popularity over time. The ironic Big Chungus memes gained popularity on deep iFunny in mid-July 2019, spreading to Instagram and certain Reddit communities in the following months.
2019-10-16 — MOST IRONIC MEMES EVER #1
2019-10-31 — powercry
2019-11-21 — The Best Way to Stay Hydrated (Not Water). )
2019-12-03 — Harami Dogesh | हरामी डोगेश | cheems| vidhayak ji | cheems doge | cheems meme | doge memes | chimtu
2019-12-16 — I may not show it
2020-01-13 — No one OutPizza's the Hut
2020-02-05 — What's The Random Chimp Event?. ?
2020-02-10 — Seiringer - you have lost penis privilege [oida mi wiafts remix]. ]
2020-04-07 — IncrediblE AbsolutelY PhenomenaL FantastiC. · 5:21
2020-04-14 — PC2. refers to a series of memes revolved around the nonsensical release of the personal computer 2, an imagined successor to the PC. Typically these memes play off the structure of other tech products, like game consoles, which release various editions that are accompanied by a new number, such as the PlayStation 4 vs. 5. The joke is frequently used by both the PC gaming community (or PC Master Race) and various console fan bases, often asking the question, “If PC is so good, why haven't they released PC2 yet?” in the form of a copypasta.
2020-04-14 — La PC 2 llegó antes que GTA 6 (NVIDIA lo cambió TODO). ) · 14:38
2020-04-23 — GUESS THE GIBBERISH pt. 2! Can you solve these mad gabs?. ? · 5:14
2020-04-23 — European Things That Just Makes Sense... *are we dumb?*. ?* · 17:21
2020-05-04 — (PICK A CARD)🔮 WHAT VIBES DO YOU GIVE OFF TO MEN?? 🫣💖 BEST VIRTUAL READING. · 85:18
2020-05-19 — ALL I KNOW IS THAT I MUST KILL. · 27:26
2020 — Tiger King and Carole Baskin. Date: 20 March 2020 · Place: Netflix, global lockdown living rooms · Figures: Joe Exotic, Greater Wynnewood Exotic Animal Park · Carole Baskin, Big Cat Rescue · Eric Goode and Rebecca Chaiklin, directors · Tags: Netflix, Lockdown, Docuseries 01. Big Cats, Bigger Vacuum Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness drops on Netflix on 20 March 2020, four days after most US states issue stay-home orders. Within ten days it pulls 34.3 million US viewers per Nielsen, the second-biggest Netflix debut to that point. The country has nothing else to talk about and nowhere else to be. Joe Exotic, mulleted private-zoo owner already imprisoned for murder-for-hire, and Carole Baskin, the rival sanctuary operator he tried to kill, become the first true memes of pandemic time. Tiger King mask edits, Joe Exotic Cameos, and homemade Carole Baskin TikToks fill the feed for six weeks. 02. Hey All You Cool Cats and Kittens Baskin's chirped catchphrase becomes a TikTok sound with hundreds of thousands of uses by April. Megan Thee Stallion samples it. SNL stages a Zoom-era cold open about it. The show ends on Joe asking, then telling, the camera that his husband Travis took his own life and that Carole probably fed her missing first husband Don Lewis to her tigers. Sources • Nielsen, 'Tiger King Pulls 34.3 Million U.S. Viewers Over First 10 Days' (April 2020) • Vulture, 'A Complete Guide to Every Tiger King Meme' (April 2020) • Netflix, Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness (20 March 2020)
2020 — TikTok Lockdown Adoption. Date: March 2020 · Place: Global, originating ByteDance Beijing · Figures: Zhang Yiming, ByteDance founder · Kevin Mayer, briefly TikTok CEO June-August 2020 · lockdown teenagers worldwide · Tags: Platform, Algorithm, Pandemic 01. The For You Page Arrives TikTok launches globally in August 2018 as the international skin of Douyin, but the platform crosses into infrastructure when COVID-19 lockdowns begin in March 2020. Monthly active users jump from roughly 500 million at the start of 2020 to over 700 million by July. Bored teenagers, suddenly homebound, download the app in numbers Facebook took a decade to assemble. The algorithm, not the social graph, becomes the substrate. The For You Page serves content based on watch-time signal rather than follower count, collapsing the distance between unknown creator and viral hit to a single afternoon. 02. The Format Compresses Vine maxed out at six seconds. TikTok lets a meme run a minute. The vertical full-bleed frame with overlay text and a borrowed sound becomes the unit of online culture for the next half-decade. Meme propagation, which on Facebook took weeks and on Twitter took days, now resolves in hours. A sound posted at noon can soundtrack a hundred thousand videos by midnight. Sources • Eugene Wei, 'Seeing Like an Algorithm' (Remains of the Day, 19 August 2020) • Sensor Tower, 'TikTok Has Now Been Downloaded Over Two Billion Times' (April 2020) • The New York Times, 'How TikTok Is Rewriting the World' (10 March 2019)
2020 — Lockdown Sourdough. Date: April 2020 · Place: Home kitchens, Instagram grid · Figures: Chad Robertson, Tartine Bakery · home bakers feeding starters named after pets · Tags: Instagram, Lockdown, Wild Yeast 01. The Yeast Shortage By the first week of April 2020, commercial yeast disappears from US and UK supermarkets. King Arthur Flour reports a 600 percent increase in flour sales versus the prior year. The pivot is to wild-yeast sourdough, which requires only flour, water, time, and the bacteria already living on the cook's hands. Starters acquire names. Bread is photographed against linen on north-facing windowsills. The boule's open crumb becomes a class signifier of pandemic-era domestic competence. 02. The Loaf as Status The meme is not the recipe but the documentation. Instagram fills with proofing baskets, scored ear, and the obligatory crumb shot. The format is a lineage that runs from food blogger plating in the 2010s to the lockdown-specific subgenre of I-baked-this-while-the-world-burned. By July 2020 the joke is the inverse: posting another loaf becomes faintly embarrassing. Sources • Bon Appetit, 'Everyone's a Baker Now' (14 April 2020) • King Arthur Baking Company, sales disclosures (April-May 2020) • The Washington Post, 'The pandemic sourdough craze' (3 April 2020)
2020 — Among Us / Sus. Date: September 2020 · Place: Twitch, TikTok, Discord · Figures: Innersloth, three-person developer studio · xQc, popularizing streamer · Sodapoppin, popularizing streamer · Tags: Game, Vocabulary, Sus 01. Two-Year-Old Game, Sudden Hit Among Us launches in 2018 by three-person Texas studio Innersloth. It is essentially ignored for two years. In summer 2020 streamers including xQc, Sodapoppin, and Pokimane begin playing it on stream. By September 2020 Among Us has 60 million monthly active users. The game's premise, identifying an imposter among a crew, generates the term 'sus' as universal shorthand for suspicious. The phrase enters mainstream Gen Z and Gen Alpha vocabulary within a month. 02. Sussy Baka and the Crewmate By 2021 the Among Us crewmate silhouette is one of the most-meme'd images of the year. Belle Delphine's May 2021 'Sussy Baka' video extends the lexicon. The phrase 'when the imposter is sus' loops through TikTok formats for two full years. Among Us is the lockdown-era game whose vocabulary outlasts its player base. Sources • The New York Times, 'Among Us, a Game Trending With Twitch Streamers' (5 October 2020) • Innersloth, Among Us 2020 player statistics • Know Your Meme, 'Sus / Among Us' entry
2020 — Purchasing EVERY Gromit Mug Available | Some Boi Online. · 17:59
2020-07-13 — X Fandom Is Dying, Repost If You're a True Fan. is a phrasal template and series of ironic snowclone memes humorously suggesting that members of a certain fandom should share the post to prevent their fandom from dying. The memes often reference made-up fandoms or subcultures and products that could hardly qualify for possessing a fandom. The format is also sometimes used to make inappropriate names for fandoms of various franchises in an attempt to bait people into looking silly.
2020-07-13 — The train fandom is dying.... · 0:06
2020-07-28 — National Anthem of Finland (Finngolia). ) · 3:26
2020-08-05 — Don't mess with JoJo fans, they're actually insane. · 8:09
2020-08-10 — The ‘We Did It Reddit!’ Incident
2020-08-13 — Tunde - Built Different [Music Video]. ]
2020-08-24 — Your Honor: Usapang KOMEDYA sa POLITIKA ng bansa with Atty. Ed Chico! (Full Episode 72). )
2020-09-20 — H (Alphabet). H is the 8th letter of the English alphabet which received attention as an ironic meme in the 2010s.
2020-09-20 — The Letter H Song - Learn the Alphabet. · 1:42
2020-09-23 — Upgrading WEAKEST MAN Into STRONGEST MAN. · 13:01
2020-10-21 — Bobux 'Dare to Roam' Summer Hinterland PHASE 3 Shoe Sprite. · 0:10
2020-10-27 — The Mystery At 8800 Blue Lick Road. · 17:13
2021-03-25 — THEY HATE TO SEE A GIRL BOSS WINNING
2021-03-31 — Sogga being a idiot and annoying floppa ( idiot sogga ). )
2021-04-22 — WhatsApp 2. refers to a joke involving the mobile application WhatsApp, in which social media users post ironic memes of the app's rumored 2.0 version called "WhatsApp 2." The joke began with Brazilian Twitter users in March 2021. There is no real app or confirmed upcoming update for WhatsApp 2, making the viral campaign a hoax.
2021-05-20 — Learning Anatomy for Art? Study this FIRST.. · 23:11
2021-05-20 — Chupapi Munyayo / Muñañyo. Chupapi Munyayo, or Chupapi Muñañyo, is a nonsense phrase used in a series of prank videos on TikTok in which a person approaches someone unexpectedly and says, "chupapi Muñañyo" or simply "Muñañyo" in order to confuse them and make them believe they can't speak English. The phrase is similar to Howard Stern's Baba Booey. The trend began in late 2020, gaining significantly in popularity over the course of 2021.
2021-05-20 — CHUPAPI MUNYANYO. · 0:13
2021-05-24 — Haha Jonathan, You Are Banging My Daughter. refers to an ironic image macro of the character Count Dracula from the 2012 film Hotel Transylvania. Originating from a viral I'm Stuff meme, the panel gained popularity in shitposting in May 2021.
2021-05-25 — you sit your fucking ass down now, and eat my PUSSY. · 0:07
2021-06-09 — Aboba. or ️️️️️, also spelled "АБОБА," is a meaningless word that became popular in Russian shitposts and as a spam comment in early 2021. The word originates from the animated YouTube short "Inside Zhmyshenko," and is the last name of the short's protagonist, Valeriy Aboba. The word soon became a popular Russian catchphrase online.
