Memes. Whether they are coming from the depths of 4Chan or a meme app such as iFunny, it is hard to deny that the simple images and gifs are as much a part of the internet as false information and trolls. But few truly understand, likely because they have lives, the history of memes. The long and intricate story of how the dancing banana and pixel kitty of yore became the well-defined meme trends of the present day.

2000- 2005

Before the days of Reddit, 4Chan, YouTube, and other sites well known for spreading and popularizing the images we now collectively call memes, there were only nameless funny images, gifs, and video clips that would be shared via email and other chatting sites that are now extinct. The air-humping stormtrooper, Hamster Song, and Pixel Kitty were only a few to come out of this pre-meme era of the internet.

This era also gave birth to (de)motivational posters, images of tedious situations photoshopped into the format of motivational posters, that would later give way to the later format of top and bottom text that would become standard for later eras of memes. Seeing as the internet itself was relatively new, the simple fact of the meme’s existence was enough to justify it. This is to say, there was not yet a standard for memes as being “dank” or “normie” as would be the case in later periods.

2006- 2009

But this age of early, unnamed memes would not last. With the growing popularity of youtube in the mid-2000s, people with access to a video camera and a computer were free and able to publish what would later come to be known as viral videos. These videos of kids in back seats high on novocaine, babies biting kid’s fingers, and so on spread far and wide and more like them cropped up constantly as YouTube soured in popularity.

While these did not replace the still images that came before them, it did mean that they had to compete with a far superior creature in the form of viral videos. And so it was that natural selection, as it were, caused many of the pre-memes of the early 2000s to go extinct. But what they started viral videos solidified; it was at this point that the internet as a collective whole could no longer take itself seriously. Rather than the bastion of research, communication, and business transactions some may have seen in the earliest days of the internet, the world wide web became a place to be surfing for cheap laughs and fun.

A place of sight, sound, and “shitposting.”

2010- 2014

But with the death of the weakest memes came the rise of the strongest among them. The turn of the decade brought with it a rebirth of the macro image format still widely seen to this day. These are the direct descendants of the (de)motivational pictures of earlier eras. They were also the first to be called memes, the origin of the term is yet unknown aside from speculation from many that it rose up out of 4Chan.

Unlike their predecessors, these memes were able to survive the ever-changing world they were thrust into. As the products of what had come before them, a clear brand of humor was established as well as a standard that could be upheld, meaning that it was no longer an ‘anything goes’ mentality like the prior eras.

Also, the popularity of named images, such as the Truth Bear, One-does-not-simply, Condescending Wonka, meant that the nature of the joke was understood from the start, turning each meme into a sort of internet-wide inside joke. Add this to the fact that the macro image format was easily produced, we are left with memes able to spread and reproduce frequent enough to stay relevant and thrive in the ever-changing world of the of the internet.

It was in this era of memes booming and busting of meme popularity truly began as well, owing in large part to their rapid rate of sharing on Facebook. At the time when this trend began, Facebook was the unquestioned social media powerhouse of the internet. This made it the perfect place for the “normie” masses of the internet to view a seemingly endless supply of memes.

2015 --

With the ever increasing sharing of memes, trends began to emerge. A single meme, such as the Arthur fist or Dat Boi, will experience a period of pervasiveness and popularity in which a casual internet user will be unable to avoid it followed by an almost immediate decline once it has become stale and unfunny only to be replaced by another. This is the age we currently find ourselves in.

And it is from this era in which memes are so prevalent that it is nearly impossible to imagine the internet without them that we are able to truly understand what it is that we have created. Memes serve as a universal language across the multitudes of communities that spread the whole of the internet. They are a way to poke fun at the world around us and put a twist on nostalgic relics from years or decades earlier. Memes are, essentially, the purest expression of internet culture. And, love them or hate them, they are likely going to be around for quite some time.