The WIRED Handbook on Memes

Memes and the internet have become inseparable, with viral content spreading rapidly across platforms. These humorous or relatable images, videos, and ideas shape online culture, often reflecting societal trends. Memes thrive on engagement, evolving as users remix and share them, creating a dynamic digital language. Their impact extends beyond entertainment, influencing marketing, politics, and communication. As a universal form of expression, memes continue to redefine how people connect and interact in the digital age.The internet and memes are a perfect match—not just because they represent digital visual communication (though that’s certainly true), but because they emerge from a collective consciousness. They act as the quick, shared language of an intensely interconnected community moving as one. And let’s be honest—the online hive mind is a strange (often hilarious, occasionally risky) space.

The concept of the “meme” originated with evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins. In Dawkins’ view, cultural ideas functioned similarly to genes—units of information that needed to propagate rapidly from one mind to another, replicating and adapting along the way. He labeled these elements memes, fragments of cultural DNA that captured collective societal experiences while continuously undergoing change.

Dawkins introduced the term in 1976 within the pages of his book.Genes Act in Their Own InterestLong before the digital age, before memes evolved into their current form, Dawkins referred to them as carriers of culture—whether melodies, artistic trends, or other ideas. Now, internet users associate memes with humor shared through social media, often as image macros (pictures of babies, cats, or similar subjects overlaid with bold text), hashtags (added to posts on Twitter), GIFs (typically featuring a celebrity, reality star, or drag queen reacting to content), or videos (like the infamous Rick Astley clip once widely circulated).

Classic Meme 1: LOLcatsAmong the earliest viral cat trends online, LOLcats began as simple image macros, such as the well-known “I Can Has Cheezburger?” picture. These images featured cute cats paired with humorous, sometimes absurd text. The meme gained traction through “Caturday” threads on 4chan and the site I Can Has Cheezburger (of course), later spreading widely across the internet.

Memes have transformed into something far removed from Dawkins’ initial concept, and this change occurred rapidly, morphing from silly animal pictures on 4chan into instruments for political influence before circling back again.

The modern concept of memes didn’t gain widespread popularity until the mid-1990s, when small communities of everyday internet users started sharing humorous content on message boards and Usenet groups. In those early days, low-resolution clips of dancing babies or hamsters were enough to make a meme go viral. As internet speeds improved from dial-up to DSL and platforms like eBaum’s World grew in popularity, memes evolved. Photos of cats with quirky captions—later dubbed LOLcats—became a cultural phenomenon, fueled by sites such as the influential imageboard 4chan. The LOLcat became the defining example of the image macro: a straightforward picture overlaid with bold Impact font at the top and bottom—the top for setup, the bottom for punchline. Other well-known image macros, like the classic “I Can Has Cheezburger?” or those riffing on the phrase “All your base are belong to us,” usually featured just one caption.

Chuck Norris Facts: The Legendary Meme Collection Part 2This meme, drawing some influence from a clip onConan O’Brien’s Late Nightfeatures exaggerated, fictional “facts” about actor Chuck Norris. Originating on Something Awful in 2005, these false claims include statements like “Fire escapes were designed to shield fire from Chuck Norris” and “Chuck Norris’ tears have the power to cure cancer. Unfortunately, he has never shed a tear.”

Video memes, though their origins trace back to the late ’90s with shared video files like badday.mpg, gained real momentum after YouTube debuted in 2005. Platforms like YouTube simplified the process of using videos as punchlines in jokes. Rickrolling—tricking someone into clicking a link to Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up” music video—exploded in popularity. The same happened with sharing clips of the Trololo Guy, featuring Russian baritone Eduard Khil performing the Soviet-era tune “I Am Very Glad As I’m Finally Returning Back Home.” Neither video was inherently humorous, nor was being tricked into watching them, but like most early memes, the comedy stemmed from repetition. It was trolling, yet mostly harmless—more like a shared inside joke than a mean-spirited prank.