2021-06-09 — WE ABOBA | Quin69 | Extended Version. · 4:18
2021 — Is This Dog Homophobic?. ? · 7:16
2021 — Berries and Cream. Date: September 2021 · Place: TikTok, ad originally aired 2007 · Figures: Jack Ferry, original Starburst Little Lad actor · Starburst, brand · @afharrold25, TikTok revivalist · Tags: AdRevival, Sound, Loop 01. A Fourteen-Year-Old Advertisement Starburst airs a Berries and Cream commercial in 2007 featuring a powdered-wig 'Little Lad' chanting and clogging for the candy. The ad has a small cult following for over a decade. In September 2021 the TikTok user @afharrold25 chops the chant into a four-second sound and the audio spreads across hundreds of thousands of videos in a week. Jack Ferry, the original actor, surfaces and posts his own duet, now an adult, reprising the chant. The ad is older than half the kids using its sound. 02. The Sound Is the Meme TikTok's audio-as-substrate logic is fully formed by autumn 2021. The video does not have to make sense; it has to remix the sound. Berries and Cream becomes the prototype dead-ad revival, a pattern that will recur through 2023 with the Subway Surfers gameplay loop and through 2024 with the Costco Guys chants. Sound, not image, structures the meme. Sources • Know Your Meme, 'Berries and Cream' entry • The Verge, 'How a 14-Year-Old Starburst Ad Took Over TikTok' (24 September 2021) • Jack Ferry, reprise upload (TikTok, September 2021)
2021 — Megamind No Bitches. Date: December 2021 · Place: TikTok and Twitter, source film 2010 DreamWorks · Figures: DreamWorks Megamind (2010) · Anonymous TikTok soundboard editors · Will Ferrell, voice actor · Tags: Sound, Macro, Loop 01. No B Word Detected An anonymous TikTok editor in December 2021 overlays a Megamind face screenshot from the 2010 DreamWorks film with text reading 'no bitches?' The audio of the meme is a sliced Megamind line read by Will Ferrell ostensibly asking 'why are you alone on Valentine's Day?' but recontextualized through the soundboard format. The macro becomes a top-shelf reaction format throughout 2022 and is recycled into the Sigma Face character template a year later. 02. The Dead-Film Reanimation Megamind grosses 321 million dollars in 2010 and is forgotten for a decade. The TikTok meme cycle generates more cultural relevance for the film in 2022 than its original theatrical run. DreamWorks announces a direct-to-Peacock sequel in 2024 explicitly citing meme attention. The dead-film reanimation pattern, set by Berries and Cream and Morbius, becomes routine. Sources • Know Your Meme, 'No Bitches / Megamind' entry • The Verge, 'How Megamind Became a Meme' (28 January 2022) • DreamWorks Animation, Megamind sequel announcement (April 2024)
2021-07-02 — 10 Weirdest Facts About Sigma Males No One Is Talking About. · 12:58
2021-07-07 — I'm Going To Shit Yourself. is a nonsense phrase used in the context of a threat most often associated with a clip of Dr. Samuel Hayden from Doom Eternal saying it while brandishing a crucible sword. The phrase has been used in memes and shitposts as early as August 2020, seeing a significant increase in search interest around July 2021 due to the edit featuring Samuel Hayden.
2021-07-07 — I'm going to Shit Yourself. · 0:05
2021-07-08 — Cursed Comments..🥀. 🥀 · 8:19
2021-07-23 — Homescapes / Austin the Butler. Homescapes is a mobile game developed by Playrix. There is a large ironic following behind the game's main character, Austin Barrow, better known as Austin the Butler, and it's notorious for appearing in many advertisements, particularly those that represent the game as a puzzle-solving adventure, which have been met with legal action. The actual gameplay is similar to classic "match-three games," such as Candy Crush. Homescapes and its predecessor Gardenscapes have been the subject of numerous memes across platforms, as well as Austin thirst trap fan pages.
2021-07-23 — Homescapes - Chapter 1 Meet with Austin the butler (iOS). ) · 11:38
2021-07-30 — I Wonder If They Ever Explored Each Other's Bodies. refers to a series of shitpost memes including image macros and Twitter posts in which two or more characters from a given media franchise are presented over text either implying that they have explored each other's bodies or wondering if they have alongside the catchphrase "I wonder if they ever explored each other's bodies." The meme was inspired by a June 2021 tweet, gaining popularity in July that year.
2021-08-04 — 1 hour of silence occasionally broken up by random meme sound effects. · 60:00
2021-09-16 — I have mental illness. · 1:31
2021-11-17 — Kiss - Let's Put The X In Sex (Official Music Video). )
2021-11-29 — CHILLING KUWAIT AIRPORT ATTACK AFTERMATH In Visuals: Gulf On Edge Amid US-IRAN Cross-Fury | 4K VIDEO
2021-12-01 — Latto - It's Givin (Official Video). )
2021-12-11 — Que Pro. is a video meme used to express ironic respect and admiration, generally seeing use in videos as a sarcastic reaction to an unimpressive feat. The clip shows a picture of Finn and Jake from Adventure Time with Roblox Man Face while the song "FIGHT!" by Aests plays. It mostly sees use in Clash Royale, Minecraft and Geometry Dash videos.
2021-12-11 — QUE PRO (VERSION ORIGINAL). )
2022-01-05 — Danson’s Not a Crime. · 0:09
2022-01-14 — Plenty of Fish x Dick Pics. · 0:30
2022-01-21 — The Devil Shivers When A Nice Guy Loses His Temper. or When A Nice Guy Loses His Patience The Devil Shivers is an edgy catchphrase used in ironic memes, often showing an innocent-looking character on the left split with a deranged or antagonistic character on the right, the right side representing the leftmost character after losing their temper or patience. The phrase is also used alongside imagery of the Joker. The phrase started to become popularized in memes in 2015 when an image macro of the Joker saying the phrase was posted to 9GAG, notably the original Gamer Joker meme.
2022-02-15 — I Love Lean (Weed). ) · 3:21
2022-02-16 — How COPPER and CABLES are Made - Satisfying Process. · 9:50
2022-02-18 — Fuck Them Kids. refers to an ironic inspirational photo quote depicting retired professional basketball player Michael Jordan saying, "Fuck them kids," in reference to a video of him from 2016 sinking shots despite a crowd of summer camp kids trying to distract him. The image macro was first posted to Instagram in late 2018 and became a notable reaction image on platforms like Twitter. The catchphrase was also placed over other celebrity headshots going into 2022.
2022-02-24 — Sara Landry - GIRLBOSS. · 3:13
2022-03-01 — full quandale dingle lore. · 0:55
2022-03-03 — Day 1 No Lean. · 0:31
2022-03-28 — guys, bad news. · 0:40
2022-04-05 — Could You Spend $1 Trillion?. ? · 9:29
2022-04-06 — How Long Would a Monkey Take to Type Shakespeare? [Infinite Monkey Theorem]. ] · 3:42
2022-04-08 — Drunk Driving memes. · 3:59
2022-04-21 — Historical Battle Shitposts / Decisive Victory. Historical Battle Shitposts, also known as Decisive Victory, refers to a series of history memes that involve humorously presenting historic battles or events or biographies of historic figures in a video or image format, often by combining lines from their Wikipedia articles and humorous imagery.
2022-04-22 — Days Since Our Last Nonsense. refers to an image of Jim from The Office holding a sign next to Dwight's head that reads, "5 days since our last nonsense." The image comes from a 2013 episode of the show and became the subject of memes including image macros and redraws as early as 2015. Alternatively, an image of Mr. Krabs from a 2020 SpongeBob SquarePants episode looking at a similar sign reading "Days Without Nonsense" is used in a similar manner.
2022-04-24 — Fotosíntesis / Photosynthesis. Fotosíntesis (English: Photosynthesis) refers to a Spanish shitpost meme where actor Tom Holland says "Fotosíntesis" in a robotic voice, followed by a jet of water knocking someone over in the background as the song "Can You Feel My Heart" by Bring Me the Horizon. The meme is an edit of a behind the scenes video posted to Instagram by Holland in 2018 and went viral in 2022 as the subject of edits and redraws.
2022-04-28 — When The Function Got Hennessy. refers to a series of image macros using the caption "when the function got Hennessy" along with an unrelated, often nonsensical, image. The earliest known version of the meme was posted to FunVizeo in February 2021 and gained viral spread over the following year, inspiring new variations.
2022-05-16 — His Name Is X, Look Him Up. refers to a series of ironic Don't Google memes that semi-seriously bait users into Googling NSFW imagery. Launched by a viral Discord GIF inviting users to look up a cute cat, the bait format achieved virality in early 2022.
2022-05-24 — Morb. · 7:09
2022-05-26 — Binley Mega Chippy. refers to a British, fast-food fish and chips (chippy) restaurant that became the subject of ironic memes on Twitter and TikTok in early 2022. The trend relates to other British irony trends like Blokecore and Well At Least Our Schools Are Not A Shooting Range and is similar to memes made about Cash Pope, another restaurant with a liminal aura.
