Image via Complex Original
Contrary to our generation's belief, the meme came before the Internet. If you look up the definition of the word, you'll find this "an idea, behavior or style that spreads from person to person within a culture." Dig a little deeper (or scroll down the Wikipedia page) and you'll learn that word meme can be traced back to the 70s when evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins published a book called The Selfish Gene wherein he shortened the word "mimeme" which derives from the greek word "mimema" which means "something imitated".
When you take that into account it's makes perfect sense. Depending on how long you've been using the Internet, you've more than likely seen hundreds of funny things that multiple people find amusing enough to copy and reproduce. From “Dancing Baby” in the 90’s to “Tron Guy” in the early 2000’s to “The Honey Badger” in 2011, we’ve reviewed thousands of internet memes—ideas, images, catchphrases and videos that go viral and inspire imitation—to bring you our top 100 online sensations of all time. Read through, reminisce and try to keep a straight face.
100. Recut Movie Trailers
Year: 2005
In September of 2005, an NYU student's Shining spoof was posted on a blog and soon found its way to YouTube. Several recut trailers followed, including ones that combined two movies. Popular derivatives include “Brokeback to the Future” and “Seinfeld: The Human Fund”
99. Stuff White People Like
Year: 2008
A quick sensation, this blog acquired over 300,000 daily hits and 40 million total hits in under a year. Within six weeks of the blog's launch the creators were offered a book deal. Several spin-offs quickly popped up, including Stuff No One Likes, Stuff College People Like and Stuff Educated Black People Like.
98. The Most Interesting Man in the World
Year: 2007
While the image dates to an ad campaign begun in 2007, a Quickmeme page for “The Most Interesting Man in the World” was created in 2010 and as of April 2012, has over 96,000 submissions. While the image macros are the most recognizable spin-off, parody videos are also abundant.
97. Fry Squinty Eye
Year: 2010
As the dim-witted comic relief of Matt Groenings other show, Fry, from Futurama, was destined to become a meme. And so he did a few years ago when someone took a screenshot of his squinting face and throw some ridiculous quandries beneath it.
96. Text from Hillary
Year: 2012
Created in April of 2012, this blog of image macros appeared on Buzzfeed, The Washington Post and The Huffington Post within a few days of launch. Tumblr users began posting their own images and within two days the blog was shared on Facebook 46,100 times resulting in 172,054 likes or comments.
95. Some eCards
Year: 2007
Featured initially on Cool Hunting, Wired and Thrillest, Someecard's fame soon spread to nearly every major media outlet. Their antiquated images with humorous captions can be found all over Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter and Pinterest. An entire line of merchandise now exists and users can generate their own cards
94. The Cinnamon Challenge
Year: 2001
Started in 2001, this challenge and the associated videos became popular circa 2007 and experienced resurgence in 2011. Several radio and TV programs, including Mythbusters and Big Brother UK have aired cinnamon challenge attempts. Two NBA players, Nick Young and JaVale McGee have also taken a crack at the feat.
93. We Don't Fuck With You Musically
Year: 2010
When Kid Cudi sat down with Complex's Joe La Puma for one of his most candid interviews ever, the G.O.O.D. Music artist did not mince words when discussing the relationship between his camp and Wale. In an attempt to explain why his team wouldn't work with the DMV-native, Cudi kept it short and, well, not so sweet, and frankly said: "We don't fuck with you musically." Simple enough. That short slogan went viral overnight, appearing on t-shirts and blogs. Thankfully, the two made up a year or so after.
92. Pants on the Ground
Year: 2010
Filmed in 2009 and broadcast in 2010, the original American Idol clip was quickly removed from YouTube but duplicates managed to survive. Within days, people posted videos of themselves covering the song. Brett Favre, Tyler Perry and Jimmy Fallon (as Neil Young) have all performed renditions. Image memes started to flood the blogosphere and “Pants on the Ground” t-shirts were available just a month after the clip aired.
91. Crasher Squirrel
Year: 2009
This unintentional photobomb was first posted on National Geographic for a contest. The squirrel, who looks a lot like the gopher from Caddyshack, has since been Photoshopped into family pictures, famous paintings and random settings for comedic effect. The Today Show, Daily Telegraph, Mashable and Buzzfeed covered the story in 2009.