Classic Meme 3: The Art of RickrollingOne of the web’s most enduring jokes, “Rickrolling” revolves around tricking someone into clicking a link that leads to Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up” music video. Though the gag is straightforward, the classic bait-and-switch remains hilarious even after years. This prank has also helped the song accumulate over 400 million YouTube views.

YouTube sparked the rise of viral videos, featuring hits like Psy’s “Gangnam Style,” Tay Zonday’s “Chocolate Rain,” “Evolution of Dance,” and “Charlie Bit My Finger.” (No links here—they’ve already racked up plenty of views.) The platform also fueled meme trends such as “Turn Down For What” and “Harlem Shake,” which thrived on straightforward ideas open to creative interpretation. For instance, “Harlem Shake” just required filming a group dancing wildly, often in costumes, to Baauer’s track of the same name.

In the late 2000s and early 2010s, as Twitter, Facebook, and other social media platforms started influencing online conversations, images—especially reaction GIFs—took on a much greater importance. Similarly, older formats such as image macros were rediscovered and repurposed. With meme generator sites simplifying the creation of macros on demand, memes like Awkward Moment Seal and Scumbag Steve appeared almost every day. (It was a simpler time—the humor was sillier, lighter, and the memes flowed effortlessly.)

Dramatic Chipmunk: Classic Meme 4Dramatic Chipmunk originates from a segment on the Japanese program Hello! Morning, featuring—as the name suggests—a chipmunk (though it’s technically a prairie dog) reacting with an exaggerated expression. Following its upload to YouTube in 2007, the clip grew into a popular meme, frequently used in online conversations and inspiring reaction GIFs, recreations, and videos with other animals mimicking the same reaction.

Back in the beginning, memes took their time to spread and lasted much longer. (Honestly, Nyan Cat stayed popular for what felt like ages.)Years.) However, the rapid nature of social media allowed memes to surge in popularity and fade just as quickly, sometimes within a week or even a single day. Phenomena like #TheDress emerged and vanished almost instantaneously. (Can you recall where you were whenthatWhat occurred?!) Major events such as the Olympics or political debates could spark memes that would fade by the end of a single news cycle. As Dawkins observed years earlier, concepts could trigger an online inside joke in an instant—gaining a Twitter account, Tumblr page, and specialized hashtag within hours. And just like that, they vanished.

These days, memes serve a purpose beyond just humor. They’ve taken on two additional roles: signaling loyalty to your social circle and generating significant income. Originally, memes tapped into universal human experiences—everyone has felt awkward or enjoyed watching a kitten’s antics. Now, political memes are displayed like badges of identity. Contemporary American memes focus on debates around political correctness or gun rights, critiquing hollow gestures like “thoughts and prayers” after shootings or celebrating the warmth of inclusivity.Black PantherThese memes act as a public statement of your political stances and cultural identity, often serving as an open invitation for those with opposing views to engage in sarcastic remarks (or harassment) in the comments. Is this aggressiveness a sign of how divided and confrontational the online world has grown? Absolutely. Memes simply reflect the current cultural climate. Is there any chance this trend will fade in the near future? Not a chance.

Classic Meme 5: The Double Rainbow PhenomenonDouble Rainbow turned into a viral sensation when Jimmy Kimmel shared a clip of Paul Vasquez enthusiastically reacting to spotting two rainbows at once. In the video, Vasquez is heard emotionally describing the sight while filming the rainbows, though he remains off-camera. The clip spread rapidly, inspiring countless reactions and edited versions. Later, Vasquez featured in a Microsoft Windows ad, which somewhat dampened the meme’s original charm.

• Memes featuring overlaid text on images.
  An image featuring clever text or a catchy phrase overlaid on it, typically in bold black-and-white Impact font. For instance: LOLcats.