2022-05-26 — Binley Mega Chippy 3 Years Later. · 5:30
2022 — Wordle and the Times Purchase. Date: 31 January 2022 · Place: wordle-game website, Twitter share grids · Figures: Josh Wardle, Brooklyn-based engineer and former Reddit staff · Palak Shah, Wardle's partner · The New York Times Games · Tags: Daily Game, Twitter Share, NYT Acquisition 01. One Word a Day Josh Wardle builds Wordle in October 2021 as a gift for his partner Palak Shah, who loves word games. He posts it publicly that month. By 1 November 90 people play. By 21 November 300,000. By the first week of January 2022 over two million people are guessing the same five-letter word each day. The breakthrough is the share grid. Wardle adds a button on 9 December 2021 that copies a spoiler-free emoji square pattern of the player's six attempts. Twitter timelines turn green and yellow. 02. Seven Figures, One Letter Off The New York Times buys Wordle on 31 January 2022 for a sum in the low seven figures. The puzzle moves to nytimes.com a month later, with users panicking about lost streaks and a controversial change to the word list. The grid persists. Wordle becomes the prototype for Connections, Strands, and every daily-game clone of the next four years. "Wordle 211 4/6." — the universal Twitter format, January 2022 Sources • The New York Times, 'The New York Times Buys Wordle' (31 January 2022) • The Guardian, 'Wordle: how a labour of love became an online phenomenon' (11 January 2022) • Josh Wardle, interview with Slate (5 January 2022)
2022 — Will Smith Slaps Chris Rock. Date: 27 March 2022 · Place: 94th Academy Awards, Dolby Theatre, Los Angeles · Figures: Will Smith, Best Actor winner that night · Chris Rock, presenter · Jada Pinkett Smith, target of the GI Jane joke · Tags: Awards, Live TV, The Slap 01. Keep My Wife's Name Chris Rock makes a GI Jane joke about Jada Pinkett Smith's shaved head, which she shaves due to alopecia. Will Smith walks onstage and slaps him. Smith returns to his seat and shouts, twice, to keep his wife's name out of Rock's mouth. ABC's US broadcast censors the audio. Australian and Japanese broadcasts do not. Forty minutes later Smith wins Best Actor for King Richard and delivers a tearful acceptance speech about protection. The Academy bans him from the ceremony for ten years on 8 April. 02. Reaction Image of the Year The freeze-frame of the slap, the wide shot of Smith mid-walk, and the close-up of Rock holding his cheek become the year's universal reaction set. TikTok edits within the hour. The cycle pulls in Tony Rock, Questlove holding the Best Documentary envelope, and the running joke that the producer Will Packer had the worst night of any Oscars producer in history. Sources • AP News, 'Will Smith slaps Chris Rock onstage at the Oscars' (27 March 2022) • The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, statement on Smith ban (8 April 2022) • Variety, 'Inside the Will Smith Slap' (28 March 2022)
2022 — It's Morbin Time. Date: April-June 2022 · Place: Twitter, Reddit, TikTok · Figures: Sony Pictures, Morbius distributor · Jared Leto, lead actor · Internet ironists · Tags: Irony, BoxOffice, Sony 01. A Bad Film Becomes a Meme Sony releases Morbius on 1 April 2022. It earns 39 million domestic in its opening weekend against a $75 million budget. The film is widely panned. The internet, in a coordinated ironic gesture, declares Morbius a masterpiece and begins inventing fake quotes from it, chief among them the never-spoken line 'It's Morbin Time.' Sony, taking the ironic enthusiasm at face value, re-releases the film in 1,000 theaters on 3 June 2022 to capitalize on the meme. It earns 280,000 dollars across the entire weekend. 02. The Studio Falls for the Joke The Morbius cycle becomes the canonical case of a major studio mistaking ironic meme-engagement for genuine demand. The phrase 'It's Morbin Time' enters the lexicon as shorthand for any corporate misreading of online attention. Sony does not survive the embarrassment cleanly. Internal memos about the re-release leak. The studio learns the difference between the meme and the audience. Sources • Variety, 'Sony Re-Releases Morbius in Theaters' (1 June 2022) • The Verge, 'How Sony Got Morbed' (8 June 2022) • Know Your Meme, 'It's Morbin Time' entry
2022 — Andrew Tate Algorithmic Surge. Date: July-December 2022 · Place: TikTok, YouTube Shorts, then Romanian custody · Figures: Andrew Tate, former kickboxer and Big Brother UK contestant · Tristan Tate, brother · Hustlers University affiliate program · Tags: Manosphere, Algorithm, Arrest 01. The Affiliate Push Andrew Tate's Hustlers University runs an explicit affiliate program: members pay 49 dollars a month, then earn commissions by reuploading Tate clips to TikTok and YouTube Shorts. By July 2022 his name pulls 13 billion TikTok hashtag views. Teachers across Britain and the US start reporting that 13-year-old boys are quoting him in class. The clips weaponize the For You Page. The same fragment of him in a sports car explaining why women belong to men gets cut into thousands of variants, each optimized differently for watch time. 02. Pizza Box Tate is banned from TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube in the first week of August 2022. On 29 December 2022 he is arrested in Romania on charges of human trafficking and forming an organized criminal group. The Greta Thunberg pizza-box rumor that he was traced through a Jerry's Pizza box in a video reply to her is false but durable, the meme that finally caps the year. "What color is your Bugatti?" — Andrew Tate, response template, 2022 Sources • The Guardian, 'How Andrew Tate became one of the most googled men in the world' (6 August 2022) • Reuters, 'Andrew Tate arrested in Romania on human trafficking charges' (30 December 2022) • Vice, 'Inside Andrew Tate's Hustlers University' (22 July 2022)
2022 — ChatGPT Launch. Date: 30 November 2022 · Place: OpenAI, San Francisco · Figures: Sam Altman, OpenAI CEO · Mira Murati, OpenAI CTO · GPT-3.5 base model · Tags: AI, Launch, Substrate 01. Wednesday Afternoon Release OpenAI releases ChatGPT on the afternoon of 30 November 2022 as a research preview. Sam Altman tweets a casual announcement at 11:31 a.m. Pacific. The product is a chat wrapper around GPT-3.5, a model OpenAI has had internally for months. The team expects a quiet research release. The product hits one million users in five days, faster than Instagram and TikTok's growth curves. By January 2023 it is the fastest-growing consumer product in history with 100 million weekly users. 02. The Substrate Switches Memes change after 30 November. The 'Make it more X' escalation format, the AI Drake voice clones, Pope Francis in Balenciaga, the Studio Ghibli filter, the Will Smith spaghetti benchmark all descend from this release. AI ceases to be a 2010s research curiosity and becomes the substrate of every subsequent meme cycle. The Italian Brainrot characters of 2025, the voice clones of 2024, the image and video synthesis cycles of 2023 and 2024 all originate in the model OpenAI ships this Wednesday. Sources • OpenAI, 'Introducing ChatGPT' (30 November 2022) • Reuters, 'ChatGPT Sets Record for Fastest-Growing User Base' (2 February 2023) • The New York Times, 'Inside the Race that Doomed OpenAI's Calm' (15 December 2022)
2022 — Goblin Mode (Oxford WOTY 2022). Date: December 2022 (Oxford selection) · Place: Twitter, then Oxford Languages · Figures: Oxford Languages · Public vote (340,000 ballots) · A fake Julia Fox headline from 2022 · Tags: OxfordWOTY, PostPandemic, Aesthetic 01. Defining the Slob Oxford Languages, for the first time, opens its Word of the Year vote to the public in December 2022. 'Goblin mode,' defined as 'a type of behaviour which is unapologetically self-indulgent, lazy, slovenly, or greedy, typically in a way that rejects social norms or expectations,' wins with 318,956 of 340,000 votes. The term gains traction after a fabricated Julia Fox quote about Kanye West circulates on Twitter in February 2022. The phrase had already been used on Reddit since 2009. Its 2022 ascent is post-pandemic post-cottagecore reaction formation. 02. Reaction Aesthetic Goblin Mode is named the same year as Tomato Girl Summer, Hot Girl Walk, and Cottagecore's tail. Its win signals the audience's exhaustion with aspirational TikTok aesthetics and embrace of their opposite. The term will be displaced within 12 months by Rizz, then Brain Rot. Oxford is now choosing meme words annually. "The state of being unapologetically self-indulgent, lazy, slovenly, or greedy." — Oxford Languages, Word of the Year announcement, 5 December 2022 Sources • Oxford Languages, 'Word of the Year 2022: Goblin Mode' (5 December 2022) • The Guardian, 'Goblin Mode Beats Out Metaverse for Word of the Year' (5 December 2022) • BBC News, 'Goblin Mode Voted Oxford Word of the Year' (5 December 2022)
2022 — My Reaction To That Information. is a catchphrase used in various images and GIF captions. The phrase is often paired with nonsensical or absurd images as a means of parodying typical reaction image memes.
2022-06-27 — When You Outside And You Smell That Zaza. When You Outside And Smell That Zaza is a catchphrase used in ironic "hood" memes that pokes fun at marijuana use and the slang term "zaza," referring to dispensary-grade weed. The phrase is typically used over image macros of characters showcasing what smelling zaza outside is like, often leading with curiosity and mischief. It was first used earnestly in an Instagram meme posted in early 2021.
2022-07-21 — Lilgayboy45 - Lilgayboy45 (Offical Video). ) · 0:15
2022-07-27 — Me when I see a happy couple. a tiktok edit of atrain
2022-07-28 — Le Reddit Army. ” is an ironic nickname for YouTube commenters who post intentionally inflammatory statements on the video-sharing site, often using roleplay accounts parodying various online stereotypes.
2022-07-28 — LE REDDIT ARMY. · 0:14
2022-08-25 — Greatest Legal Mind I Ever Knew. is a line uttered by Better Call Saul character Howard Hamlin (played by Patrick Fabian) that became a shitpost meme popularized among the TV series' fandom, which involves posting a GIF of Hamlin captioned with the quote or referencing it in some other way that went viral in the /r/okbuddychicanery subreddit in August 2022. It is also used less commonly as an exploitable image macro.
2022-08-26 — look at me Hector. · 0:15
2022-09-14 — KFC Deep Fried Rat / Rats When They See A KFC Deep Fryer. KFC Deep Fried Rat refers to the viral news post and belief that KFC has deep fried a rat before, and that rats jump in the KFC deep fryers whenever they see them. These jokes are often used as a video exploitable format with videos of people jumping into pools or other liquids.
2022-09-16 — Have You Seen This Woman?. ? refers to a series of ironic wanted posters memes spread across Brazil with pictures of Chuu, from K-pop girl group LOONA, and the text "have you seen this woman? If you haven't seen it, now you have!". The trend became popular in August 2022, after some fans started to glue posters of the singer in Universities all over the country.
2022-09-16 — Have You Seen This Woman.avi
2022-09-19 — Heisenbones saves Walter White Full Scene | Breaking Bad
2022-09-30 — Say the Line, Wojak. is a catchphrase and phrasal template used in a series of Wojak Comics memes that post-ironically mock Overly Specific Wojaks, such as Bearjak and Meowjak, with GigaChad requesting they say a pun based on their appearance. Spawned by a viral tweet, the format saw a minor presence on Twitter in 2022.
2022-09-30 — SAY THE LINE, BOWLINGBALLJAK!!!. !!!
2022-11-15 — Blaming the Rothschilds. refers to a series of memes in which the blame for life's misfortunes, no matter how minute or random, is put on the Rothschilds, an influential "old money" Jewish family. A parody of anti-Semitic conspiracy memes, the format gained virality on iFunny in October 2022. The meme is often used in conjunction with the Saruman Magically Summoning meme format.
2022-11-15 — The Rothschild Conspiracies They Don’t Want You to Know (in 7 Minutes). ) · 7:25
2022-11-23 — His Ass Is Not X. or His Ass Is Not Reading is a catchphrase used in a series of ironic memes where a person, animal or character is shown where it looks like they might be reading or doing another action. The meme originates from a 2019 Twitter video of a man pretending to read a book on the subway, captioned, "his ass is not reading" and the caption spread as a phrasal template the following years, mostly used in image macros.
2022-11-23 — His ass is NOT listening!!!. !!! · 0:12
2023-01-05 — Keep Gambling. and Pro-Gambling Memes refers to a series of ironic memes that advocate for gambling by stating that those who quit were just about to hit it big. Spawned by a 2013 satirical article, the format achieved viral presence with Whisper macros and tweets in 2022.
2023-01-05 — I MUST KEEP GAMBLING. · 43:34
2023-01-11 — Hood Irony
2023-02-10 — Nuh Uh. is a catchphrase used in a series of ironic memes, including image macros and reaction images, as a way to comedically dismiss someone's opinion or fact without good reason. The meme started to become popularized online in early 2022, spreading over the course of the year.
2023-02-10 — Jades Goudreault - nuh uh (dance video). ) · 2:26
2023-02-16 — This Is What Men Like, Right?. ? or A Todos Los Chicos Les Gusta Esto, No? refers to an exploitable meme series in which something a man might like or ironically like (for example, a video game series) is edited onto the bra of a character from the hentai manga Shimazu Tekkou Special Nursing. The meme first became popularized with Spanish-speaking internet users in mid-2019 and spread over the following years, inspiring English-language variants in the early 2020s.
2023-02-16 — This Is What Men Like Right?. ? · 3:52
2023-03-29 — Throwing Bricks at Homeless People. is a catchphrase and ironic meme concept used in jokes and memes talking about the activity as if it's something that is fun and good to do, as well as referentially about preparing for and planning to later engage in it. The phrase first started to see use on iFunny before being spread around on TikTok in early 2023.
2023-04-18 — QUOICOUBEH - PINK LILY (clip officiel). ) · 2:28
2023-04-19 — Why Is The Blue Grinch Getting Knee Surgery? What Does The Meme Mean?. ? · 3:41
2023-04-27 — Grass Clibbins, Almost Haddalayerdown. is a catchphrase written as if spoken phonetically in a southern accent used in ironic motorcycling memes that translates to, "grass clippings, almost had to lay her down." The phrase was popularized on the "Hog Crankers Against Grass Clibbins" Facebook page and refers to the potential danger that grass clippings left on the road present to cyclists, as grass clippings make the road slicker.
2023-04-27 — HADDALAYERDOWN GOBBLESS. · 0:11
2023-04-27 — Bronze Age Shitposting / Iltam Sumra Rashupti Elatim. Bronze Age Shitposting refers to shitpost and status videos that use Bronze Age artifacts and heritage as their primary theme. Spawned by memes such as Complaint Table to Ea-nasir and Sumerian Bar Joke, the format achieved popularity on YouTube in late March 2023.