90. Planking
Year: 2011
Planking's origins are disputed but the photo fad gained fans in 2011, when a pro-rugby player planked during a game. Popularized on Facebook and planking blogs, the craze hit Australia and New Zealand before the U.S. Katy Perry, Justin Bieber, Demi Moore, Chris Brown and Rosario Dawson have all promoted planking.
89. JK Wedding Entrance
Year: 2009
This video went viral overnight, amassing more than three million views in just two days. The couple appeared on The Today Show and Good Morning America and the dance was soon referenced on The Office and United States of Tara. Popular spoofs include "JK Divorce Entrance Dance" and “The T-Mobile Royal Wedding.”
88. Kanye West Interruption
Year: 2009
West's “interruption” was the topic of almost 300,000 Tweets in the first hour after the MTV award show aired. A mashup of West's words and an Obama speech sparked about 500 other “Kanye Interrupts” videos. Image macros began appearing with the tag “Imma Let You Finish.” Various compilations were featured on Mashable, MTV, Urlesque and other sites within a few days.
87. Little Super Star
Year: 1990; posted 2006
This clip from a 1990 Indian film hit YouTube in 2006. Featured on The Soup, MSNBC, and G4TV that year, the video soon spawned a number of remixes, mashups and parodies, including one by SNL.
86. Scary Maze Pranks
Year: 2003
The original Exorcist trick made by Winterrowd in 2003 lead to the creation of several other prank games and literally thousands of reaction videos. More recently, developers have created cell phone apps that employ the maze prank.
85. Joseph Ducreux
Year: 2009
This actual portrait from 1793 was turned into a captioned image macro in 2009. Several versions, most of which include archaic versions of popular rap lyrics, have resulted since. In 2011 a macro with Steve Busemi's face and a Big Lebowski quote appeared on Tumblr and also became popular.
84. Sneezing Baby Panda
Year: 2006
The various uploads of this video add up to well over 150 million views on YouTube alone. Urlesque and Collegehumor have named the video, which was parodied on Southpark, one of the most iconic web clips of all time.
83. Noah Takes a Photo of Himself Everyday for Six Years
Year: 2006
This popular video has more than 23 million views and spurred many other photo-a-day videos and this video-a-week project. Noah made the rounds with mainstream media and was parodied on The Simpsons in late 2007.
82. Rage Comics
Year: 2008
“Rage Guy” was this company's first character to go viral on 4chan and Reddit. “Y U No” and “Forever Alone” followed shortly thereafter. Rage-making sites lead to thousands of fan-created comics and the images became popular as Advice-Animal image macros.
81. Charlie Sheen
Year: 2011
The day after Charlie's infamous interview with 20/20, parodies and musical tributes about “Winning,” “Tiger's Blood” and “Adonis DNA” started to pop up on YouTube. The rant also spawned dozens of image macros and trending topics on Twitter. As Sheen melted down, his internet prominence built up, leading to a stand-up tour and Comedy Central Roast.
80. Angry German Kid
Year: 2006
Posted in 2006 and believed to be real, the star of the video came forward a few years later to say the clip was staged. But by that time YouTube was filled with derivatives, including attempts at translation and purposeful mistranslation.
79. Ceiling Cat
Year: 2003
One of the first internet cats, Ceiling Cat has inspired several derivatives and submemes, like Basement Cat and Basement Horse. Though posted in 2003, the pic didn't go viral until 2006, when the cat was paired with the phrase “Ceiling cat is watching you masturbate.” The captioned image spread and eventually landed on I Can Has Cheezburger.
78. Shit Girls Say
Year: 2011
After massing 80,000 Twitter followers in just five months, the Shit Girls Say creators decided to turn their blog into a web series. Posted in 2011, the videos have generated dozens of parodies, like “Shit Black Girls Say” and “Shit Drunk Girls Say.”
77. Nintendo 64 Kids
Year: 1998; posted 2006
The boy in the video uploaded this clip in 2006, when he was 16 years old. Remixes and parodies popped up within a few hours. The two stars were interviewed on Good Morning America shortly after that, further increasing their popularity.
76. Lazy Sunday
Year: 2005
The second digital short from The Lonely Island to air on SNL, “Lazy Sunday” blew up on YouTube before NBC took the clip down in early 2006. Despite the removal, re-enactments and parodies followed and several catchphrases caught on. Lazy Sunday's success lead to “Jizz in My Pants,” “Dick in a Box” and a slew of other popular shorts.
75. Afro Ninja
Year 2004
Pre-YouTube this audition outtake made the rounds via email. Post You-Tube the clip inspired a Family Guy parody and nabbed the actor a commercial, music video and appearance on Tosh.0.
