174 Fun Facts About Internet Memes

Who coined the word 'meme' in 1976, decades before the internet adopted it?

Richard Dawkins coined 'meme' in The Selfish Gene (1976): he trimmed 'mimeme', built on the Greek for 'imitate', because he wanted a one-syllable word that sounds like 'gene'.

A GIF of which Simpsons character backing slowly into a hedge is used online to show embarrassment?

Homer Simpson sinks into the hedge in the 1994 episode 'Homer Loves Flanders': he pops out to invite his neighbours to spend the day with him, they say no, and he quietly reverses back into the leaves.

Godwin's law says the odds of a comparison to whom approach one as an online discussion grows?

Hitler or the Nazis: lawyer Mike Godwin launched the 'law' on Usenet in 1990 as a deliberate counter-meme, hoping to shame people out of glib comparisons that trivialised the Holocaust.

A rickroll bait-and-switches you into the video for which 1987 Rick Astley hit?

Never Gonna Give You Up: the prank grew so big that fans flooded a 2008 MTV Europe Music Awards vote until Astley was named Best Act Ever, 21 years after the song came out.

Rick Astley took rickrolling mainstream by popping up to lip-sync at which 2008 event?

The Macy's Thanksgiving Parade: Astley popped up on the Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends float and lip-synced his hit, rickrolling millions of live TV viewers in person.

In the 'Is this a pigeon?' meme, what is the anime character actually pointing at?

A butterfly: the puzzled man is Yutaro Katori, an android studying life on Earth in the 1991 anime The Brave Fighter of Sun Fighbird, which is why he gets the creature so wrong.

Doge captions are traditionally written in which font?

Comic Sans suits a talking dog: Vincent Connare drew it in 1994 after seeing a cartoon dog in Microsoft Bob speak in formal Times New Roman and deciding dogs don't talk like that.

Which cryptocurrency launched in December 2013 as a joke based on a Shiba Inu meme?

Dogecoin: Jackson Palmer tweeted a joke about 'investing in Dogecoin' before any such coin existed, then teamed up with programmer Billy Markus to launch a real one days later as a send-up of crypto hype.

What was Grumpy Cat's real name?

Tardar Sauce turned her scowl into a career: a year after her first Reddit photos she was Friskies' official 'spokescat' and the winner of a lifetime achievement award at its cat video contest.

The 'Drakeposting' meme, in which Drake recoils from one thing and approves another, uses stills from which music video?

Hotline Bling: Drake's loose, much-parodied dance moves in the 2015 video were clipped into reaction images on 4chan, and two of the poses hardened into the internet's stock no-and-yes template.

The Dancing Baby, a 1996 animation demo that became an early viral loop, later danced through which TV series?

Ally McBeal: the baby began as a sample file bundled with 3D character-animation software and spread by email chain before turning up in 1998 as the young lawyer's recurring hallucination.

Nyan Cat flies through space with what for a body?

A Pop-Tart: Chris Torres modelled the cat on his own pet, Marty, and gave it a pastry body after two viewers of his drawing livestream separately suggested a Pop-Tart and a cat.

The 2013 Harlem Shake craze was set to a track by which producer?

Baauer's 2012 track 'Harlem Shake' powered thousands of uploads a day at the craze's peak, and Billboard's newly added YouTube-view counting sent it to number one on the Hot 100 in February 2013.

The Ice Bucket Challenge of 2014 raised money to fight which condition?

ALS (motor neurone disease): nominees had 24 hours to take the soaking or donate, and the $115 million raised in the US helped fund the 2016 discovery of a gene linked to the disease.

Which cartoonist created the green frog character from the 2005 comic Boy's Club that became a meme?

Matt Furie drew the frog as an easygoing housemate in a slacker comic; in 2017, dismayed by what the internet had made of him, he published a strip showing the character's funeral.

The 2009 meme 'Play Him Off, Keyboard Cat' tacks the cat onto the end of which kind of clip?

Fail and blooper videos: Brad O'Farrell tacked Charlie Schmidt's 1984 home video onto a clip of someone tumbling off an escalator, so the cat seemed to play the victim offstage like a flopped stage act.

The 'Epic Handshake' meme of two muscular arms clasping comes from which 1987 action film?

Predator: Arnold Schwarzenegger's Dutch greets his old friend Dillon, played by Carl Weathers, with a clasp that turns into a mid-air arm-wrestle; captioned on each arm, it now stands for two sides agreeing.

The 'woman yelling at a cat' meme pairs a Real Housewives star with a cat named what?

Smudge was photographed in Ottawa looking affronted by a plate of salad; the picture sat on Tumblr for nearly a year before a May 2019 tweet paired it with the shouting reality star.

Gangnam Style, the first YouTube video to reach a billion views, is named after a district of which city?

Seoul: Gangnam is an affluent district of the South Korean capital, and 'Gangnam style' is Korean slang for the lavish, trend-setting lifestyle of the newly rich who live there.

The Bernie Sanders mittens meme came from a photo taken at which event?

Joe Biden's 2021 inauguration: two days after the photo of him sitting arms crossed in his winter jacket went viral, Sanders put it on a sweatshirt and sold it to raise money for Meals on Wheels.

The 'This is fine' dog sitting in a burning room comes from which webcomic?

Gunshow: the meme crops the first two panels of KC Green's longer 2013 strip 'On Fire'; in the rest, the dog keeps reassuring himself while his body melts.

The house burning behind Disaster Girl was actually what?