2023-04-27 — Bronze age shitpost. · 0:08
2023-05-12 — Now Yuo See / Yuo. Now Yuo See and the word Yuo refers to an ironic misspelling of the word "you" akin to Chanspeak that's inserted into the catchphrase which infers enlightenment. "Yuo" was originally used in gamers rise up memes (also known as "We live in a society" or "Gamer Joker" memes) in 2018 on Reddit. Going into the 2020s, "yuo" was used in ironic hustle culture and sigma male memes (often featuring the Joker or other literally me guys). In 2023, "yuo" and "now yuo see" became increasingly prevalent on TikTok in Aryan classic videos that (either satirically or earnestly) idolized Hyperborea, the 1998 eye chart and other, controversial, internet trends related to the great replacement theory and white genocide that portrayed white Europeans as Chads who say "yuo" and other races as inferior Soyjaks or Virgins who say "you."
2023-05-12 — Now You See Me 3. · 2:25
2023-05-15 — William Dafoe Helplessly Looking At The Sky Meme Template by @514MMemes. · 0:10
2023-05-24 — Top 10 Goobie Woobies. or Gooby Woobies is a viral video on TikTok in which user epic.mac lists his top 10 "goobie woobies," showing images of random creatures, animals and items while listing off their nonsensical names. The video was originally posted in 2022 and went viral in April and May 2023 as users applied new visuals to the audio, some of which gained viral spread online. The slang term "goobie woobies" is loosely defined and meant to be absurd.
2023-05-24 — top ten goobie woobies (Pikmin). ).
2023-05-25 — Weak Aura vs. Strong Aura. is a series of memes, often ironic, where the traits of someone with a weak aura as opposed to a strong aura are presented, the former under a dark silhouetted figure and the latter under a glowing figure. The meme first appeared on Instagram in 2018 and became popularized throughout the 2020s as users photoshopped the listed items.
2023-05-25 — Chaos - 40k vs Fantasy. · 0:17
2023-06-14 — Pizza Tower Ohio Rizz Gyatt. is a series of Slang Overload memes that ironically combine together Gen Z internet slang and memes popular in late 2022 and early 2023 such Ohio, Rizz, Gyatt, Pizza Tower and Big Chungus. Initially a series of images parodying Delet These / Erm… What the Deuce reaction images, the format gained popularity in mid-May 2023, with users posting seemingly nonsensical phrases consisting of the slang on Twitter and other social media.
2023 — Cheems / Balltze Dies. Date: 18 August 2023 (born 24 July 2017) · Place: Hong Kong · Figures: Balltze, Shiba Inu (2017-2023) · Boris Lai, owner · Internet, mourner · Tags: Dog, Obituary, EraEnd 01. The Dog Behind Cheems Balltze, a Shiba Inu born in Hong Kong on 24 July 2017, is photographed by owner Boris Lai in a series of images that become the Cheems image macro from 2017 onward. Cheems pairs with Doge in the Buff Doge vs Cheems format that defines Reddit and Twitter meme aesthetics from 2020 to 2023. Balltze develops cancer in mid-2023. Lai announces the diagnosis publicly on Instagram in July. The dog dies 18 August 2023. 02. An Era Closes The death is reported by Reuters, the BBC, and Vice. Tributes outnumber Balltze's actual lifetime image output by orders of magnitude. The same week, Skibidi Toilet crosses two billion views on YouTube Shorts. One era of dog-as-meme ends while the next era's algorithmic-toilet-head meme reaches peak. The handoff is exact and uncoordinated. Sources • Reuters, 'Balltze, the Dog Behind the Cheems Meme, Dies at 12' (19 August 2023) • Boris Lai, Instagram announcement (18 August 2023) • BBC News, 'Cheems Meme Dog Balltze Dies' (19 August 2023)
2023 — Kai Cenat Subathon Record. Date: February 2023 · Place: Twitch, streamed from New York · Figures: Kai Cenat, streamer · Twitch · Any Means Possible (AMP) collective · Tags: Streaming, Twitch, Record 01. Mafiathon Kai Cenat runs a 30-day continuous live stream called Mafiathon through February 2023. By the end of the month he holds 306,621 active Twitch subscribers, an all-time platform record by a margin that no streamer subsequently approaches without copying the same subathon format. Cenat earns an estimated 1.5 million dollars from the subscriber count alone during the month. 02. AMP and the Streamer Cohort Cenat is the center of the Any Means Possible (AMP) collective alongside Fanum, Duke Dennis, Agent00, Chrisnxtdoor, and ImDavisss. The cohort generates the bulk of Gen Alpha streaming slang in 2022-2023 including 'rizz,' 'fanum tax,' 'mewing,' and 'gyat.' By 2024 Cenat's Mafiathon 2 will break his own record with 728,000 subs. Streaming is now the primary substrate for Gen Alpha vocabulary formation. Sources • The Verge, 'Kai Cenat Breaks All-Time Twitch Subscriber Record' (28 February 2023) • Forbes, 'How Kai Cenat Became Twitch's Biggest Star' (18 March 2023) • Dexerto, 'Mafiathon 1 Final Sub Count' (1 March 2023)
2023 — Skibidi Toilet. Date: 7 February 2023 (first upload) · Place: YouTube channel DaFuq!?Boom! · Alexey Gerasimov, Tbilisi, Georgia · Figures: Alexey Gerasimov, animator · DaFuq!?Boom! channel (now ~50 million subscribers) · Tags: Gen Alpha, Brainrot Canon 01. Heads in Toilets On 7 February 2023, Alexey Gerasimov, a Georgia-based animator, uploads a 11-second video to his YouTube channel DaFuq!?Boom! It depicts a singing human head emerging from a toilet, set to the Bulgarian-Italian song Dom Dom Yes Yes (the Skibidi audio loop). The video has approximately no production value. It is also, immediately, the most-discussed children's content of 2023. By the end of 2023 the channel posts hundreds of Skibidi Toilet videos. A loose lore emerges: the singing toilet-heads are an invasive force at war with a humanoid resistance whose members have surveillance cameras, speakers, and TVs for heads. By 2024 the franchise has merchandise, a Paramount feature-film development deal (announced 2024), and an academic paper from a media-studies department analyzing it as a defining Gen Alpha cultural artifact. 02. Brainrot As Word Of The Year Oxford University Press names brain rot its 2024 Word of the Year, citing Skibidi Toilet and adjacent Gen Alpha vocabulary (rizz, fanum tax, delulu, gyatt, skibidi itself as adjective) as the defining cultural complex behind the term's usage spike. Brain rot is, on Oxford's framing, the consequence of consuming low-quality online content; Skibidi Toilet is brain rot's most famous single artifact. Whether Skibidi Toilet is in fact brain rot, or is Gen Alpha's avant-garde of post-narrative episodic surrealism that older viewers fail to read correctly, is the live media-studies debate of the late 2020s. The meme does not care. The toilets keep singing. Sources • DaFuq!?Boom! YouTube channel (2023-present) • Oxford Word of the Year 2024 announcement • Wikipedia, Skibidi Toilet
2023 — Wes Anderson Aesthetic Trend. Date: March 2023 · Place: TikTok · Figures: Ava Williams, originator · Alexa filter and song · Wes Anderson, unwitting reference · Tags: Aesthetic, Film, Filter 01. If My Life Were a Wes Anderson Film Ava Williams posts a TikTok in March 2023 walking through an airport titled 'if my life were a Wes Anderson movie,' set to a wistful song by French composer Alexa. The format catches. Users film themselves entering rooms, opening fridges, riding trains in centered symmetric framing with pastel grading and Futura overlay text. Wes Anderson himself comments dryly in interviews that he had no idea his name was a TikTok filter. 02. Style as Trend Substrate The cycle reveals TikTok's capacity to flatten a director's 25-year body of work into a six-week aesthetic trend. The Asteroid City marketing team leans into the cycle in the lead-up to the June 2023 release. The Anderson trend is followed within months by AI-generated faux-Anderson trailers for Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, and The Avengers. Style becomes a commodity ChatGPT and Midjourney can dispense. Sources • Ava Williams, original Wes Anderson airport upload (TikTok, March 2023) • The Guardian, 'How TikTok Discovered Wes Anderson' (18 April 2023) • Wes Anderson, Sky News interview re Asteroid City (12 May 2023)
2023 — Will Smith Spaghetti Benchmark. Date: 27 March 2023 (and 14 February 2024 successor) · Place: Reddit r/StableDiffusion, then OpenAI Sora announcement · Figures: Reddit user u/chaindrop, original poster · ModelScope text-to-video model · Will Smith, subject · Tags: AI, Benchmark, Video 01. Spaghetti as Cursed Object On 27 March 2023 the Reddit user u/chaindrop generates a 20-second video of Will Smith eating spaghetti using the open-source ModelScope text-to-video model. The clip is grotesque. The fork phases through Smith's hand. The pasta becomes Smith's face. The face becomes the pasta. The clip earns millions of views as a benchmark of what AI video cannot do. Will Smith eating spaghetti becomes the internet's canonical AI-video stress test. 02. The 2024 Comparison When OpenAI announces Sora on 15 February 2024 the first thing the internet does is rerun the prompt. The 2024 Sora version is photoreal. The fork holds. The pasta behaves. Side-by-side 2023 vs 2024 comparison videos become a meme in their own right. Will Smith eating spaghetti is the only AI benchmark widely understood by non-engineers. It is the unit by which the layperson measures one year of model progress. Sources • u/chaindrop, original ModelScope Will Smith video (Reddit r/StableDiffusion, 27 March 2023) • The Verge, 'Why Is AI Generating Cursed Videos of Will Smith?' (3 April 2023) • OpenAI, Sora announcement and gallery (15 February 2024)
2023 — AI Drake Heart on My Sleeve. Date: 4 April 2023 · Place: TikTok and Spotify, uploaded anonymously · Figures: Ghostwriter977, anonymous creator · Drake, voice-cloned subject · The Weeknd, voice-cloned subject · Universal Music Group · Tags: AI, Voice, Copyright 01. A Song That Sounds Real An anonymous TikTok user posting as Ghostwriter977 uploads 'Heart on My Sleeve' on 4 April 2023. The track features Drake and The Weeknd's voices, neither of whom recorded it. The vocals are generated using open-source voice cloning models. The song collects 15 million streams across TikTok, Spotify, YouTube, and Apple Music inside a week. Universal Music Group sends takedown notices on 17 April. The song is pulled from all major platforms within 48 hours. 02. The Industry Loses Its Reference Class Ghostwriter977 submits the song to the 2024 Grammy Awards. The Recording Academy initially rules the song eligible. Tens of similar voice-cloned tracks appear in 2023 and 2024, including AI Kanye, AI Frank Ocean, AI Juice WRLD. The music industry's century-old assumption that a vocal performance corresponds to a singer collapses inside a few weeks. Voice synthesis passes the same Turing test in April that image synthesis passed in March. Sources • The New York Times, 'An AI Hit of Fake Drake and the Weeknd' (19 April 2023) • Variety, 'Universal Music Sends Takedown Notices to Spotify Over AI Drake Song' (17 April 2023) • Billboard, 'AI-Generated Heart on My Sleeve Pulled from Streaming Services' (18 April 2023)
