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Meme-worthy photos date back to the dawn of the internet and memes have become increasingly ingrained in the lives of most social media users. These precious treasures affect how we absorb, analyze, and interact using cultural references, whether extracted from YouTube videos, movie screenshots, or trendy quotations.
Memes can take numerous forms and bridge cultural and language boundaries. It is difficult to keep track of the endless number of memes spread all across the internet. Just when users think they have figured out the meaning of an amusing meme, it becomes outdated and is overtaken by a new one.
While some of these memes have lost their essence over the years, others are more relevant now than ever. Here is a list of globally-popular and timeless memes along with their origin stories.
Popular memes and their origin stories
1) Distracted Boyfriend
In 2017, a photo consisting of a man strolling with a female while eyeing another girl led to a flurry of memes and is still widely used to this day.
Not many will know that the meme was based on a stock photo. Photographer Antonio Guillem took the shot, which he later posted to iStock in 2015. The image didn't become a popular meme until two years later. While in most cases, simple subtitles are inserted into the image to mimic real-life distractions; sometimes, the characters' heads are replaced with objects or entities that depict real-life situations.
2) Left Exit 12
This meme depicts a car making a last-minute exit from the highway, symbolizing someone deciding to do something self-destructive or unethical at the last minute.
A YouTube video of a car speeding onto a road off-ramp provided the inspiration for this meme template. It has now been updated to incorporate a Left Exit 12 road sign with one arrow pointing straight and the other angled to the right.
The majority of memes in this style have text on both sides of the arrows. A straight road or the appropriate thing to do is usually conveyed by text next to the straight arrow. The wording displays a worse alternative on the right arrow, which is the direction the automobile looks to be suddenly turning into.
The general concept of the meme is that someone is going out of their way at the last minute to make a bad decision, against their better judgment or initial intent.
3) Shut up and take my money
The Shut Up and Take My Money meme was derived from an episode of the animated series Futurama in 2010. The quote was from Fry, one of the major characters of the show, when he tried to buy an eyePhone (a spoof of Apple's iPhone) from a dealer.
According to reports, a meme was developed after the German tech site called Crackerjack tweeted an image of Fry with the text "Shut up and take my money!" within a day of the episode airing. It is a positive phrase that may be used to indicate acceptance or significant interest in a concept.
4) Success Kid
The Success Kid meme is a response picture showing a baby on a beach with a smug expression. It has been used in memes to indicate if something was a success or a failure.
The meme originated in 2010, when Laney Griner took a photo of her child Sammy trying to eat sand and posted it on Flickr. The caption for the meme was "I Hate Sandcastles," implying that the youngster had just demolished a sandcastle.
The image's interpretation was modified across the years, with captions boasting tiny personal achievements and good fortune emphasizing the boy's facial expression and clenched fist as a sign of self-content.
5) Change my mind
The popular Change My Mind meme is undoubtedly familiar to all social media users. The picture in the discussion depicts a man wearing a blue sweater seated at a desk with a banner that reads, "Male privilege is a myth. Change my mind." He is also drinking a cup of tea with his name Steven Crowder written on it. Crowder, a podcast host, had initially posted the image on Twitter.
According to reports, the podcaster went to a Christian university to see if the students there believed in male privilege; if they did, he asked them to provide proof for the same. However, over the years, he became a meme as others hurried to tweak the image, making it appear as if Crowder was debating over trivial matters.
6) Drake's Hotline Bling
The popular meme has been dubbed Drakeposting, in which two screen shots from Drake's Hotline Bling music video are used to express a preference for one thing over another.
In the meme, Drake moving his head away from a nearby picture or text with his palm outstretched — as if rejecting the image outright — makes up the top image. In the bottom image, the Certified Lover Boy artist stares at another adjoining image or text with a satisfied expression on his face. The suggestion is that he (or the one who posted the meme) favors the bottom scenario over the top.
7) The blinking guy
The meme, which goes by the names "Blinking Guy" or "White Guy Blinking," has been used as a response to everything from school and finances to politics and personal situations. The meme went viral in 2017 in the form of a GIF.
Blinking Guy, like many other famous memes, had humble beginnings. Drew Scanlon, a California-born video producer and editor for the video gaming site Giant Bomb, is the star of the GIF, and Unprofessional Fridays, a video series created by Giant Bomb, is the source of the clip. The clip that kicked off the meme was taken during a broadcast of the game Starbound and dates back to 2013.
Memes have grown into cultural symbols and ideas that keep going viral, with the primary goal of making people laugh. Memes are contagious, prompting individuals to share them on social media, via text, DMs, tweets, and messages.
These iconic memes scattered across all social media platforms have brought communities and cultures together, and have become eternal emblems of entertainment.