A firefighter training exercise: the local fire department was burning the house as a drill when Dave Roth snapped his four-year-old; in 2021 Zoë sold the photo as an NFT for about $500,000 and paid off her student loans.

The girl in the 'Ermahgerd' meme is gleefully clutching which books?

Goosebumps books: the photo shows Maggie Goldenberger, dressed up for a game, clutching several of R.L. Stine's Goosebumps paperbacks; 'Ermahgerd' spells 'Oh my God' with a retainer lisp.

'Kilroy was here' graffiti became a worldwide meme during which conflict?

World War II: American GIs chalked the peeking, big-nosed doodle wherever they landed, and Stalin is said to have found it in his VIP bathroom at the 1945 Potsdam Conference and asked who Kilroy was.

What is the deliberately mangled grammar of 'I can has cheezburger' captions called?

Lolspeak: the cat-caption dialect won such a following that volunteers on a wiki set about translating the whole Bible into it, verse by verse.

'All your base are belong to us' comes from the botched translation of which video game?

Zero Wing: the garbled line sat in the intro of the shooter's European Mega Drive port for years, until a 2001 techno-remix video on Newgrounds turned it into an internet craze.

Leeroy Jenkins became famous for ruining a carefully planned raid in which game?

World of Warcraft: the 2005 video shows Leeroy charging into Upper Blackrock Spire mid-plan; Blizzard later added him as an in-game character and a Hearthstone card.

Hide the Pain Harold, real name András Arató, is a stock-photo model from which country?

Hungary: Arató found the memes by image-searching his own stock photos and at first wanted them stopped, then gave in because, as he put it, close one site and three new ones appear.

Gary Brolsma's 2004 'Numa Numa Dance' video had him lip-syncing to a song by which band?

O-Zone: the Moldovan trio's hit 'Dragostea din tei' gave the clip its name as well as its tune, because 'numa numa' is how the Romanian refrain 'nu mă, nu mă iei' sounds to English ears.

In real life, what colours was 'the dress' that divided the internet in 2015?

Blue and black: the dress photographed in February 2015 was a royal-blue lace dress with black trim; washed-out lighting in the photo led many to see white and gold instead.

A 2010 paparazzi photo of which actor sitting glumly on a park bench became a much-Photoshopped 'Sad' meme?

Keanu Reeves was snapped eating a sandwich alone, and the internet pasted his slumped figure into countless scenes; fans then declared June 15 'Cheer Up Keanu Day' to lift his spirits.

The Overly Attached Girlfriend video was an entry in a fan contest run by which pop star?

Justin Bieber asked fans to write a 'Girlfriend' answer to his single 'Boyfriend'; Laina Morris's staring, clingy entry became a meme within days, and in 2021 its image sold as an NFT for $411,000.

Trollface was drawn in 2008 in which program?

Microsoft Paint: an Oakland college student doodled the grin for a comic mocking forum trolls, then registered its copyright in 2010 and says licensing has since earned him more than $100,000.

Many 'Chuck Norris facts' turn on which of his fighting moves?

Roundhouse kicks: the jokes began in 2005 as 'facts' about Vin Diesel, posted on a web forum to mock his film The Pacifier, before fans switched to Chuck Norris and his do-anything kick.

The planking fad, peaking in 2011, involves doing what?

Lying rigid face-down in odd places was the 'Lying Down Game' to British Facebook users before Australians named it planking; the craze turned dark in May 2011 when a Brisbane man fell to his death planking on a balcony.

Which company's Baby Shark video became the first on YouTube to hit 10 billion views?

Pinkfong: the South Korean company's 2016 dance video was streamed so heavily that the toddler singalong entered the Billboard Hot 100 at number 32 in January 2019.

Which YouTube personality's 2013 'Filthy Frank' video kicked off the Harlem Shake meme?

George Miller (Joji) posted the clip in character as the foul-mouthed Filthy Frank; in 2017 he retired the persona, citing his health, to pursue a music career under the name Joji.

Which activist group's 2008 anti-Scientology protests helped push rickrolling into the mainstream?

Anonymous took the link prank onto the street: at its February 2008 protests outside Scientology buildings, members blared the Astley song from boomboxes and sang along, a rickroll performed live.

Bad Luck Brian's goofy grin, braces and all, comes from which kind of photo?

A school yearbook photo: Kyle Craven pulled the goofy face on purpose and his principal made him retake it; years later a friend posted the rejected original to Reddit, and Bad Luck Brian was born.

Side-Eyeing Chloe's famously unimpressed look was her reaction to news of a surprise trip where?

Disneyland: in the 2013 family video her older sister Lily bursts into tears of joy at the surprise, while two-year-old Chloe just gives the camera a wary sideways stare.

Which meme character did the Anti-Defamation League add to its hate-symbol database in 2016?

Pepe the Frog: the ADL stressed that most uses of the cartoon were not hateful, and in 2019 Hong Kong protesters adopted him as a pro-democracy symbol.

The Nyan Cat song 'Nyanyanyanyanyanyanya!' was originally sung by which virtual singer?

Hatsune Miku: producer daniwell uploaded 'Nyanyanyanyanyanyanya!' to Niconico in July 2010 with the Vocaloid Hatsune Miku; the Nyan Cat video used a later cover by the UTAU voice Momone Momo.

The Ice Bucket Challenge was co-founded by Pat Quinn and which former college baseball player?

Pete Frates: the former Boston College baseball captain was diagnosed with the disease in 2012 and rallied his network to the challenge with Pat Quinn two years later; both men have since died of it.