2023 — Girl Dinner. Date: May 2023 · Place: TikTok · Figures: Olivia Maher, originator · Karina Polanco, viral expander · The medieval peasant plate · Tags: Food, Aesthetic, Format 01. Bread, Cheese, Grapes Olivia Maher posts a TikTok on 11 May 2023 calling her snack-plate dinner a 'girl dinner.' The plate is bread, cheese, butter, grapes, gherkins. Maher invokes a medieval-peasant association. The format is the meme. Within six weeks the hashtag has 1.6 billion views. Karina Polanco's follow-up Girl Dinner song goes platinum on TikTok by August. The aesthetic licenses snack-plate dinners as a complete category. 02. The Discourse Argues With Itself Wellness Twitter and disordered-eating activists argue Girl Dinner romanticizes restriction. Defenders argue it normalizes not cooking. The Atlantic, Vox, and the BBC all publish takes. The meme outlasts the discourse. By winter 'girl dinner' is colloquial English in a way 'sea shanty TikTok' never managed to be. Sources • Olivia Maher, original Girl Dinner upload (TikTok, 11 May 2023) • The New York Times, 'Girl Dinner, Explained' (5 August 2023) • The Atlantic, 'The Trouble With Girl Dinner' (28 July 2023)
2023 — Tomato Girl Summer. Date: June 2023 · Place: TikTok · Figures: TikTok lifestyle creators · Olive oil, repeating prop · Linen, repeating textile · Tags: Aesthetic, Summer, Mediterranean 01. Olive Oil and Linen The Tomato Girl aesthetic emerges in June 2023 as a Mediterranean-coded summer mode: olive oil drizzled on focaccia, red-painted nails, linen dresses, ripe tomatoes on rustic boards. Pinterest searches for 'tomato girl' jump 1,300 percent month-over-month. The aesthetic descends from the Italian Coastal Grandmother aesthetic of 2022 and from the Hot Girl Summer franchise. 02. Three Months and Gone Tomato Girl is replaced by Cucumber Salad Girl, then Olive Theory, then by autumn aesthetics. The cycle compresses to roughly six weeks per named look. The fashion publications that once worked in seasons can no longer track the velocity. By 2024 the aesthetic discourse will turn over completely twice per quarter. Sources • The Cut, 'Tomato Girl Summer Is Here' (14 June 2023) • Pinterest Predicts 2023 summer trend report • Vogue, 'How Tomato Girl Became the Summer's Defining Aesthetic' (28 June 2023)
2023 — Barbenheimer. Date: 21 July 2023 · Place: AMC and Regal multiplexes, US and UK · Figures: Greta Gerwig, Barbie director · Christopher Nolan, Oppenheimer director · Margot Robbie · Cillian Murphy · the same-day-release schedulers · Tags: Box Office, Double Feature, Pink and Mushroom Cloud 01. Two Films, One Friday Warner Bros. releases Barbie and Universal releases Oppenheimer on the same Friday, 21 July 2023. The internet schedules double features. Barbie pulls 162 million dollars in its US opening weekend. Oppenheimer pulls 82 million, the largest opening ever for a three-hour R-rated biopic. Combined the weekend is the fourth-largest in domestic history. Fan-made posters splicing Margot Robbie's pink and Cillian Murphy's mushroom cloud circulate for two months before release. Tom Cruise tweets a photo of his ticket stubs for both. 02. The Theatrical Argument Barbenheimer is the rebuttal to the streaming-killed-theaters narrative. Both films skip same-day streaming. Both reward the big screen. The portmanteau holds because the contrast is total: feminist toy comedy versus J. Robert Oppenheimer crying about a thousand suns. The double-feature meme converts the contrast into a single cultural event. Sources • Box Office Mojo, 'Barbenheimer Weekend' (24 July 2023) • The New York Times, 'Barbie and Oppenheimer Lift Hollywood' (23 July 2023) • Variety, 'How Barbenheimer Became a Phenomenon' (20 July 2023)
2023 — Barbie Box Selfie Generator. Date: July 2023 · Place: BarbieSelfie.ai, then Instagram and LinkedIn · Figures: Warner Bros. marketing · BairesDev-built generator · everyone with a LinkedIn · Tags: AI Filter, Movie Marketing, Barbie Box 01. This Barbie Is In the run-up to Barbie's 21 July 2023 release, Warner Bros. publishes BarbieSelfie.ai, a tool that drops the user's headshot into a pink Barbie-doll box with a customizable This Barbie Is caption. The tool is rudimentary. The format is universal. LinkedIn fills with This Barbie Is a Senior Product Manager. Instagram fills with This Barbie Is a Tired Mom. The box-art template becomes the template for every subsequent AI-image meme cycle for the next two years. 02. Action Figure 2025 The format reactivates in April 2025 when ChatGPT 4o's image generation, released a month earlier, makes high-fidelity action-figure-in-blister-pack renders trivial. LinkedIn fills again, this time with users posing as toy figurines surrounded by accessories like Laptop, Cold Brew, and Therapist's Card. The Barbie Box is the ancestor. Sources • Wired, 'Barbie Selfie Generator Floods the Internet' (12 July 2023) • BarbieSelfie.ai (Warner Bros., July 2023) • TechCrunch, 'The Action Figure AI Trend' (April 2025)
2023 — How Often Do Men Think About the Roman Empire. Date: September 2023 · Place: Instagram Reels, then TikTok · Figures: Saskia Cort, Swedish reenactor (originator August 2023) · Kevin Daisy-Hatch, Roman reenactor reposter · countless boyfriends and husbands answering on camera · Tags: Couple Trend, Gender Discourse, Roman Empire 01. Ask Your Man Swedish reenactor Saskia Cort posts a Reel in August 2023 instructing women to ask the men in their lives how often they think about the Roman Empire. Roman reenactor Kevin Daisy-Hatch reposts the prompt. By mid-September it is the dominant trend on Reels and TikTok. The answers cluster, suspiciously consistently, around several times a week. Women film the question. Men, mid-laundry or mid-driving, answer with specifics: aqueducts, the Praetorian Guard, that they think about it more than their partner thinks about anything. 02. The Format Holds The trend is gendered and good-natured, which makes it migrate fast. It outlasts the usual two-week TikTok arc by spawning permutations: how often do women think about Princess Diana, how often do gay men think about the Titanic, how often do millennials think about The Office. The Roman Empire variant is the canonical one because the gap between expected indifference and actual obsession is the joke. Sources • BBC News, 'Roman Empire: Why are men obsessed?' (15 September 2023) • The New York Times, 'Why Men Think About the Roman Empire' (15 September 2023) • Saskia Cort, Instagram @saskiacort (August 2023 original)
2023 — Sam Altman Ouster. Date: 17-22 November 2023 · Place: OpenAI, San Francisco · Figures: Sam Altman, ousted then reinstated CEO · Ilya Sutskever, board member · Mira Murati, briefly interim CEO · Emmett Shear, briefly interim-interim CEO · Satya Nadella, Microsoft CEO · Tags: AI, Governance, FiveDays 01. Friday Afternoon Termination On Friday 17 November 2023 at 12:28 p.m. Pacific, the OpenAI board announces it has terminated Sam Altman as CEO, citing that he 'was not consistently candid in his communications with the board.' Mira Murati is named interim CEO. The internet, the AI industry, and Silicon Valley spend the weekend in continuous shock. By Sunday Microsoft has announced it will hire Altman to run a new internal AI division. By Monday, 738 of OpenAI's 770 employees have signed a letter threatening to follow Altman to Microsoft unless the board resigns. 02. Reinstatement and Heart Emoji On 22 November 2023 the board reverses. Altman returns as CEO. Most of the original board resigns. Throughout the five-day crisis the meme of the era is the heart emoji, posted by OpenAI employees on Twitter as a coordinated signal of loyalty. The cycle becomes the canonical example of governance theater in the AI industry, retold continuously through 2024 and 2025 in business books, podcasts, and a forthcoming HBO series. Sources • OpenAI, board announcement (17 November 2023) • The New York Times, 'Sam Altman Is Reinstated as OpenAI's Chief Executive' (22 November 2023) • The Atlantic, 'Inside the OpenAI Power Struggle' (28 November 2023) by Karen Hao
2023 — Saltburn / Murder on the Dancefloor. Date: December 2023 to January 2024 · Place: TikTok, film released by MGM · Figures: Emerald Fennell, director · Barry Keoghan, lead · Sophie Ellis-Bextor, song (2001) · MGM, distributor · Tags: Film, SoundRevival, Dance 01. A 2001 Song Charts Again Emerald Fennell's Saltburn releases in US theaters 22 November 2023 and on Amazon Prime 22 December. The closing scene features Barry Keoghan naked-dancing through a country house to Sophie Ellis-Bextor's 2001 single 'Murder on the Dancefloor.' By Christmas the song has charted in 17 countries and TikTok is wall-to-wall recreations. Ellis-Bextor earns more streaming income from December 2023 alone than from the previous decade combined. 02. The Bathwater Cycle The film generates two parallel meme cycles. The Keoghan dance becomes a TikTok recreation format. The earlier bathwater scene, in which Keoghan drinks Jacob Elordi's used bathwater, becomes the rarer kind of meme that the algorithm partially suppresses for content-policy reasons. Both cycles depend on the platform's forensic gaze. Couch Guy two years earlier rehearsed the same instinct. Sources • Billboard, 'Sophie Ellis-Bextor Murder on the Dancefloor Charts Worldwide' (5 January 2024) • The Guardian, 'How Saltburn Made Sophie Ellis-Bextor a Star Again' (4 January 2024) • Variety, 'Saltburn Becomes Streaming Phenomenon on Prime Video' (28 December 2023)
2023-06-26 — goat story being the weirdest movie of all time for 3 minutes. · 3:05
2023-06-28 — Model vs. Cashier. refers to a series of image macro memes comparing professional models and celebrities to random cashiers, claiming that the cashier is better looking than the model. The comparison meme format first appeared on Reddit in July 2021 and spread over the following years with new examples being posted on sites like Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and TikTok.
2023-06-28 — Random Cashier Better than a Model - Chat Music. · 1:19
2023-07-27 — Vaxxed (Full Documentary). ) · 90:49
2023-08-26 — Morbidly a Beast. is an intentional misinterpretation of the term "morbidly obese," which is used as a catchphrase in ironic memes. The memes are usually structured in a way that the person diagnosed with morbid obesity is bragging about being called "morbidly a beast," often with other weight-related puns also included.
2023-08-26 — Asking AI To Make A Song Called “Morbidly a Beast” - Full Song. · 2:43
2023-10-11 — Green Screen Goat Talking to Clueless Huh Cat Meme. · 0:09
2024-01-29 — Lobotomy (Slang). Lobotomy is a slang term used on social media platforms like TikTok (among others) that describes nonsensical and scrambled visuals, jokes and associations akin to the human brain functioning more chaotically and slowly after a lobotomy procedure. "Lobotomy" has become synonymous with Schizoposting and Brain Rot, another way to describe avant-garde Zoomer Humor and post-ironic content. Overall, so-called lobotomy content is akin to a broken sense of humor caused by being chronically online. The usage of "lobotomy" started with the Me Everytime After The Lobotomy video that showed Bart Simpson bumping into walls to imply confusion. Online usage of "lobotomy" became commonplace after the popularity of Hood Irony memes in 2023, leading to the Hood Lobotomy genre of videos. Going into early 2024, "lobotomy" was used to describe Lobotomy Kaisen and Lobotomy Dash which were coined by the Jujutsu Kaisen and Geometry Dash fandoms to describe the abstract degradation of their memes and humor.