• Animated GIFs/Response GIFs
  GIFs have existed online for decades. (Recall those animated American flags that appeared on nearly every website in the 1990s?) Nowadays, reaction GIFs—often sourced from movies, television, or viral internet clips—serve as a quick way to express emotions about a specific comment or situation. For instance: Almost any GIF fromRuPaul’s Drag Race ever.

• Hashtags
  During the early 2000s, hashtags emerged as an efficient method for organizing discussions on social media platforms. Over time, they evolved into standalone memes and campaigns. They can range from basic uses, like adding #fail to a post about a blunder, to highlighting significant issues or current events. Instances include #OlympicsFail, #BlackLivesMatter, and #MeToo.

• Videos
  Video memes trace their origins to the early era of sharing clips such as badday.mpg, but with the rise of YouTube in 2005, distributing videos like Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up” (Rickrolling) or “Nyan Cat” gained massive popularity. Similarly, engaging in video meme trends, such as creating personalized “Harlem Shake” videos, became a widespread phenomenon. Examples include Rickrolling and the “Harlem Shake.”

Image Macros are a popular form of internet humor that combines pictures with text, often featuring bold captions in Impact font. These visuals typically convey jokes, memes, or relatable situations, making them widely shared across social media platforms. The simplicity and humor of Image Macros contribute to their viral nature, allowing them to quickly spread and evolve within online communities.
An image featuring clever text or a catchy phrase overlaid on it, typically in bold black-and-white Impact font. For instance: LOLcats.

GIFs and Reaction GIFs
GIFs have existed online for decades. (Recall those animated American flags that appeared on nearly every website in the 1990s?) Nowadays, reaction GIFs—usually sourced from movies, television, or viral internet clips—serve as a quick way to express emotions about a specific comment or situation. For instance: Almost any GIF fromRuPaul’s Drag Race ever.

Hashtags
During the early 2000s, hashtags emerged as an efficient method for organizing discussions on social platforms. Over time, they evolved into standalone memes and campaigns. At times, they are as straightforward as adding #fail to a post highlighting a blunder, while in other instances, they spotlight significant causes or current events. Examples include #OlympicsFail, #BlackLivesMatter, and #MeToo.

Videos
Video memes trace their origins to the early era of sharing clips such as badday.mpg, but with YouTube’s launch in 2005, circulating videos like Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up” (Rickrolling) or “Nyan Cat” gained massive popularity. Similarly, engaging in video meme trends, such as creating personalized “Harlem Shake” videos, became a widespread phenomenon. Examples include Rickrolling and the “Harlem Shake.”

Allowing people to enjoy their humor without interference might seem harmless, and to some extent, it is. However, groups like ISIS and the alt-right exploit memes to attract new members. Playful inside jokes often serve as a low-pressure gateway, even for the most radical beliefs. For someone feeling isolated and seeking connection, sharing a meme can quickly signal inclusion. The problem is that it doesn’t stop at adopting fringe ideas or posting a few Pepe the Frog images. Once you accept one extreme notion, your online environment—and the algorithms shaping it—shifts. Before long, you encounter memes joking about harming Jewish people, and over time, the shock fades.

The effectiveness of political memes, such as the alt-right’s Pepe the Frog and ISIS’s one-finger salute, highlights their likely role in the future: disseminating propaganda. These visuals bypass logical reasoning and directly target the brain’s perception of truth. As AI advances, manipulating images and videos will grow even simpler. Additionally, shareability isn’t determined by factual accuracy—it only requires relevance.feelIndeed. The gap separating fact from plausibility is where memes and propaganda thrive. (Should you believe you’d never spread propaganda, keep in mind: Because of Russia’s influence, chances are you already have.)

It’s not only propagandists: Every company aims to capitalize on the latest viral meme. When something trends, it quickly becomes a low-cost Halloween outfit, a slogan printed on a Forever 21 top, and plastered across fast-food brands’ Twitter feeds. The motivation is clear. Brands enjoy creating items that showcase their cultural awareness, and consumers love purchasing them for the same appeal. This trend won’t fade anytime soon—with affordable custom manufacturing and 3-D printing on the rise, producing a flood of fleeting trendy goods will become even simpler, making it easier than ever to monetize memes.