The 'Most Interesting Man in the World' meme began as an advertising campaign for which beer?

Dos Equis: actor Jonathan Goldsmith's line 'I don't always drink beer, but when I do, I prefer Dos Equis' gave meme makers a fill-in-the-blanks caption, and in 2016 the brand sent his character off on a one-way trip to Mars.

Harambe, the western lowland gorilla shot in 2016 after a boy climbed into his enclosure, lived at which zoo?

Cincinnati Zoo shot Harambe to protect the small boy who had got into his enclosure; three months later its director said staff were 'not amused' by the flood of memes, which made it harder to move on.

Harambe's name came from a song by the widow of which reggae legend?

Bob Marley's widow Rita sings 'Harambe': a Texas counsellor had just heard it on his treadmill when he read about his local zoo's contest to name a baby gorilla; 'harambee' is Swahili for 'pull together'.

Which part of Scumbag Steve's outfit gets Photoshopped onto other images to brand their subject a 'scumbag'?

His baseball cap: the hound's-tooth Red Sox cap took on a life of its own as the 'Scumbag Hat', pasted onto politicians such as Egypt's Hosni Mubarak and anything else the internet wants to call a letdown.

Who took the original photograph that became the Scumbag Steve meme?

His mother, then getting into photography, snapped him in the doorway of their Millis, Massachusetts home in 2006 and posted the picture to his Myspace page herself; Reddit users found it five years later.

Salt Bae, the chef famous for his flamboyant salt sprinkle, is from which country?

Turkey: Nusret Gökçe, a butcher turned restaurateur, posted a January 2017 clip of himself carving an 'Ottoman steak' and letting salt cascade off his forearm, and within two days the internet had named him.

Salt Bae's steakhouse chain Nusr-Et joins his first name to "et", his language's word for what?

Meat: the name puns on Nusret, his first name; fame took him to the 2022 World Cup final, where he walked onto the pitch and handled the trophy, prompting a FIFA investigation.

Wojak, the bald "that feel when" cartoon man, is named from a Polish word meaning what?

Soldier: 'wojak' is an informal Polish word for a soldier, but the sad bald face owes the name to a poster who went by Wojak on the German imageboard Krautchan and shared it there in 2010.

The endlessly parodied four-panel comic "Loss" comes from which gaming webcomic?

Ctrl+Alt+Del: Tim Buckley's June 2008 strip depicted a miscarriage, a jarring tonal shift that readers mocked and abstracted into the four-panel line pattern.

In the viral 'Damn Daniel' clips, what is Daniel Lara praised for being 'back at it again' with?

White Vans were the shoes; Vans gave Daniel Lara a lifetime supply on Ellen, which he donated to a children's hospital.

Left Shark stole the show during whose Super Bowl XLIX halftime performance?

Katy Perry: the shark dancing out of step beside her was backing dancer Bryan Gaw, and her lawyers then tried to trademark Left Shark, only for the examiner to reject the costume design.

Chewbacca Mask Lady Candace Payne bought her famous mask at which retailer?

Kohl's, where she had just bought the mask, sent a representative to her home with armfuls of Star Wars toys and $2,500 in gift cards.

On which platform did Candace Payne post her Chewbacca mask video in May 2016?

Facebook: she was live-streaming from her parked car, laughing helplessly at the mask's growl, and within days the company had welcomed her to its headquarters.

Ken Bone became a meme after asking a question at a presidential debate while wearing what?

A red sweater: it was his plan B, pulled on after he split the seat of his olive suit trousers on the way to the debate; within days he was a guest on Jimmy Kimmel Live.

Ken Bone posed his viral question at a debate between Donald Trump and whom?

Hillary Clinton: Bone, an undecided voter, asked her and Trump about energy policy at their October 2016 town-hall debate; days later his Reddit AMA backfired when users dug up his old comments.

Which organisation produced the viral 2012 short film Kony 2012?

Invisible Children: the charity's half-hour film set out to make Ugandan warlord Joseph Kony famous enough to be arrested by the end of 2012, and drew tens of millions of views within days.

Which actor's face from a 1971 film is used in the sarcastic "Condescending Wonka" meme?

Gene Wilder: the still comes from Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971), and there is no sneer in the scene; Wonka is gleefully asking the children whether they would like to see his secret new sweet.

Slender Man was created in 2009 by a user of which forum?

Something Awful: Eric Knudsen, posting as Victor Surge, created the tall faceless figure in June 2009 for the forum's 'Create Paranormal Images' photo-editing thread.

Which Minecraft mob was inspired by Slender Man?

The Enderman: when Minecraft's creator previewed the tall, dark, long-limbed mob in 2011, fans at once compared it to Slender Man, and he chose the name Enderman as a nod to the likeness.

Bongo Cat first went viral drumming along to a track from which video game?

Super Mario World: the original GIF showed a cat-like blob simply slapping a table; another Twitter user added bongos and the game's jaunty 'Athletic' theme, and remixes soon had the cat playing everything.

Ugandan Knuckles avatars flooded which online game in late 2017?

VRChat: the squat red avatars swarmed its lobbies from late December 2017 asking 'Do you know da wae?', a line believed to echo the Ugandan film Who Killed Captain Alex?

Which talk show launched Danielle Bregoli's "Cash me outside" catchphrase in 2016?

Dr. Phil: Bregoli, then 13, said it on a September 2016 episode about her behaviour; a year later she had turned the meme into an Atlantic Records deal as the rapper Bhad Bhabie.