74. Christian Bale Rant
Year: 2009
Released by TMZ in 2009, this audio clip quickly circulated the net thanks to Twitter and bloggers like Perez Hilton. Within hours, there were mashups, remixes and soundboards. The clip was parodied on Family Guy two weeks later.
73. Jibjab
Year: 2004
JibJab's been making viral videos since 1999, but 2004's political satire “This Land” really pushed the studio into the international spotlight, landing them what was considered unprecedented press for an internet video at the time. They received even more attention when they added “Starring You” videos to their website in 2007.
72. Keyboard Cat
Year: 2007
Captured in 1984 and uploaded in 2007, this clip didn't go viral until 2009 when a blogger posted a mashup of a man falling down an escalator with the cat, entitled “Play him off, Keyboard Cat.” People started adding the cat to their own FAIL videos, drawing the attention of Buzzfeed, Urlesque and Ashton Kutcher, who tweeted out his favorite mashup.
71. Don't Tase Me, Bro!
Year: 2007
LAist, Fox News and Wired covered the tasing incident immediately after the event. A few days later, Urban Dictionary made the catchphrase official by labeling “don't tase me bro” a “Word of the Day.” Shortly thereafter, image memes with the phrase exploded on the web and parody videos-like “Can't Tase This”-began to surface.
70. Will It Blend?
Year: 2007
As of February 2012, Blendtec's marketing videos have been seen more than 188 million times on YouTube. The guy doing the blending, CEO Tom Dickson has appeared in commercials and done bits on The Tonight Show, CBS Sunday Morning, The Today Show and iVillage Live. Copycat series, like Will it Microwave, have increased in recent years.
69. Philosoraptor
Year: 2008
The original Philosoraptor image was made for a Lonely Dinosaur t-shirt in 2008 and only went viral with the arrival of Memegenerator in 2009. As of July 2011, 38,000 instances have been created on the site, which contains 12 different Philosoraptor templates.
68. Tron Guy
Year: 2004
When photos of Tron Guy's DIY costume received over 300 comments on Slashdot.com, the images spread to more popular forums. After a Jimmy Kimmel Live appearance that same year, the clip shot to fame and was parodied by South Park in 2008. Most recently, Tron Guy appeared on Tosh.0.
67. This is Sparta!
Year: 2006
Months before 300 hit theaters, the online trailer was enough to spawn spoofs and parodies of the “This is Sparta” catchphrase and associated kick. Thousands of YTMD's, GIFs, images, remixes and parodies flooded the internet between 2006 and 2009. Southpark and Robot Chicken have both featured the meme.
66. The Flying Spaghetti Monster
Year: 2005
This satirical deity for a mock religion was made by a 25-year-old college student to protest teaching intelligent design in schools. After being featured on Fark, Something Awful and Boing Boing, The New York Times and The Telegraph ran stories about so-called “Pastafarians,” inspiring the creation of images, videos and response letters online.
65. Hipster Ariel
Year: 2009
Hipster Kitty kicked off the hipster image meme trend in 2009, which lead to Hipster Ariel, created by a blogger in February 2011 and posted to Tumblr. From there, the series spread to Reddit, Buzzfeed, Memebase and meme generator sites and was featured by Time, New York Magazine and Urlesque. The meme inspired hipster images for a number of other Disney characters.
64. Charlie Bit Me
Year: 2007
With over 450 million views, this video is currently the 6th most-watched YouTube clip of all time. The two British brothers now have their own blog, video series, and merchandise. Gerber even used the video in an ad campaign for their baby food products.
63. "Bad Romance"
Year: 2009
Lady GaGa's original video is currently the fourth most-watched YouTube clip of all time. The first parody, “Rad Bromance” appeared in November of 2009 and has since received almost 15 million views. Other popular spoofs include “Lady Gaga: Bad Romance Parody (feat Lord Gaga),” “Badder Romance,” and “Bad Bromance”
62. Billy Mays
Year: 1999
Mentioned on 4chan in 2007, the late infomercial king became synonymous with talking in all caps and was known for his kitschy catchphrases. In addition to tribute videos, remixes, parodies and images, there are four fan sites and several Facebook pages devoted to Mays. When he died in 2009 Digg declared ALL CAPS DAY, an event later added to Urban Dictionary.