Doge: The Timeless Classic Meme 6The term “Doge” refers to “dog” in internet slang, and a typical Doge meme features a Shiba Inu surrounded by captions—often in Comic Sans font—depicting the dog’s thoughts. Similar to LOLcats, the grammar and spelling are intentionally poor (e.g., “doge,” expressions like “much cake”), which is a major source of the meme’s humor. Initially popular with dog pictures, the style of overlaying Comic Sans text on photos expanded to include other subjects, such as different animals or public figures.

Meme creators can also earn income—both Grumpy and Nyan generated significant revenue for their owners—but having an alternative plan is advisable. Success isn’t always guaranteed.EllenOpportunities like public appearances, scholarships, or endless supplies of featured products can come from memes—but often, creators receive nothing. Meme creators of color are especially disadvantaged. This stems from limited access to influential networks, majority-white companies and agents not engaging in spaces primarily occupied by people of color, and a broader tendency in white America to treat Black cultural contributions as communal property rather than individual work. Take Kayla Lewis, who coined “on fleek”—she never earned a dime from the countless products that capitalized on her phrase. (This pattern isn’t new. Consider the music industry’s history.)

If justice prevails, creating memes will turn into a legitimate career, with companies recruiting those who’ve made you laugh at your screen for years. A few already do, such as Instagram celebrity k@5sh. Could this ruin the enjoyment? Maybe. But our hunger for memes is nearly endless, leaving space for both professional and casual creators. Crafting memes with care and frequency might be the sole remedy against the harmful political and false news memes mentioned earlier. Arguing with trolls is pointless—the best way to silence them is to overwhelm them. Cheers to the upcoming meme experts ensuring Pepe the Frog stays buried in your feed.

• The Photographer Behind the ‘Distracted Boyfriend’ Meme Reveals the Full Story
  What started as a simple stock image—a man glancing back at a woman in a red dress while his displeased girlfriend watches—soon became an internet sensation. The photo evolved into the Distracted Boyfriend meme, turning its subjects into endlessly adaptable symbols. They were reimagined as a cat, a pricey cat tree, and a simple cardboard box; as retail chains, Halloween, and the holidays; as young people, the free market, and collective economic systems.

• Extremists’ meme armies are quietly evolving into militias, and it’s happening right under our noses.
  Pepe the Frog was once just an unfunny joke. But when the so-called alt-right brought their Great Meme War into the real world, clashing violently with antifascists nationwide under flags bearing Pepe’s image, the frog transformed into a symbol for the movement—much like Uncle Sam represents the US Army. Now, as more aggressive iterations of Pepe march across the web, those spreading them may grow even more extreme in turn.

• Memes Provide People of Color With a Way to Navigate the Trump Presidency
  For senior culture writer Jason Parham—as for numerous individuals of color—embracing memes became a form of self-preservation during the “racially charged” Trump presidency. “Existing as a person of color means navigating an inherently political existence,” Parham notes. “For a change, rather than being weighed down by despair or skepticism, I laugh at our society’s flawed structures almost every day. Deriving humor from bleak situations has been both liberating and healing, and while I remain engaged in other activist efforts, memes have emerged as my preferred mode of defiance.”

• The strange origins, bizarre existence, and enduring legacy of an online meme
  Similar to a summer anthem, memes are designed to be reimagined. Yet this process can feel odd for those who originally crafted them—particularly if they never meant to make a meme at all. This was the case for Craig Froehle, a professor at the University of Cincinnati’s business school, who aimed to illustrate how equal chances don’t necessarily lead to equal results. “I found a public picture of Cincinnati’s Great American Ball Park, a stock crate image, clip-art fencing, and spent about 30 minutes in PowerPoint assembling the visual before sharing it on Google+,” Froehle explains. The result became a meme reused countless times, far beyond his expectations.