In a 2018 audio clip that split the internet, listeners heard either 'Yanny' or which other word?

Laurel was the word actually spoken: the clip came from a Vocabulary.com pronunciation recording of 'laurel', read by an opera singer in 2007, eleven years before it went viral.

In 2015 the Success Kid family used the meme to raise money for what?

A kidney transplant: the Griners' April 2015 GoFundMe for Sammy's father Justin, fronted by the famous photo, passed its $75,000 goal within days of reaching Reddit.

Which container ship became a worldwide meme in March 2021 by blocking the Suez Canal for almost a week?

Ever Given is the ship's name; the giant EVERGREEN painted on its hull is the Taiwanese company that leases it, which is why so many people called it by the wrong name.

What was Hide the Pain Harold's profession before he became a stock-photo model?

Electrical engineer: a photographer spotted his holiday snaps on social media and invited him to a trial shoot; many stock photos later, the internet noticed his strained smile.

Which teenager drew Trollface in 2008?

Carlos Ramirez, an 18-year-old Oakland student, drew Trollface for a 2008 comic about pointless trolling; he later registered its copyright and has earned more than $100,000 in licensing fees and settlements.

Which platform blocked searches for the milk crate challenge in August 2021, calling it too dangerous?

TikTok, where the craze took off, blocked searches for it within weeks under its rule against glorifying dangerous acts; doctors had warned that a fall from the wobbling crates was worse than one from a ladder.

Which company makes Tide Pods, the detergent at the centre of a 2018 meme challenge?

Procter & Gamble had added a bitter taste to the pods in 2015 to stop small children biting into them, three years before teenagers began filming themselves doing exactly that.

Which song usually played in the background of Mannequin Challenge videos?

Black Beatles: Rae Sremmurd froze mid-concert for their own version in November 2016, and within two weeks the craze had carried the single to number one on the Billboard Hot 100.

A 2016 talent-show clip of Mike Senatore popularised which fad?

Bottle flipping: Senatore's May 2016 flip of a water bottle at his Charlotte, North Carolina high-school talent show landed upright to a roar, and the thud of copycat flips soon got the fad banned in many schools.

Which NFL quarterback's touchdown celebrations in 2015 turned the dab into a global craze?

Cam Newton: his 16-year-old brother suggested the move, and a touchdown dab against Tennessee in November 2015, which riled Titans defenders, drew a wave of attention to the Atlanta rap dance.

The cinnamon challenge is to swallow a spoonful in a minute without doing what?

Drinking anything is banned, which is the trap: most attempts end in coughing and choking, and doctors warned that inhaled cinnamon can damage the lungs.

The 2019 joke event 'Storm Area 51' had millions sign up to raid a secret base in which US state?

Nevada: more than two million people signed up to Matty Roberts's joke event for September 20, 2019, whose battle plan read: 'If we Naruto run, we can move faster than their bullets.'

The Crying Jordan meme uses a photo of Michael Jordan in tears at which event?

His Hall of Fame induction: Jordan teared up during his September 2009 enshrinement speech, and years later the cut-out face was being pasted onto every beaten athlete as a stamp of sporting failure.

In the 'Roll Safe' meme, Kayode Ewumi grins knowingly while doing what?

Tapping his temple: Ewumi's character Reece Simpson does it in a 2016 clip from the mockumentary Hood Documentary; from January 2017 the still was captioned with advice that only sounds clever.

The Coffin Dance pallbearers come from which country?

Ghana: the troupe's dancing funerals reached the world through a 2017 BBC report; in 2020, clips of them spliced after videos of risky stunts became a dark joke about pandemic-era recklessness.

Which EDM track soundtracks the Coffin Dance meme?

Astronomia: Tony Igy released the track in 2010 and Vicetone remixed it in 2014, but it took the 2020 meme, a full decade after the original, to make the tune inescapable.

Whose cover of 'Wellerman' sparked the 2021 sea shanty craze?

Nathan Evans, a Scottish postman, posted his 'Wellerman' in late December 2020; within weeks he had quit his round and signed a record deal.

The Star Wars Kid swung which object as a lightsaber in his 2002 video?

A golf ball retriever: the teenager swung it like Darth Maul's double-bladed lightsaber in November 2002; classmates found the tape and put it online the following spring, which he had never intended.

Star Wars Kid was a high schooler in which Canadian province?

Quebec: Raza was a 14-year-old in Trois-Rivières; after years of ridicule he studied law at McGill, led his hometown's heritage society and went public in 2013 to speak out against cyberbullying.

In the 'Chocolate Rain' video, a caption says Tay Zonday moves away from the mic to do what?

Breathe in: the on-screen note read 'I move away from the mic to breathe in', a habit mocked ever since, though the 2007 song behind the joke is a serious one about institutional racism.

Paul "Bear" Vasquez filmed his ecstatic "Double Rainbow" video near which national park?

Yosemite: Vasquez filmed the January 2010 clip from his own property just outside the park; it sat almost unwatched for months until Jimmy Kimmel tweeted a link that July.

Which question does 7-year-old David famously ask in "David After Dentist"?

'Is this real life?': David, groggy after having an extra tooth removed, asked it from the back seat; his father had filmed the trip only because David's mother couldn't be there.

The "Dramatic Chipmunk" is actually which animal?

A prairie dog: the rodent is a prairie dog filmed for the Japanese variety show Hello! Morning; the 2007 clip adds a dramatic sting from the 1974 Mel Brooks film Young Frankenstein.

The Hampster Dance page was created on which free web-hosting service?