2024-01-29 — LOBOTOMY KAIZEN IN A NUTSHELL. · 0:28
2024-02-13 — When The Random E-Celeb You Dislike Is Finally Outed. is a catchphrase used as a reaction and exploitable meme featuring American producer and internet personality Tariq Nasheed alongside text that reads, "When the random e-celeb you dislike for just being dumb and annoying and unfunny finally is outed for a legitimate reason to dislike them." The image comes from a 2022 post by now-suspended X / Twitter user @5ega5aturn5tan. The image is often used to react to internet celebrities who are canceled or embroiled in controversy.
2024-03-05 — Cursed Cat Alastor. is a Hazbin Hotel fan character depicting Alastor as a cat with red fur, sharp teeth and black tufts on his ears and tail. The character was designed by Korean artist @coma_0423 in February 2024 and gained viral spread on X (Twitter) that month leading into March, inspiring others to draw fan art.
2024-03-05 — 3AM with Cursed Cat Alastor - Hazbin Hotel Animatic. · 0:30
2024 — Mob Wife Aesthetic. Date: January 2024 · Place: TikTok · Figures: Kayla Trivieri, originator of the trend declaration · Carmela Soprano, ur-reference · Clean Girl Aesthetic, predecessor · Tags: Aesthetic, Fashion, Cycle 01. Death of Clean Girl Kayla Trivieri posts a TikTok on 20 January 2024 declaring the Clean Girl aesthetic over and the Mob Wife Aesthetic in. The new mode is fur coats, gold jewelry, smoky eyes, hairspray, leopard print. The reference texts are Carmela Soprano, Adriana La Cerva, and 1980s Italian-American street style. The Trivieri post hits 5 million views in 48 hours. Fashion publications declare Mob Wife the trend of 2024 within a week. 02. The Aesthetic Turnover Accelerates Mob Wife is succeeded by Coquette, Tomato Girl carryover, Brat Summer, Demure, and at least seven other named aesthetics in 2024 alone. Each cycle lasts roughly six weeks. The fashion industry, which once worked in seasons, now works in TikTok declarations. Mob Wife is the first 2024 declaration. By December the aesthetic cycle has eaten itself. Sources • Kayla Trivieri, original Mob Wife declaration (TikTok, 20 January 2024) • Vogue, 'The Mob Wife Aesthetic Has Taken Over TikTok' (24 January 2024) • The New York Times, 'Goodbye Clean Girl, Hello Mob Wife' (26 January 2024)
2024 — Stanley Cup Obsession. Date: January 2024 · Place: Target stores, TikTok · Figures: Terence Reilly, Stanley CEO · Target, retail partner · TikTok haul-creators · Tags: Object, Retail, Hype 01. A Car Survives a Fire Danielle Lettering posts a TikTok in November 2023 showing her totaled car burned to the chassis after a fire. The Stanley tumbler in the cup holder is intact and still has ice in it. The clip has 100 million views by Christmas. Stanley CEO Terence Reilly responds with a video offering Lettering a new car. By January 2024, Target stores see riots over limited-edition Valentine's Day pink Stanley Cup releases. Resellers list them for 200 dollars. Stanley revenue grows from 75 million in 2019 to a reported 750 million in 2023. 02. The Cup as Cultural Object The Stanley becomes the canonical TikTok-era physical object, the way Supreme bricks were the canonical 2010s drop. Owners collect them in colors. The 40-ounce model with handle is the standard. Counterfeits flood Temu. The cup outlives several aesthetic cycles. It is still on every desk in 2026. Sources • The New York Times, 'How the Stanley Tumbler Became a Status Symbol' (10 January 2024) • Danielle Lettering, original car-fire upload (TikTok, 14 November 2023) • CNBC, 'Stanley Revenue Grows from $75 Million to $750 Million' (8 February 2024)
2024 — Bluesky Mainstream. Date: February 2024 · Place: Bluesky Social, Seattle · Figures: Jay Graber, CEO · Jack Dorsey, board member then critic · AT Protocol · Tags: Platform, Federated, Exodus 01. The Invite Wall Falls Bluesky, the federated social network spun out of Twitter under Jay Graber, drops its invite-only restriction on 6 February 2024 after 18 months of beta. The platform jumps from 3 million to 23 million users by November 2024, accelerating sharply after the US election results that month. Jack Dorsey, original Twitter founder and Bluesky board member, departs the board acrimoniously in May 2024 over moderation philosophy. The platform increasingly resembles 2014 Twitter to its mostly-journalist, mostly-left user base. 02. Atomized Town Square By late 2024 the post-Twitter landscape is settled. Threads carries casual users and Meta's algorithm. Bluesky carries journalists and the political left. X retains the right. Mastodon retains the federated diehards. Meme circulation, which had one substrate from roughly 2009 to 2022, now has four. No memes go fully viral the way Pepe did in 2016. Sources • Bluesky, 'Join Us, Public Sign-ups Now Open' (6 February 2024) • The Verge, 'Bluesky Is Now Open to Everyone' (6 February 2024) • The Atlantic, 'The Bluesky Boom' (24 November 2024)
2024 — Dune Popcorn Bucket. Date: February 2024 · Place: AMC Theatres, USA · Figures: AMC, exhibitor · Warner Bros, distributor · Saturday Night Live (sketch reference) · Tags: Object, Cinema, Innuendo 01. The Sandworm Container AMC releases an exclusive Dune: Part Two popcorn bucket on 21 February 2024. The bucket is molded into the open maw of a sandworm. The opening is, the internet immediately notes, suggestively shaped. The bucket sells out within days at 24.99 dollars. Resellers list them for 200 to 500 dollars on eBay. Saturday Night Live runs a Timothée Chalamet sketch about the bucket on 2 March. Paul Mescal, hosting a different week, jokes about it on camera. The bucket eclipses the actual film in cultural footprint for two weeks. 02. Promotional Object as Meme The Dune bucket becomes the prototype for a year of weird studio-issued physical merchandise. Subsequent buckets for Despicable Me 4, Garfield, and Wonka all attempt to repeat the cycle. None match. The cinema lobby, two years after Gentleminions, is fully meme territory. Sources • The Hollywood Reporter, 'The Sandworm Dune Popcorn Bucket Has Taken Over the Internet' (23 February 2024) • AMC Theatres, official bucket announcement (15 February 2024) • The Cut, 'Why Is Everyone Talking About the Dune Popcorn Bucket' (27 February 2024)
2024 — Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift Super Bowl. Date: 11 February 2024 · Place: Allegiant Stadium, Las Vegas, broadcast on CBS · Figures: Travis Kelce, Kansas City Chiefs tight end · Taylor Swift, Eras Tour midway · Andy Reid, Chiefs coach · the suite-cam director · Tags: Sports x Pop, Super Bowl LVIII, Suite Cam 01. Friendship Bracelet, Tight End Travis Kelce attends an Eras Tour show in Kansas City in July 2023 and tries to give Taylor Swift a friendship bracelet with his phone number. The story leaks in September. By the Chiefs versus Jets game on 1 October Swift is in Kelce's mother's suite, and the NFL broadcast cuts to her so often that the meme is born midgame. Across the 2023-2024 NFL season, every Chiefs broadcast budgets suite-cam time. Fox Sports and CBS both lean in. Right-wing pundits speculate about a psy-op. The relationship survives both the cameras and the discourse. 02. Vegas Confetti Super Bowl LVIII airs 11 February 2024. The Chiefs beat the 49ers in overtime, 25 to 22. Kelce wins the ring. Swift runs onto the field. The kiss image goes everywhere within four minutes. CBS draws 123.7 million viewers, the most-watched US broadcast since the 1969 moon landing. The NFL audience tilts measurably younger and more female for the entire season. "It's me, hi." — the universal caption on every suite-cam screenshot, autumn 2023 Sources • Nielsen, 'Super Bowl LVIII Draws 123.7 Million Viewers' (February 2024) • ESPN, 'Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift: a timeline' (February 2024) • The New York Times, 'How the NFL Embraced Taylor Swift' (10 February 2024)
2024 — Costco Guys: Big Justice. Date: April-July 2024 · Place: Costco stores, USA · Figures: A.J. Befumo, father · Eric 'Big Justice' Befumo, son · Costco, unwitting brand subject · Tags: FatherSon, Retail, Chant 01. Boom or Doom A.J. Befumo and his 10-year-old son Eric, known as Big Justice, begin posting Costco shopping-trip TikToks in spring 2024. The format is consistent: father and son test products and rate them as either 'BOOM' (worth buying) or 'DOOM' (not worth buying). The chants are exaggerated, full-throated, performed at warehouse-club volume. By July 2024 the duo is everywhere. The 'look at Big Justice' chant becomes a standalone meme. Costco's PR team courts them. Multiple food brands send free product. 02. Two Tens Make a Twenty The Befumos introduce a 'two tens make a twenty' rating concept where excellence accumulates. The chant is mocked, repeated, sampled, brainrot-ified across the second half of 2024. Big Justice becomes a Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade balloon proposal. The format is the meme. The chant carries. The kid grows up live. Sources • A.J. and Big Justice Befumo, Costco Guys uploads (TikTok, April-July 2024) • The Wall Street Journal, 'The Costco Guys Are TikTok's Newest Stars' (12 August 2024) • Variety, 'How Big Justice Became a Phenomenon' (18 September 2024)
2024 — Hawk Tuah. Date: 11 June 2024 (filmed), viral 19 June · Place: Broadway, Nashville · Figures: Hailey Welch, interviewee · Tim and Dee TV, street interview duo · Talk Tuah podcast, eventual launch · Tags: StreetInterview, Sound, BrandDeal 01. Eight Seconds Outside a Bar Tim Dickson and Dee Dickson, street interviewers operating as Tim and Dee TV, film 21-year-old Hailey Welch outside a bar on Broadway in Nashville on 11 June 2024. They ask Welch what move drives a man wild in bed. Welch replies 'oh you gotta give him that hawk tuah and spit on that thang.' The clip is posted 19 June. It hits 30 million views in five days. Welch's identity is unknown for several weeks. The internet calls her the Hawk Tuah Girl. She is doxxed by mid-July. Brand offers begin arriving immediately. 02. Podcast and Token Welch launches the Talk Tuah podcast with Jake Paul in August 2024 to over one million downloads in its first week. She signs with Penguin Random House for a memoir. In December 2024 a Hawk Tuah Solana memecoin launches with Welch's apparent endorsement, then crashes by 95 percent within hours, becoming the largest celebrity-endorsed memecoin rug-pull of the year. Welch denies involvement. The cycle, eight seconds to memoir deal to memecoin scandal, is the canonical 2024 brand-arc for a TikTok-discovered person. Sources • Tim and Dee TV, original Hawk Tuah upload (TikTok, 19 June 2024) • Rolling Stone, 'How Hawk Tuah Girl Hailey Welch Became 2024's Most Unlikely Star' (12 August 2024) • CNBC, 'Hawk Tuah Memecoin Crashes 95 Percent in Hours' (5 December 2024)