• Analyzing the Harlem Shake meme alongside Matt and Kim
  Matt Johnson, the keyboardist from the indie pair Matt & Kim, stood before a crowd of thousands in Troy, New York, cued up Baauer’s track “Harlem Shake,” and revealed his grand scheme. “I’ve got the camera rolling behind me,” Johnson declared. “Once this beat hits, I want every single one of you to go absolutely wild. Tonight, I’m posting this online, and by tomorrow, we’re blowing this thing up.” And it worked.

• The charm of the Awkward Moment Seal
  Do you recall the Advice Animal memes? According to WIRED’s team, none topped the Awkward Moment Seal—not even Socially Awkward Penguin. He was the perfect companion when, for instance, your parents barged in during a steamy movie scene. Or when nature called at the worst possible time. So take a moment to relive the golden era of the Awkward Moment Seal, when life lessons came from creatures, and our greatest worry was botching ordinary moments.

The Photographer Behind the ‘Distracted Boyfriend’ Meme Shares the Full Story
The image started as a generic stock photo: a man walking with his partner glances back to stare at a woman in a red dress, while his visibly displeased girlfriend watches. Once the internet discovered it, the photo evolved into the Distracted Boyfriend meme, turning everyone in the frame into a versatile symbol for endless reinterpretations. They were reimagined as a cat, a pricey cat tree, and a simple cardboard box; as retail chains, Halloween, and the holiday season; as young people, the free market, and collective economic systems.

Extremists’ meme armies are quietly evolving into militias, and it’s happening right under our noses.
Pepe the Frog was once just an unfunny joke. But when the so-called alt-right brought their Great Meme War into the real world, clashing violently with antifascists nationwide under flags bearing Pepe’s image, the frog transformed into a symbol for the movement—much like Uncle Sam represents the US Army. Now, as more aggressive iterations of Pepe march across the web, those spreading them may grow even more extreme in turn.

Memes Offer People of Color a Way to Navigate the Challenges of the Trump Era
For senior culture writer Jason Parham—as for countless individuals of color—embracing memes became a form of self-preservation during the “racially charged” Trump years. “Existing as a person of color means navigating an inherently political existence,” Parham notes. “For a change, rather than succumbing to despair or bitterness, I laugh at our society’s flawed structures nearly every day. Deriving humor from bleak situations has been liberating and healing, and while I remain engaged in other activist efforts, memes have emerged as my preferred mode of defiance.”

The strange origins, bizarre existence, and enduring legacy of an online meme
Similar to a summer anthem, memes are designed to be reinterpreted. Yet this process can feel odd for their original creators—particularly if they never meant to spark a meme in the first place. This was the case for Craig Froehle, a University of Cincinnati business professor, who crafted an image to illustrate how equal chances don’t necessarily lead to equal results. “I used a public photo of Cincinnati’s Great American Ball Park, a stock crate image, clip-art fencing, and spent about 30 minutes in PowerPoint assembling the picture before sharing it on Google+,” Froehle explains. The result was a meme that has been adapted countless times since.

Analyzing the Harlem Shake meme alongside Matt and Kim
Matt Johnson—keyboardist for the indie pair Matt & Kim—stood before a crowd of thousands in Troy, New York, cued up Baauer’s “Harlem Shake,” and revealed his bold idea. “I’ve got the camera rolling behind me. Once this track hits, I want every single one of you to go absolutely wild,” Johnson declared. “I’m posting this online tonight, and by tomorrow, we’re blowing this thing up.” And it worked.

The charm of the Awkward Moment Seal
Do you recall the Advice Animal memes? According to WIRED’s team, none topped the Awkward Moment Seal—not even Socially Awkward Penguin. He was the perfect companion when, for instance, your parents barged in during a steamy movie scene. Or when nature called at the worst possible time. Take a moment to relive the golden era of the Awkward Moment Seal, when life lessons came from creatures, and our main worry was botching ordinary moments.

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