GeoCities: Canadian art student Deidre LaCarte built the page there to win a web-traffic contest against her sister and best friend, and named it for her pet hamster, Hampton.

The Hampster Dance's sped-up song comes from which Disney film?

Robin Hood: the nine-second loop is a sped-up snippet of Roger Miller's 'Whistle-Stop', the film's opening song; the page was catchy enough to spawn a novelty single, The Hampsterdance Song, in 2000.

In "Badger Badger Badger", which creature interrupts the badgers and the mushroom?

Snake: after rounds of badgers and a mushroom, the tune breaks into a mini-chorus as a snake crosses a desert, then Jonti Picking's 2003 Flash cartoon starts again and never stops.

The "O RLY?" meme captions a photo of which bird?

Snowy owl: nature photographer John White's picture reached a newsgroup in 2001, and captioned copies were soon answered by more owls saying 'YA RLY' and 'NO WAI!!'.

Longcat, the famously lengthy white cat, was from which country?

Japan: a Japanese owner's photo of the white cat held up at full stretch spread from 2chan to 4chan, where users gave her a mythology and a black arch-enemy, Tacgnol, her name spelled backwards.

Kermit's tea-sipping "None of My Business" meme comes from an ad for which brand?

Lipton: the image comes from a 2014 Lipton tea advert starring Kermit; from that June it spread on Instagram with snide captions ending 'but that's none of my business', an accidental product placement.

New Zealand MP Chlöe Swarbrick answered a heckler in parliament in 2019 with which two-word retort?

OK boomer: the 25-year-old Green MP was citing the average age of parliament in a climate-bill speech when an older MP interjected; she replied with the phrase and carried on, and the clip went worldwide.

The 'Karen' meme surged after a 2020 birdwatching confrontation in which park?

Central Park: Amy Cooper called police on Black birdwatcher Christian Cooper in the Ramble after he asked her to leash her dog; the viral video got her fired from her investment firm the next day.

Before his name was revealed, Baby Yoda was officially known as what?

The Child: Lucasfilm used only that name until season two revealed him as Grogu; Disney held back his merchandise before the 2019 launch to keep him a surprise, so no toys were ready when the show arrived.

Which 1965 typeface, issued by a British foundry, became the standard caption font of image-macro memes?

Impact was designed by Geoffrey Lee to put as much ink on paper as a given size allowed; bundled with Windows 98, it was already on millions of computers when early meme makers wanted captions that stayed readable over photos.

Bernie Sanders' famous meme mittens were made by whom?

A Vermont schoolteacher: Jen Ellis was no longer making mittens when the photo went viral, so she teamed up with a sock maker on socks inspired by them, with the proceeds going to Vermont's food bank.

Which Real Housewives star is the "woman yelling at a cat"?

Taylor Armstrong: the still shows her in tears, pointing mid-argument at a Malibu beach party in a 2011 episode while a castmate tries to calm her; a 2019 tweet set it beside an unrelated photo of a cat at a dinner table.

The catchphrase 'It's over 9000!' comes from the English dub of which anime series?

Dragon Ball Z: Vegeta crushes his scouter as he shouts Goku's power level in a dubbed 1997 episode; in the Japanese original the figure is 'over 8000', and a 2006 YouTube remix made the altered line famous.

What is Pepe the Frog's signature catchphrase from his original Boy's Club appearance?

Feels Good Man: in the 2005 comic, Pepe says it to explain why he pulls his trousers all the way down to use the toilet; the line later titled a 2020 documentary about the character.

Collectible Pepe images, traded like cards on a mock 'meme market', are known as what?

Rare Pepes: 4chan users treated unusual Pepe variants as collectibles, and in 2015 an eBay listing of them was bid up to $99,166 before the site removed it.

What was the name of the dog in the original Doge photo?

Kabosu: kindergarten teacher Atsuko Sato adopted her from a shelter in 2008 after the puppy mill that bred her closed, and posted the famous sideways glance on her blog in February 2010.

Which single word most often ends a Doge utterance?

Wow: Doge speech pairs 'so', 'such', 'many', 'much' or 'very' with words they can't properly modify, so 'much respect' is wrong but 'much noble' is right, then signs off with a lone 'wow'.

Grumpy Cat's scowl was caused by feline dwarfism and what other condition?

An underbite: her owners said the frown came from an underbite and feline dwarfism, not her mood; the scowl still earned her a 2014 Lifetime film, Grumpy Cat's Worst Christmas Ever.

Rickrolling grew out of an earlier 4chan bait-and-switch trick called what?

Duckrolling tricked 4chan users into clicking through to a picture of a duck on wheels; by the site founder's account, the name came from a word filter that turned 'egg' into 'duck', so 'eggroll' became 'duckroll'.

The first rickroll replaced the trailer for which video game?

Grand Theft Auto IV: the game's first trailer was so eagerly awaited in 2007 that fans hunted for working links, and a 4chan post promising one led to Rick Astley's video instead.

In Japanese, the 'nyan' of Nyan Cat imitates a cat doing what?

Meowing: 'nyan' is the Japanese equivalent of 'meow', and the name came from YouTuber saraj00n, who set the cat GIF to a Japanese song that repeats the word over and over.

What was the name of the original Keyboard Cat?

Fatso: Charlie Schmidt dressed him in a blue T-shirt and worked his paws from off-camera; Fatso died long before the clip went viral, so successors named Bento and Skinny have worn the shirt since.

A 2023 trend of pretending to die after sipping a birthday milkshake was named after which McDonald's mascot?