61. Matrix Ping Pong
Year: 2005
Shot for a TV show in Japan, this clip was initially posted to the NTV website in 2003 before being re-uploaded to multiple video-sharing sites, including eBaum's World and Spike (YouTube hadn't launched yet). The skit inspired hundreds of professional and amateur reenactments in Asia and the U.S.
60. Ask a Ninja
Year: 2005
In January 2007 Forbes listed The Ninja from this series as one of the top "Fictional Celebrities" on the web. The show's creators have been on NPR, Mythbusters, and Best Week Ever. Ask-a-Ninja interviewed Will Ferrell and Jon Heder for Blades of Glory and more recently published a book.
59. Fuck Yeah Ryan Gosling
Year: 2008
Though the blog was featured on Jezebel in 2009, the “Hey Girl” image macro only took off after an MTV interview with Gosling in 2010, during which he read captions. Within a month, the clip and site were up on a number of big-time media sites. Spin-offs followed, starting with Feminist Ryan Gosling, created in October 2011.
58. Back Dorm Boys
Year: 2005
An immediate hit in Asia, these lip-dubbers' popularity increased in the states after Ellen DeGeneres featured them on her show. They've since done ads for Motorola and Pepsi and even have their own action figures. A number of imitations resulted, including attempts by non-speakers to lip-sync Chinese lyrics.
57. Aussie Party
Year: 2008
In mid-January of 2008 MSN Australia posted this video which was then picked up by Fark.com and Break.com. Within a day the clip was on YouTube and making waves on Digg. Opie and Anthony held a fake interview with the kid from the video a few days later and Busted Tees soon released a t-shirt in honor of the meme.
56. The Hawaii Chair
Year: 2007
This time saving workout chair made Time magazine's list of “25 Worst (We Mean Best) Infomercials” and The Huffington Post's list of most ridiculous exercise equipment. Rob Lowe tried the chair out on The Ellen DeGeneres Show in 2009, inspiring amateurs and other celebs to film themselves on the equipment.
55. Tom Cruise Kills Oprah
Year: 2006
Taken from his famous 2005 jump-on-the-couch interview, this re-edited version is the most well known of the hundreds of spoofs. The incident was parodied on television by Family Guy, Scary Movie 4 and Sesame Street. The term “jumping the couch” is a phrase now used to describe someone “going off the deep end” in public.
54. Miss South Carolina Answers a Question
Year: 2007
Posted to YouTube right after the pageant, this clip quickly became the most viewed YouTube video in September of '07. As of August 2011, nearly 500 response videos were posted in addition to hundreds of parodies. Miss SC has appeared on The Today Show, Tosh.0, The MTV Video Music Awards and in commercials.
53. Trololo Sing Along
Year: 1976; posted 2009
The laughing section of this Soviet-era pop song hit YouTube at the tail end of 2009. In early 2010 the video became popular on Reddit and was subsequently published by Buzzfeed and The Huffington Post. A number of video, image and audio tributes have resulted since. The video has also been used for bait and switch Rickroll pranks.
52. Haters Gonna Hate
Year: 2009
It's the truth: Hater's gonna hate. This meme blew up on Tumblr and Reddit when it was used to brush off people who, well, hated on one's opinion. GIFs took off in 2011 featuring everything from a rollerblading Batman to some guy doing the moonwalk. Want to piss off someone you're having an argument with online? Toss out one of these.
51. I'm Fucking Matt Damon
Year: 2008
This hilarious song created by Sarah Silverman for then-boyfriend Jimmy Kimmel spurred numerous response and copycat videos, including one from Kimmel himself titled “I'm F*$king Ben Affleck.” Other popular parodies include “I'm F*$king Seth Rogan,” “I'm F*$king Bill Clinton” and “I'm F*$king Obama.”
50. Literal Music Videos
Year: 2008
This trend was started by filmmaker Dustin Mclean who posted a literal version of Take on Me to Funny or Die in October of 2008. McLean then created three more videos that received significant attention on sites like Digg and Reddit. These videos inspired others to create their own literal music videos, including the “Total Eclipse of the Heart” version here.
49. Exploding Whale
Year:1970; posted 2007
This incident became famous in the U.S. in 1990 when Dave Barry wrote about the explosion in his Miami Herald column. The event later became popular internationally when the footage circulated on the internet beginning in the mid 90's and peaking with the creation of YouTube.
