In my high school journalism classes, I’ve had two articles outlaying the most common memes of the year. To be fair, it was mainly a ruse to talk about the awful jokes I make with my last name (titled “Shpiece puns”) but the first one in 2014 was one of my most successful articles. Thankfully, Odyssey gives me a platform to burn in meme hell.
Looking back on the year in terms of meme popularity is always a challenge because the end of the previous year and the beginning of the new one always blends together in my memory. But one of the earliest 2016 memes was the “tag yourself I’m ___” meme. That meme featured a series of at least six drawings of animals, inanimate objects, or some colorful artwork and a short bullet list of traits and expected you to “tag yourself” as the one you connected with the most. This meme was so popular that in conversation people will still say “tag yourself I’m ___” or will add it as commentary to a photo or video. (I am guilty of doing this).
There are always unnecessary memes, though. “Damn Daniel” was one of them. It wasn’t memorable. It wasn’t funny outside of watching the video. For memes to thrive they need to be applicable in social spaces and “Damn Daniel” just didn’t work.
My personal favorite meme had to have been the Kazoo Kid. It was endearing and cute. I found the whole half hour film to watch on Youtube (I’m sorry that I forced my friends to watch it with me). I also appreciated that with the release of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, the series got the meme treatment it deserved. People went to the older movies and mercilessly picked on a younger angry Anakin and made fun of most of the characters.
And of course, with the absurdity that was our presidential election, memes were plentiful. Ben Carson himself was a meme, everyone becoming convinced that Ted Cruz was the Zodiac Killer, the Bernie vs. Hillary stance memes…Practically everything that came out of these politician’s mouths was mocked online and in real life. Don’t get me started on the number of pictures of guinea pigs, corn and other various fluffy yellow things were replaced with Donald Trump’s hair, or that edit where his eyes were replaced with his mouth and how it didn’t look any different.
Spongebob had two memes this year: Primitive Sponge and Confused Mr. Krabs. No, the two cannot be used interchangeably. These memes were versatile in usage and lasted a long few months without being overused.
The best meme by far though, was “Dat Boi.” I don’t know why this meme was so popular and when I first saw it appear on my Tumblr dashboard, I was confused and angry because I didn’t understand it. But then it grew on me; it’s a meme that is so wholesome and good, and always manages to amuse at least one person in the vicinity when saying out loud.
2016 isn’t over but let’s hope that the memes don’t go out of control and get excessive like previous years and some unmentioned memes of this year.