Grimace: McDonald's sold the purple shake for the mascot's birthday in June 2023, and users filmed mock horror scenes of themselves sprawled out after one sip, a twist the chain likely never intended.

On which platform did musician Caitlin McNeill post the photo of 'the dress', sending the 2015 colour debate viral?

Tumblr: McNeill, whose band had played the wedding where the dress was worn, posted it asking for help settling the argument; a BuzzFeed staffer saw her message and ran a poll that drew millions of votes.

Vine videos were limited to how many seconds?

Six seconds was the limit for Vine's looping clips; Twitter bought the app in October 2012, before it had even launched, and shut it down in January 2017.

Which Filthy Frank Show character appears in the video that began the Harlem Shake meme?

Pink Guy, Filthy Frank's pink-bodysuited alter ego, leads the costumed thrashing in the early-2013 skit that opened the meme; five Australian teenagers copied it days later and thousands of versions followed.

A clenched cartoon fist that became a 2016 frustration meme comes from which PBS kids' series?

Arthur's clenched fist comes from the episode 'Arthur's Big Hit', in which D.W. breaks his model plane; the still spread as a frustration meme on Twitter in July 2016.

Which Pokémon appears with a blank look and open mouth in a popular reaction meme?

Pikachu: the frame is from the original 1990s anime; in September 2018 a blogger posted it as a stunned reaction to an outcome anyone should have seen coming, and within weeks it had spread across social media.

Which animation tool is used to make the Skibidi Toilet series?

Source Filmmaker, a free tool from the game studio Valve, is what creator Alexey Gerasimov uses; his first episode, in February 2023, ran just 11 seconds, yet within 18 months Hollywood producers were pitching a film and TV franchise.

Which blockbuster director was reported in July 2024 to be in talks to adapt Skibidi Toilet for film and television?

Michael Bay and producing partner Adam Goodman were shopping an adaptation of Alexey Gerasimov's series; Goodman floated a live-action hybrid in the style of John Wick and District 9, saying the series could be 'the next Transformers'.

The Mocking SpongeBob meme, captioned in alternating capitals, shows SpongeBob acting like which animal?

A chicken: in the episode 'Little Yellow Book', Squidward reads SpongeBob's diary and learns he clucks like a chicken whenever he sees plaid; the still took off in May 2017 as a way to mock in text.

What mishap angered the author of the first rage comic, posted to 4chan in 2008?

Toilet water splashing back: the four-panel strip ended on a zoomed-in face screaming 'FFFFFFUUUUUU-', and other users quickly redrew that Rage Guy into every kind of petty daily annoyance.

Moo Deng, the Thai zoo baby who became a worldwide meme in 2024, is which kind of animal?

A pygmy hippo: born in July 2024 at Khao Kheow Open Zoo, she went viral at two months old; her name means 'bouncy pig', and crowds grew so large that the zoo had to warn visitors against harassing her.

The 2016 meme 'Dat Boi' shows a green frog riding what?

A unicycle: the frog began as a stock clip-art animation from the library Animation Factory; in 2016 the caption 'here come dat boi!' turned the forgotten graphic into a meme.

Grumpy Cat's owners won $710,000 in 2018 from a firm that sold which unlicensed product?

Roasted coffee: Grenade Beverage had a licence only for 'Grumppuccino' iced coffee but also sold Grumpy Cat roasted coffee; a California federal jury awarded $710,000, plus a symbolic $1 for breach of contract.

Which actor's Boromir from The Fellowship of the Ring became the 'One does not simply' meme?

Sean Bean: his Boromir gives the warning at the Council of Elrond in the 2001 film; years later Bean said the endless 'One does not simply' rewrites would 'probably be my unintended legacy'.

Which singer's lawsuit over an aerial photo of her Malibu home named an effect where censorship backfires?

Barbra Streisand sued over a photo that had been downloaded just a few times, two of them by her own lawyers. News of the case then sent more than 420,000 people to the site within a month.

Which joke name topped a 2016 public poll to christen a £200 million British polar research ship?

Boaty McBoatface took 33% of the vote, but ministers named the ship Sir David Attenborough, whose name had come fifth. The joke name went to one of its remotely controlled submersibles.

Which vegetable did the Daily Star livestream to see whether it would outlast prime minister Liz Truss?

A lettuce bought for 60p at Tesco was declared the winner, and the paper put a plastic golden crown on it while the national anthem played. Truss had resigned before it wilted.

Which emoji, the most used worldwide that year, did Oxford Dictionaries name Word of the Year for 2015?

Face with Tears of Joy won because Oxford felt it best reflected the 'ethos, mood, and preoccupations' of the year. Critics pointed out that a pictograph is not a word at all.

Which animal, hoisted in a net by eight orange birds, appeared on Twitter's error page during outages?

A whale drawn by artist Yiying Lu appeared under the words 'Too many tweets!' and was soon nicknamed the Fail Whale. Twitter retired it in 2013, saying the site had become more stable.

Which actor became a 2010 meme after being photographed looking glum on a park bench?

Keanu Reeves later played down the 'Sad Keanu' pictures, saying, 'Man, I was eating a sandwich.' The photos had spread from an imageboard to blogs and news outlets.

Memes captioned 'I don't always X, but when I do, Y' come from adverts for which Mexican beer brand?

Dos Equis cast actor Jonathan Goldsmith as 'The Most Interesting Man in the World' from 2006. He won the part with a half-hour improvised audition that began with him removing one sock.

The entire dialogue transcript of which DreamWorks animation was pasted across social media as a 2015 meme?