48. Tebowing
Year: 2011
After posting a photo of himself in the pose on Facebook, Jared Kleinstein started a Tumblr blog dedicated to showcasing the pictures. Within 48 hours the site had nearly 200,000 visitors and was mentioned by Yahoo! Sports, The Huffington Post, NFL.com, Bleacher Report and NY Daily News. Tim Tebow became aware of the fad and tweeted about it on the same day.
47. Battle at Kruger
Year: 2007
Posted in May of 2007, this epic amateur wildlife video was highlighted on National Geographic, Animal Planet, ABC, and MSNBC and now has more than 67 million views and around 80,000 comments. The video initiated a documentary film and website with merchandise.
46. Boom Goes the Dynamite
Year: 2005
Shot for Ball State University's campus station, this video of college freshman Brian Collins hit the web through eBaumsworld. The phrase “Boom Goes the Dynamite” has been referenced on numerous shows, including Sportscenter, Family Guy, King of the Hill, How I Met Your Mother, The Colbert Report and House. Collins was a guest on The Late Show and will star in The Chronicles of Rick Roll.
45. Leprechaun in Mobile, Alabama
Year: 2006
When this local news clip from an NBC affiliate hit YouTube and Google Videos, it quickly rose to international prominence. South Park parodied the sighting in a Season 13 episode titled “The Coon.”
44. Advice Dog
Year: 2006
This series lead to dozens of spin-offs known as Advice Animals that often use the same color wheel background, originally from a Mario Brother's fan site. MemeGenerator, created in 2009, played a key role in the spread of Advice-Dog templates.
43. Epic Rap Battles
Year: 2010
Darth Vader vs. Hitler popularized this series, which is now one of the most-viewed channels on YouTube. All of the rap battle videos combined have received over 416 million views as of early 2012.
42. Cute Overload
Year: 2005
Found and popularized by BoingBoing in 2005, this blog helped initiate the animal image trend and served as a precursor to now popular sites like LOLcats, videos like Sneezing Panda and furry characters like Boo the Dog.
41. Winnebago Man
Year: 1988; Posted 2004
Filmed in 1988, this compilation video hit blogs around 2004 and showed up on YouTube in 2006. An Austin-based director made a documentary film by the same title about searching for the star of the commercial, Jack Rebney. The movie premiered at South by Southwest in 2009 and was officially released in 2011.
40. Antoine Dodson
Year: 2010
This local news report racked up millions of views in just a few hours, attracting the attention of The Gregory Brothers who reworked the rant into “The Bed Intruder Song,” which has over 102 million YouTube views and hit number three on the iTunes R&B chart. The song, in turn, lead to hundreds of covers and remixes, along with merchandise featuring quotes from Dodson.
39. Demotivational Posters
Year: 1998
In 1998 Despair Inc. began making spoofs of the motivational posters often found in large offices. Spread via blogs and discussion forums, there are now a number of websites featuring the posters, some of which zero in on a particular character, like Peter Griffin Motivational Posters and Kurt Vonnegut Motivational Posters.
38. Bert is Evil
Year: 1998
An early Photoshopping trend that superimposed Bert at famous scenes of disaster or hanging out with nefarious figures, this meme peaked post 9/11 when Reuters published a photo of a pro-bin Laden protester in Bangladesh holding a poster of Osama bin Laden and Bert posing next to each other.
37. Impossible is Nothing
Year: 2006
Watch the original video here
Yale University student Aleksey Vayner's video resume made the rounds via email before exploding on the blog scene (despite a law suit by Vayner), where writers added their own hyperbolic statements to his resume. Michael Cera starred in a McSweeney's Parody and How I Met Your Mother devoted an episode to the meme.
36. Fail
Year: 2008
The winner of two Webby Awards in 2008, FAIL Blog has been profiled in most major publications and popularized “fail” as both a noun and exclamation. The site’s YouTube channel is ranked 15th in subscriptions with nearly two billion views. FAIL Blog now consists of popular sub-sites like Engrish Funny and Ugliest Tattoos.
35. I Can Has Cheeseburger?
Year: 2007
With as many as 1,500,000 hits a day, this Lolcat site brought animal-based image macros and Lolspeak into the mainstream. Two Lolcat books hit shelves in 2008 and 2009. The Cheeseburger network now consists of 53 sites including, FAIL Blog.
34. Skateboarding Dog
Year: 2007
Tillman, the now six-year-old bulldog from Venice, CA, has over 30 million YouTube hits and holds the Guinness Record for "world's fastest skateboarding bulldog.” He's made hundreds of TV appearances, been in an iPhone commercial and recently signed on as the star of a new Animal Planet show.