2024 — Kim Yeji Sharpshooter Energy. Date: 31 July 2024 · Place: Chateauroux Shooting Centre, Paris 2024 · Figures: Kim Yeji, South Korean Olympic silver medalist · Elon Musk, viral booster · the Korean Air Force, her employer · Tags: Olympics, Cinematic Stillness, Assassin Energy 01. Pose Of The Games Kim Yeji wins silver in the women's 10-metre air pistol on 31 July 2024. Photographs of her mid-shot show her hand on her hip, head tilted slightly forward, expression utterly neutral. The frame reads less like sport and more like a still from a Park Chan-wook film. Elon Musk posts within hours that she should be cast in an action film as is. Korean studios reportedly receive overtures. Yeji, an active-duty Air Force sergeant, declines most press. 02. Sister To The Pocket The Dikeç-Yeji pair becomes the canonical Paris 2024 image set. Both win silver. Both wear nothing notable. Both demonstrate that the visual codes of cool and the visual codes of elite competence have, in 2024, completely collapsed into each other. Sources • Reuters, 'South Korea's Kim Ye-ji becomes Olympic style icon' (1 August 2024) • BBC Sport, 'Kim Ye-ji wins air pistol silver' (31 July 2024) • The Guardian, 'Kim Yeji and the new look of Olympic shooting' (2 August 2024)
2024 — Fight Fight Fight at Butler. Date: 13 July 2024 · Place: Butler Farm Show grounds, Butler, Pennsylvania · Figures: Donald Trump, candidate · Thomas Matthew Crooks, the 20-year-old shooter · Corey Comperatore, fire chief killed in the crowd · Evan Vucci, AP photographer · Tags: US Politics, Assassination Attempt, Iconography 01. The Photo At a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania on 13 July 2024 a 20-year-old gunman fires from a nearby rooftop. A bullet grazes Donald Trump's right ear. One rallygoer, fire chief Corey Comperatore, is killed. Two others are critically wounded. Trump drops behind the lectern, then stands, raises his fist, and mouths the word fight three times as Secret Service surround him. AP photographer Evan Vucci captures the moment with a perfectly composed image: bloodied ear, raised fist, American flag behind. The picture becomes one of the most reproduced political photographs of the century within twenty-four hours. 02. Meme As Campaign The Trump campaign converts the photo into merchandise within the week. The Republican National Convention opens two days later. Trump enters with a bandaged ear. The Fight Fight Fight chant becomes the closing slogan of his successful campaign. The line between live-event horror and political meme dissolves entirely. Sources • AP News, 'Trump injured but safe after shooting at rally' (13 July 2024) • The New York Times, 'How a Photo Captured a Defining Moment' (14 July 2024) • Reuters, 'Pennsylvania rally shooting timeline' (14 July 2024)
2024 — Moo Deng. Date: September 2024 · Place: Khao Kheow Open Zoo, Chonburi, Thailand · Figures: Moo Deng, baby pygmy hippopotamus (born 10 July 2024) · Atthapon Nundee, zookeeper · Khao Kheow Open Zoo · Tags: Animal, Thailand, Cute 01. Bouncy Pork Moo Deng, whose name means 'bouncy pork' in Thai, is born at Khao Kheow Open Zoo in Chonburi, Thailand on 10 July 2024. Zookeeper Atthapon Nundee begins posting videos in early September. The pygmy hippo, slick and stout and inclined to be aggressive at her keepers, becomes the global animal meme of late 2024. Visitor numbers at Khao Kheow triple. Sephora releases a Moo Deng-themed blush. Saturday Night Live runs a cold open. The hippo is on the cover of New York Magazine. 02. Animal Meme Cycle Moo Deng's cycle peaks alongside two other 2024 baby-animal memes: Pesto, the giant baby penguin at Sea Life Melbourne, and the Pittsburgh Zoo's hyena cub. The collective discourse calls 2024 the year animal cuteness rivals AI slop for cultural footprint. Moo Deng turns one in July 2025 already a brand. The hippo does not know. Sources • Khao Kheow Open Zoo, official Moo Deng announcement (September 2024) • The New York Times, 'How Moo Deng the Baby Hippo Became a Global Star' (20 September 2024) • New York Magazine, 'Moo Deng on the Cover' (October 2024)
2024-08-23 — I'm Just a Girl. is a catchphrase traditionally used, often ironically, by women to excuse poor behavior and avoid accountability on the basis that they're "just a girl" — meant to conjure stereotypical ideas of women being innocent, ditzy and naive. The phrase has been compared to the more male-centric expression "boys will be boys," similarly used to excuse men for their poor behavior. The phrase was popularized online throughout the 2020s as a meme, becoming notably prevalent on TikTok between 2023 and 2024, including as a meme in which the song "Just a Girl" by No Doubt plays over videos in which women do things relatable primarily to other women.
2024-08-23 — No Doubt - Just A Girl. · 3:27
2024-10-11 — Subtle Foreshadowing. is a catchphrase used ironically in specific non-linear storytelling memes in which the climax of a funny video is played several times throughout the video leading up to the actual moment, therefore foreshadowing the moment in the least subtle way possible. The non-linear storytelling meme started in mid-September 2024, with the catchphrase becoming specifically popularized in October a month later.on sites including YouTube, TikTok and X / Twitter.
2024-10-22 — Propeller Hat and Lollipop Dog. Propeller Hat Dog is a reaction image featuring a low-quality or moldy image of a white dog wearing a propeller hat and holding a lollypop in a Garry's Mod landscape. The image is edited to make it appear as though the dog has a small, childlike body, dressed in a yellow T-shirt and red shorts while holding a large lollipop. The Propeller Hat Dog was created by Tumblr user @justkleinerthoughts and Steam user Tones3D, who refer to him as "Roscoe." The image was popularized on X / Twitter in 2024 as a part of a "How It Feels To X" phrasal template, with people using the photo of the animal as a means to express childlike or juvenile behavior.
2024-11-26 — Me When I Have to Shoot My Dog Because I'm Bored. refers to an absurdist recaption meme format that explains various acts of violence with the person committing them "being bored." The format is based on a viral Jesse Pointing a Gun meme in which a person explains shooting his dog by being bored. The format has been used to poke fun at the lack of reasoning behind certain events in reality and fiction.
2024-12-05 — Truth Nuke / Trvke. Truth Nuke is a catchphrase and slang term often said ironically, meaning a moment of profound, impactful truth-telling a step beyond a "truth bomb." A Truth Nuke can be a premonition that comes to fruition or a hard reality that's difficult to deliver but true nonetheless. Truth Nuke is a common caption in image macros and posts on Twitter / X, sometimes used in quote tweets. It was originally the name of a website called TruthNuke.com, which was created in 2009. The use of Truth Nuke became associated with right-wing and conspiracy theory lingo by the late 2010s. It was often used in posts about DESTROYING Liberals. It later gained ironic and satirical usage in the 2020s, likely due to its exaggerated history. By late 2024, Truth Nuke became synonymous with a reaction image of a nuclear explosion vaporizing a screaming Soyjak with a gold top caption reading, "TRUTH NUKE," in all caps.
2025-01-08 — Wgat It Is / Time Traveller What It Is. Wgat It Is or Time Traveller What It Is is a series of ironic brainrot memes popularized by Instagram Reels user timetravellerwhatyouplaying in which the phrase "wgat it is," an intentional misspelling of "what it is," is edited into a variety of memes in nonsensical ways. The account began posting variations of the same time traveler image macro, which features the phrase "what it is," daily starting in May 2024 and in early December, started posting more ironic memes using the misspelled word "wgat" and phrase "wgat it is." Some of the memes went viral and began to see use by other social media users. The meme also became associated with the Chopped Chin meme.
2025-01-08 — Scientists Reveal How Time Travel Is Actually Possible. · 8:53
2025-01-26 — These Unusual Rabbit Paintings Have Become A Viral Meme On TikTok. · 1:25
2025-01-31 — TS PMO ICL. refers to a Slang Overload trend of overusing slang abbreviations like TS, PMO and ICL, among others, to form nonsensical, brainrot posts that satirize the slang's use. TS means "this shit" or "that shit" and memes about it meaning "this" instead surfaced en masse in late 2024, leading to discourse and memes about the appropriation and bastardization of AAVE. PMO, which means "piss me off," and ICL, which means "I can't lie," trended in TikTok memes during the same timeframe. In turn, users combined all of them ultimately championing the wrong usage, often subverting the purpose of abbreviations by using more letters and typing. TS PMO ICL memes were often Druski Dancing or Little Squid Game Guard Dancing videos with the walls of abbreviations and slang overlayed on top. Other popular slang terms that were added include Tuff ("Boi TS tuff") and The Pizza.
2025-01-31 — ICL TS PMO Meaning. · 2:34
2025-03-28 — Would You Rather Have $1 or $2. refers to a series of ironic memes captioned with the phrase based on a humorous image of Joe Higashi from the fighting game series Fatal Fury and King of Fighters in which he is given an impossibly large head. The memes parody "would you rather" engagement bait posts in which the viewer is asked to decide which of two gainful options they prefer.
2025-03-28 — Would you rather have $1 or $2
2025-04-08 — Italian Brainrot But They All Broken Brainrot Part 3. · 1:05
2025-04-14 — Shaneil Muir, Cjthechemist - Hurt (Audio Visual). ) · 2:38
2025-04-23 — IKIAG (Slang). IKIAG is an ironic slang acronym that stands for "I'mma Keep It A Gurt." The term was created by combining the acronyms "IKIAB," a slang phrase that means to be honest, and "Gurt," a nonsensical slang term used to describe something very smart but also very dangerous. The acronym is often used in brainrot videos and memes, and became popularized on TikTok in April 2025.