Bee Movie later inspired a video that speeds up every time someone says 'bee', squeezing the whole film into seven minutes. Its star Jerry Seinfeld called the revival 'kinda weird but pretty welcoming'.

Which mystery word ended Donald Trump's midnight tweet that began 'Despite the constant negative press'?

Covfefe stayed online for hours before he deleted it, and many outlets presumed he had meant 'coverage'. His press secretary insisted a small group of people knew exactly what he meant.

Which early YouTube hit was auctioned as an NFT for $760,999 in May 2021?

Charlie Bit My Finger overtook 'Evolution of Dance' in 2009 as YouTube's most viewed video. The boys' father said the clip was simply an attempt to capture them growing up.

Which container ship became a worldwide meme in March 2021 after running aground and blocking the Suez Canal?

Ever Given blocked the canal for nearly a week while an excavator dug at its bow. Crews also pumped out nine thousand tonnes of ballast water to lighten the ship.

Whose 2009 MTV awards speech did Kanye West interrupt, launching the 'I'mma let you finish' meme?

Taylor Swift was accepting Best Female Video when West took the microphone to praise a rival clip by Beyoncé. Beyoncé later invited her back on stage to finish the speech.

The 'Confused Travolta' GIF shows John Travolta puzzled by a voice on an intercom in which film?

Pulp Fiction has Travolta's character Vincent Vega peering around a room as Mia Wallace speaks to him over the intercom. An Imgur user cut the moment into a reaction GIF in 2012.

Town guards in which fantasy role-playing game tell players they once 'took an arrow in the knee'?

Skyrim's guards were given idle chatter so they would feel like people instead of grunting extras. Bethesda later sold an Xbox avatar outfit with an arrow stuck through one knee.

Which puzzle game promises its test subject a reward that never arrives, inspiring the meme 'The cake is a lie'?

Portal dangles cake in front of its player character Chell with no intention of delivering. Mashable ranked the phrase the most unforgettable gaming meme of the 2000s.

Drakeposting reaction images, showing Drake holding up a hand in disgust, are stills from which song's music video?

Hotline Bling's video was inspired by the work of American artist James Turrell. Fans also mashed the song up with the Wii Shop Channel theme as 'Wii Shop Bling'.

Which Smash Mouth song, played over Shrek's opening credits, became one of the internet's most remixed memes?

All Star was only a placeholder until Shrek's makers could swap in an original song called 'Stay Home'. The band liked an early screening and agreed to license it instead.

Where did 'Pizza Rat' haul a whole slice down the steps of a subway station in a 2015 viral video?

New York City saw #PizzaRat trend within hours, and costumes of the rodent were being worn by Halloween. A local performance artist later claimed to have staged the whole thing.

Which host's star-packed selfie at the 2014 Oscars briefly crashed Twitter and broke the retweet record?

Ellen DeGeneres needed just 35 minutes to pass the old record, the Obamas' post-election hug photo. The phone was a Samsung, supplied as part of a $20 million marketing campaign.

Moo Deng, the baby animal from a Thai zoo who became a 2024 meme, belongs to which species?

Pygmy hippo Moo Deng's name translates as 'bouncy pork'. Her fame doubled the zoo's daily visitors, so keepers put a short time limit on each visit.

Which country did breakdancer Raygun represent at the Paris 2024 Olympics, where she lost all three battles 18–0?

Australia's Rachael Gunn won no votes from the judges, but her kangaroo hop spread worldwide. The head judge defended her for 'originality and bringing something new to the table'.

Which word had an opera singer really recorded for Vocabulary.com in the 2018 clip many people heard as 'Yanny'?

Laurel was one of 200,000 reference pronunciations the site published in 2007. After the clip spread, staff added a 'Yanny' entry that plays the identical recording.

Mason Ramsey became a 2018 meme by yodelling Hank Williams's 'Lovesick Blues' inside a branch of which retail chain?

Walmart's store in Harrisburg, Illinois, was where the 11-year-old was filmed. Within weeks he had a record deal, and Williams's 70-year-old recording was on Spotify's viral chart.

Which US state's strange crime headlines inspired a 2013 Twitter account about the 'World's Worst Superhero'?

Florida produces so many 'Florida Man' stories partly because its public records laws give reporters fast, easy access to police reports. The account's author retired from it in 2019.

Which actor shouts 'Just do it!' in front of a green screen in a 2015 motivational speech that became a meme?

Shia LaBeouf performed it for a half-hour art video of short monologues made with Central Saint Martins fine art students. Google said it became the most searched-for GIF of 2015.

Which Futurama character narrows his eyes in the 'Not sure if X, or just Y' image macro?

Fry makes the face in the episode 'The Lesser of Two Evils', moments after he is caught rummaging through a crewmate's underwear drawer.

Which superhero points at an identical impostor in a meme taken from a 1967 cartoon episode called 'Double Identity'?

Spider-Man is confronting a villain who is trying to impersonate him, which is why the two costumes match.

Which Jedi's greeting 'Hello there' in Revenge of the Sith became a favourite of the PrequelMemes subreddit?

Obi-Wan Kenobi, played by Ewan McGregor, says the line again in his later television series, this time as a friendly introduction to a young Luke Skywalker.

The sarcastic 'You Don't Say?' rage-comic face is a drawing of which actor in the film Vampire's Kiss?

Nicolas Cage plays a literary agent who becomes convinced he is turning into a vampire. His 'scorched-earth acting' in the film has kept the internet supplied with memes.