33. Condescending Willy Wonka
Year: 2011
What first started off as an puerile joke centered around a screenshot from Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory, turned into one of the most used memes on Tumblr. The first rendition had Wonka saying, "Close the door, I'll show my fudge packing unit." Shortly after someone took the same screenshot to Quickmeme with the words, "Oh, You Just Graduated?/ You Must Know Everything." From there, Condescending Wonka was born.
32. The Rickroll
Year: 2007
This bait-and-switch trick began on 4chan as a spin-off of an earlier joke known as duckrolling. On April 1st, 2008, every video on YouTube's front page redirected to the Rickroll music video. The prank has extended beyond the web to playing the video or song disruptively in public places, like at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in 2008 when Astley made a surprise appearance.
31. Homestar Runner
Year: 2000
Based off a 1996 book and turned into a cartoon in 2000, this animation series took off once fans could email the character Strong Bad to elicit funny replies. Featured by NPR in 2004, a Ninetendo Wii and PC game were created shortly thereafter. The series has since generated hundreds of parodies.
30. Yatta
Year: 2001
Intended to be humorous, some viewers outside Japan assumed the boy-band parody to be earnest, resulting in speculation that increased the clip's popularity. The sketch actors who made the video performed their catchy tune on Jimmy Kimmel Live in 2001. Parodies and animated versions of the song subsequently became popular.
29. Postsecret
Year: 2005
Initially an offline experiment, as of February 2012 Frank Warren's website was the most visited ad-free blog in the world. Warren has received more than 500,000 postcards, won a number of web awards and inspired other successful confessional blogs. In 2005, The All American Rejects used actual secrets from the site in their music video for “Dirty Little Secrets.”
28. Based God
Year: 2010
Lil B, formerly of Tha Pack, was something like a phenomenon. After amassing a large following through a deluge of independent albums, the Based God, as he came to call himself, transformed into a cultural mainstay. One of the greatest results? His fans worshiping at his feet and practically begging the Based God to have sex with their girl.
27. Where The Hell is Matt?
Year: 2008
The product of 14 months of traveling in 42 countries, this clip is actually the third dancing installment from Matt Harding. After seeing his initial video, Stride Gum signed on to sponsor the rest of Matt’s travel. He has appeared on The Daily Show, The Ellen DeGeneres Show and Jimmy Kimmel Live.
26. Rebecca Black's "Friday"
Year: 2011
After appearing on The Daily What, “Friday” was reblogged by Tosh.0, Urlesque, Huffington Post and Buzzfeed. A month after the video was uploaded, “Rebecca Black” was the top trend on Twitter and shortly thereafter her video passed Justin Bieber's “Baby” in total number of downvotes. Endless GIFs and remixes, along with some celebrity covers, have resulted from the meme.
25. The Honey Badger
Year: 2011
While nature clips with funny voiceover already existed, Randall's sassy and irreverent version was the first to go viral and inspire macros, tribute videos, remixes and merchandise. In addition to creating a YouTube series titled “Randall's Wild Wild World of Animals,” he has since landed gigs with MovieFone, The Huffington Post, Grasshopper, and Wonderful Pistachios.
24. NONONO Cat
Year: 2011
Uploaded to YouTube in late September 2011, this clip from Russia reached one million views within just a few days, at which point a number of blogs, including BuzzFeed, CollegeHumor, and Dailymotion, featured the video. Tons of remixes followed, including a comparison to Amy Winehouse's “no, no, no” from “Rehab.”
23. Dramatic Chipmunk
Year: 2007
On June 6, 2007, a YouTuber uploaded a video that combined a clip from the Japanese show Hello! Morning with some audio from Young Frankenstein. By the end of the month, there was a complete explosion of Dramatic Chipmunk-related videos with dozens of duplicate uploads, remixes, GIFs, and spin-offs.
22. Diet Coke and Mentos
Year: 2006
Though a local news clip popularized the basic experiment, it wasn't until Fritz Grobe and Stephen Voltz created the Bellagio-inspired video featured here, that the concept hit meme status. Groups of enthusiasts now compete for the world record of most simultaneous eruptions-often recording themselves in the process
21. Hitler's Downfall
Year: 2006
In 2006, clips from the German film Der Untergang with the subtitles hilariously altered began popping up on YouTube. The trend spawned thousands of videos in a number of languages, often titled “Hitler Finds Out…” or “Hitler Reacts To…,” with Hitler getting upset about contemporary, and often frivolous, events.