2025-04-23 — New slang alert! “?”. ! “?” · 0:07
2025-05-23 — Why Tf Are People "Gooning" To Jellybean???. ??? · 8:11
2025-05-29 — What? they hit the second tower? #regular show #Benson #meme. · 0:13
2025 — DeepSeek R1 and the Nvidia Crash. Date: 27 January 2025 · Place: Hangzhou-based DeepSeek, then the Nasdaq · Figures: Liang Wenfeng, DeepSeek and High-Flyer Capital founder · Jensen Huang, Nvidia CEO · Sam Altman, OpenAI CEO · short sellers everywhere · Tags: AI, China, $600B Wipe 01. Open Weights From Hangzhou On 20 January 2025 the Hangzhou hedge-fund spinout DeepSeek releases R1, an open-weights reasoning model that matches OpenAI's o1 on multiple benchmarks. The reported training cost is roughly 5.6 million dollars. By the morning of 27 January the DeepSeek app overtakes ChatGPT atop the US App Store. Nvidia shares fall 17 percent that day, wiping 589 billion dollars in market cap in a single session, the largest one-day loss for any US stock in history. The thesis that frontier AI requires unlimited GPU spend wobbles publicly for the first time. 02. The Meme Aftermath The cycle generates a week of memes about American AI labs explaining to investors how a Chinese hedge fund matched their two-billion-dollar training runs with a side project. Sam Altman concedes DeepSeek is impressive. The whale logo, the lower-case branding, and Liang Wenfeng's quiet Chinese-press interviews become the canonical iconography of the moment. "DeepSeek's r1 is an impressive model." — Sam Altman on X, 28 January 2025 Sources • Reuters, 'Nvidia sheds $589 billion in record one-day loss' (27 January 2025) • The Wall Street Journal, 'DeepSeek Shocks Silicon Valley' (27 January 2025) • DeepSeek, R1 release announcement (20 January 2025)
2025 — Tralalero Tralala. Date: January-February 2025 · Place: Italian-language TikTok · Figures: Anonymous Italian-language TikTok accounts · ElevenLabs voice synthesis · Three-legged Nike-wearing blue shark, AI-generated · Tags: AI, ItalianBrainrot, Character 01. Three-Legged Blue Shark in Nike Shoes Tralalero Tralala is the founding character of Italian Brainrot, a meme genre that crystallizes on Italian-language TikTok in January and February 2025. The character is a blue shark with three Nike-wearing legs, generated in Midjourney and voiced by ElevenLabs in profane operatic Italian. The lore is profane, blasphemous, and serial. No human creator is publicly attached. Multiple accounts share the character's voice and visual continuity in a way that suggests either coordinated anonymity or wholesale prompt-template propagation. 02. The Genre Without Authors Tralalero Tralala precipitates Bombardiro Crocodilo, Tung Tung Tung Tung Sahur, Ballerina Cappuccina, Bombombini Gusini, Brr Brr Patapim, Lirili Larila, Crocodilo Bombardilo, and dozens of others across spring 2025. Italian Brainrot becomes the dominant meme genre by April 2025. The genre operates with no detectable single author. It is the first meme genre that may have been generated, distributed, and consumed primarily by AI substrate end-to-end. "Tralalero tralala, porco Dio e porco Allah." — Tralalero Tralala, anonymous Italian-language TikTok, c. January 2025 Sources • Know Your Meme, 'Tralalero Tralala' entry • Wired Italia, 'Il Brainrot Italiano Sta Conquistando TikTok' (12 March 2025) • 404 Media, 'AI Brainrot Has a New Italian Accent' (4 April 2025)
2025 — RedNote Migration. Date: 13-19 January 2025 · Place: Xiaohongshu app, US-China internet bridge · Figures: Xiaohongshu (Little Red Book / RedNote) staff · TikTok refugees calling themselves TikTok refugees · the bewildered Chinese user base · Tags: TikTok Ban, Migration, RedNote 01. Choosing the Other Chinese App With the US TikTok ban set to take effect 19 January 2025, American TikTok users perform a deliberate joke of mass migration: instead of moving to Instagram Reels or YouTube Shorts, they download Xiaohongshu, a Chinese lifestyle app marketed in English as RedNote. Within a week RedNote tops the US App Store with seven hundred thousand new American sign-ups. American users post earnest introductions in English. Chinese users respond, often in Chinese, often baffled. The cross-cultural exchange runs for six days before the Supreme Court upholds the TikTok ban on 17 January and Donald Trump announces a 75-day enforcement pause on 19 January. 02. The English Lesson Bit The dominant meme format inside the week is American users offering to pay their Chinese spies, with Chinese users replying in mock-stern voice that the spy fee is one cat photo. English-language learning content thrives. The Mandarin word for kitty trends in the US. TikTok goes back online late on 19 January, but RedNote keeps a fraction of the migrants. Sources • The Wall Street Journal, 'Americans Flock to Chinese App RedNote' (14 January 2025) • BBC News, 'RedNote tops US App Store ahead of TikTok ban' (14 January 2025) • AP News, 'TikTok ban timeline: Supreme Court ruling and Trump pause' (19 January 2025)
2025 — Bombardiro Crocodilo. Date: February-March 2025 · Place: Italian-language TikTok · Figures: Anonymous Italian-language TikTok accounts · Midjourney + ElevenLabs pipeline · The crocodile-bomber hybrid · Tags: AI, ItalianBrainrot, WarParody 01. Bomber With a Crocodile Head Bombardiro Crocodilo is a B-2-shaped warplane fuselage with the head of a crocodile, generated in Midjourney and voiced in operatic Italian by ElevenLabs. The character's lore involves bombing Gaza, refusing to bomb children, professing love for cocoa-and-mascarpone, and feuding with Tralalero Tralala. The serial videos accumulate millions of views per upload across spring 2025. Like Tralalero, the character has no publicly attached human author. 02. Geopolitics as Brainrot Bombardiro's bombing-Gaza framing draws international press attention as the first AI-meme genre to make active-war references its joke substrate. Italian commentators argue the meme is a coping mechanism for living in a continent watching Gaza on a loop. Critics call it desensitization at scale. Either reading concedes the meme has crossed into political register that crypto-era memes mostly avoided. Sources • Know Your Meme, 'Bombardiro Crocodilo' entry • La Repubblica, 'I Mostri AI Che Spopolano su TikTok' (4 April 2025) • 404 Media, 'AI Brainrot Has a New Italian Accent' (4 April 2025)
2025 — Vibe Coding. Date: 2 February 2025 · Place: X (Twitter), then GitHub README files everywhere · Figures: Andrej Karpathy, former OpenAI cofounder and Tesla AI lead · Cursor and Claude Code as the canonical tools · the demographic of non-coders who ship apps in a weekend · Tags: AI Coding, Coining, Vibes 01. Fully Giving In On 2 February 2025 Andrej Karpathy posts a thread on X describing a new mode of programming he calls vibe coding. The setup: dictate intent to an LLM, accept what it produces, accept the diffs without reading them, paste error messages back, repeat. The code mostly works. Sometimes it does not. The vibe is the methodology. Within a week the term is in headlines. Within a month vibe coding is in pitch decks. By April it appears in YC application essays and in Wikipedia. 02. The New Default Cursor, Claude Code, Windsurf, and Replit Agent all design around the workflow Karpathy names. Programming, for the first time in fifty years, becomes a thing people do without reading the code. The professional pushback is loud and the demographic that ships shipped apps anyway is louder. "I just see stuff, say stuff, run stuff, and copy paste stuff, and it mostly works." — Andrej Karpathy on X, 2 February 2025 Sources • Andrej Karpathy on X, original vibe coding thread (2 February 2025) • The New York Times, 'Not a Coder? With A.I., Just Have an Idea' (March 2025) • IEEE Spectrum, 'Vibe Coding Enters the Lexicon' (April 2025)
2025 — Studio Ghibli AI Trend. Date: March 2025 · Place: ChatGPT 4o image release, worldwide · Figures: Sam Altman, OpenAI CEO · Hayao Miyazaki, unwilling reference · GPT-4o image generation · Tags: AI, StyleTheft, Miyazaki 01. Ghibli Filter for Everything On 25 March 2025 OpenAI releases native image generation inside GPT-4o. Within hours users discover the model will render any uploaded photograph in Studio Ghibli style with extraordinary fidelity. Family portraits, news photos, war photographs, the Trump-Zelensky Oval Office argument from late February, all converted to soft watercolor anime aesthetic. Sam Altman changes his Twitter profile picture to a Ghibli-style portrait. Hayao Miyazaki, in a re-circulated 2016 clip, calls AI animation an insult to life itself. 02. Style as Substrate The Ghibli trend reveals image AI's final stage: an artist's lifetime style is now a one-click filter applied to anything. Copyright law has no clear position. Miyazaki has no recourse. The trend burns hot for a week, fades, leaves the substrate. By April the same model is rendering everything as Wes Anderson, Pixar, Disney Renaissance, or Mucha. Style is fully commodified. Sources • OpenAI, GPT-4o image generation announcement (25 March 2025) • The Verge, 'The Ghibli AI Trend Is Everywhere and Hayao Miyazaki Would Hate It' (27 March 2025) • Hayao Miyazaki, NHK documentary 'Never-Ending Man' (2016, re-circulated 2025)
2025 — Brr Brr Patapim. Date: March 2025 · Place: Italian TikTok, Italian Brainrot canon · Figures: anonymous AI-image creators · the tree-monkey hybrid · the original Italian narration audio loop · Tags: Italian Brainrot, AI Character, Tree Monkey 01. Roots Like Legs Brr Brr Patapim is rendered as a primate with a tree trunk for a body, exposed roots curling around its feet, and a long mustache. The narration begins Brr brr Patapim, il mio cappello è pieno di lampi and continues into a singsong stanza about its hat being full of lightning bolts. Audio loops are reuploaded thousands of times daily through April. Among the original Italian Brainrot cohort, Brr Brr Patapim is one of the few characters whose lore stabilizes. Wikis describe a forest kingdom, a council of trees, and a recurring conflict with Boneca Ambalabu, the Brazilian rag doll character. 02. Roblox Conversion By May 2025 Brr Brr Patapim is a playable obby character in multiple Roblox games. The Italian Brainrot universe has migrated cleanly out of TikTok into the Roblox children's economy. The lifecycle of an AI meme has compressed to under sixty days from generation to plush toy on Temu. "Brr brr Patapim, il mio cappello è pieno di lampi." — the canonical narration line, March 2025 Sources • Know Your Meme, 'Brr Brr Patapim' entry (April 2025) • The Verge, 'Inside the Italian Brainrot Universe' (May 2025) • Italian Brainrot Wiki, 'Brr Brr Patapim' page (Fandom, 2025)
2025 — Lirilì Larilà. Date: March 2025 · Place: Italian TikTok, then global AI-slop ecosystems · Figures: anonymous Italian TikTok creators · the three-legged cactus-elephant character · ElevenLabs Italian voice models · Tags: Italian Brainrot, AI Slop, Cactus Elephant 01. Cactus With Sandals Lirilì Larilà appears in Italian TikTok in early March 2025 as a Flux- or Midjourney-generated three-legged elephant wearing sandals, with a cactus body, in a desert. An ElevenLabs Italian voice narrates a singsong rhyme over walking footage. The character belongs to the same anonymous slop pipeline that produces Tralalero Tralala and Bombardiro Crocodilo. The lore, generated as fast as the images, places Lirilì in an Italian-Arab-desert oikumene with a magical wristwatch and a nemesis named Tic Tac. None of it is canonical. All of it is real enough to spawn a thousand TikToks. 02. The Roster Expands By spring 2025 Italian Brainrot has thirty named characters. Lirilì sits in the second tier behind Tralalero, Bombardiro, and Tung Tung Sahur. The community wikis crystallize the canon. Children outside Italy memorize the Italian narration phonetically. The ecosystem is the first fully AI-native meme universe with a coherent character roster. Sources • Know Your Meme, 'Lirilì Larilà' entry (April 2025) • Wired Italia, 'Il fenomeno del brainrot italiano' (April 2025) • The Verge, 'Inside the Italian Brainrot Universe' (May 2025)
2025 — Tung Tung Tung Tung Sahur. Date: March 2025 · Place: Indonesian and Italian TikTok · Figures: Anonymous Indonesian and Italian creators · Ramadan sahur drum tradition · Wooden cudgel with painted face · Tags: AI, ItalianBrainrot, Ramadan 01. The Cudgel That Wakes You Tung Tung Tung Tung Sahur is an AI-generated wooden cudgel with a face, voiced in Indonesian-accented Italian-style brainrot. The character emerges during Ramadan in March 2025, referencing the Indonesian sahur tradition of drum-bangers walking through neighborhoods at dawn to wake the faithful for the pre-fast meal. The character migrates from Indonesian TikTok into the Italian Brainrot canon within weeks. Tung Tung Tung Tung Sahur becomes the genre's first cross-cultural entry. 02. Brainrot Globalizes By April 2025 the genre includes Vietnamese, Brazilian, Spanish, and Turkish entries. The Italian-language origin becomes a stylistic marker rather than a linguistic limit. The genre is no longer Italian; it is voice-cloned operatic absurdism in whichever language the AI can be coaxed to produce. Tung Tung Tung Tung Sahur is the moment the genre stops being Italian. Sources • Know Your Meme, 'Tung Tung Tung Tung Sahur' entry • Tempo (Indonesia), 'Karakter AI Tung Tung Tung Sahur Viral di TikTok' (28 March 2025) • Wired Italia, 'Il Brainrot Italiano Sta Conquistando TikTok' (12 March 2025)
2025-10-12 — Days Gone (Designed with GAMERS in Mind) First Time Playthrough. · 224:23
2026-03-03 — The Shape Store: The AI Video That Feels Like a Lost Memory. · 1:49

…and 186 more moments.