Which Fleetwood Mac song did Nathan Apodaca lip-sync on his skateboard, juice in hand, in a viral 2020 video?

Dreams was his soundtrack because his truck had broken down and he was skating to work. Ocean Spray, whose juice he was drinking, later gave him a new pickup.

Which NBA centre's hearty grin at a 2009 post-game press conference was traced into a dismissive rage-comic face?

Yao Ming was sketched by a Reddit artist who shared the drawing in 2010 with other faces he had never used in his rage comics. A commenter then supplied its dismissive catchphrase.

Which actor, carrying a skateboard, asks 'How do you do, fellow kids?' in a 30 Rock scene that became a meme?

Steve Buscemi plays Lenny Wosniak, a private detective hired as a strike buster. The screenshot is now a stock reply to anyone faking membership of a community they clearly don't know.

In the 'Is this a pigeon?' meme, a humanoid android from a 1991 anime is actually pointing at which creature?

A butterfly is what the android Yutaro Katori mistakes for a pigeon while studying nature on Earth. The scene comes from The Brave Fighter of Sun Fighbird.

In The Simpsons' 'Steamed Hams' scene, Principal Skinner explains away a kitchen fire as which natural phenomenon?

The aurora borealis excuse caps a lunch at which Skinner serves fast-food burgers as home-cooked 'steamed hams'. The segment became a popular internet meme in 2016.

The 'Directed by Robert B. Weide' meme ends clips of disasters with the closing credits of which sitcom?

Curb Your Enthusiasm closes on 'Frolic', a tune by Italian composer Luciano Michelini. Weide had no part in creating the meme but has greeted it with amusement.

In Dragon Ball Z's English dub, which character crushes his scouter while yelling 'It's over 9000!'?

Vegeta says 'It's over 8000!' in the original script, and the English dub changed the figure. The dubbing team reportedly found 'nine thousand' a better fit for his animated mouth movements.

The meme 'Press F to pay respects' began as a button prompt at a funeral in which shooter franchise?

Call of Duty first planned to have players hammer a pin into the coffin, a Navy SEAL rite. A military advisor objected, so designers swapped in the widely mocked button press.

Side-Eyeing Chloe gave her famous look in 2013 as her sister sobbed happily over a surprise trip to where?

Disneyland was announced on the way to school, and while older sister Lily cried with happiness, Chloe just looked disturbed. BuzzFeed called it the only reaction anyone would ever need.

Peppy Hare's shouted advice 'Do a barrel roll!' comes from which 1997 Nintendo game?

Star Fox 64 has him bark the order as the player flies towards a row of laser turrets. Typing the phrase into Google makes the results page spin through 360 degrees.

Which 2010 meme grew from a 1976 clip of a Soviet singer's wordless song about returning home?

Trololo is the nickname for Eduard Khil's performance, also dubbed the 'Russian Rickroll'. By his account the song once had lyrics about a cowboy riding home that could not be published, so he sang it wordlessly.

Which Norwegian comedy duo made 'The Fox (What Does the Fox Say?)' as a deliberate flop to promote their talk show?

Ylvis are brothers Vegard and Bård Ylvisåker, who meant the song as an 'anti-hit' they could joke about on air. It reached the top ten of the Billboard Hot 100 instead.

Epic Sax Guy Sergey Stepanov became a meme while playing for which country at Eurovision 2010?

Moldova's entry 'Run Away' finished only 22nd, but his saxophone solo outlived the contest. His band SunStroke Project returned in 2017 and came third.

Trogdor the Burninator, a dragon drawn in reply to a fan's email, comes from which web cartoon series?

Homestar Runner's Strong Bad sketches the beast in his fifty-eighth email short and sings it a heavy metal theme song. Trogdor went on to star in games of his own.

The early meme site YTMND takes its initials from a Sean Connery line in the trailer for which film?

Finding Forrester's trailer has Connery say 'You're the man now, dog!', which founder Max Goldberg registered as a web address in 2001. The site began as that line on a loop.

Loituma Girl, a 2006 loop of a girl twirling a vegetable to a Finnish polka, uses a character from which anime?

Bleach's Orihime Inoue spins the stalk to a scat-singing passage by the band Loituma. The loop first spread from a Russian LiveJournal post in the spring of 2006.

A satirical conspiracy theory, first posted to Usenet in 1994, claims which German city does not exist?

Bielefeld was first 'exposed' by a computer science student at Kiel University. Chancellor Angela Merkel later joked about a meeting she had attended there, 'if it exists at all'.

Drew Scanlon, the 'Blinking White Guy' of a 2017 reaction GIF, was a video producer at which gaming website?

Giant Bomb's Scanlon had already told colleagues he was leaving to make documentaries when the GIF went viral, and he joked about the timing on the site's podcast.

Which 2006 YouTube vlogger, a homeschooled teen called Bree, was exposed as an actress playing a scripted role?

Lonelygirl15 was unmasked when a journalist's son identified Bree as film school graduate Jessica Lee Rose. Viewers had already grown suspicious of her tidy room and polished lighting.

The 'To Be Continued' arrow meme, set to the opening riff of 'Roundabout' by Yes, comes from which anime?

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure used the song as its first ending theme, since creator Hirohiko Araki had listened to it while writing the manga. Meme clips freeze just before disaster strikes.

What is the name of the time-travelling alien mascot that appears in the logo of the forum site Reddit?

Snoo is genderless by design, so communities can redraw the logo however they like. Many subreddits give the alien a customised look of their own.