20. Double Rainbow
Year: 2010
This video was latent for months before Jimmy Kimmel made it popular via his Twitter and YouTube accounts. The man in the clip, Paul Vasquez, appeared in a Microsoft commercial in 2010 and now receives partial proceeds from an auto-tune version of his video available for purchase on iTunes.
19. All Your Base Are Belong to Us
Year: 2009
An awkward translation that originally appeared in the 1989 game Zero Wing, the phrase “all your base are belong to us” appeared on discussion forums in 1998, leading to thousands of image macros and flash animations. The catchphrase went viral in 2000 and mainstream in 2001 after coverage on CNET, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Register, and The Daily Mirror
18. David After the Dentist
Year: 2009
Receiving more than three million views in three days and more than 111 million to date, David's anesthesia-inspired monologue led to hundreds of remixes and parodies, many of which have more than ten million views on their own. David's family has supposedly made $150,000 off the video, merchandise, and appearances.
28. Jaheim
Year: 2012
Jaheim set the Internet ablaze when photos of him at Whitney Houston's funeral hit Twitter. Dressed in what appeared to be a cross between Willy Wonka and the Joker, the Jersey R&B singer was seen posing in front of the church and, oddly in the bathroom. After the jokes began to stream in, Jaheim hopped on the defensive and began threatening everyone making fun of him.
17. The Evolution of Dance
Year: 2006
Comedian Judson Laipply dances through 32 different songs in six minutes in this fourth most favorited clip of all time on YouTube. The video amassed over 10 million views in under two weeks and was featured on CNN, MSN, E!, USA Today, Good Morning America and The Today Show.
16. Obama Girl
Year: 2010
This lip-dubbed love letter to then-Senator Obama originally aired on BarelyPolitical in 2007. Shortly thereafter, songs dedicated to Rudy Giuliani, Hillary Clinton and Ron Paul showed up on the web. A follow-up video titled Super Obama Girl was released in 2008 and has since received even more views than the original.
15. Bros Icing Bros
Year: 2010
This drinking prank was supposedly started by a group of South Carolina college kids before spreading via web in 2010. While people have speculated that Smirnoff initiated the game as a marketing campaign, the company denies involvement. Notable victims have included wrestler Ric Flair, rapper Coolio and actor Dustin Diamond.
13. Leave Britney Alone!
Year: 2007
This fake emotional breakdown by Chris Crocker received over 2 million views in the first two hours after the video went up. In the days following the video's premiere, a number of responses, remixes and parodies popped up all over the web.
12. Lonelygirl15
Year: 2006
Initially thought to be real and later revealed as fictitious, this two-year series was once the most subscribed to channel on YouTube. Actress Jessica Lee Rose was named the “Number One Web Celeb” by Forbes Magazine and earned a Best Actress Webby for her work on the show. The creators of lonelygirl15 formed LG15 Studios (now called EQAL) after receiving $5 million in venture capital to expand their offerings.
11. Leeroy Jenkins
Year: 2005
Referenced on The Daily Show, Psych, How I Met Your Mother, My Name is Earl, Scrubs and Jeopardy, and covered by The Guardian, PC World, and video game website Joystiq, this video game clip was uploaded to a World of Warcraft fansite before spreading beyond the gaming world via YouTube.
10. 2 Girls 1 Cup
Year: 2007
One of the Harry Potter puppet spoofs made by Neil Cicierega, this video hit the top of YouTube's all-time views list in 2007. The huge variety of knock-offs created by fans since have taken Cicierega's videos from series to meme.
9. Numa Numa
Year: 2004
New Jersey native Gary Brolsma created and posted this lip dub on flash animation site Newgrounds. Initially intended just for friends, the video found its way to YouTube and blew up. The New York Times, CNN, VH1's Best Week Everand The Today Show subsequently interviewed Gary.
8. Star Wars Kid
Year: 2002
Three classmates found this video of Canadian teenager Ghyslain Razaa and uploaded the content to file-sharing site Kazaa. A blogger eventually edited the footage, adding sound effects and making the “light saber” glow. It's estimated that in the past decade, the original, unmodified video has accumulated over one billion views on various sites.
7. Peanut Butter Jelly Time
Year: 2001
Both annoying and funny, this singing, dancing banana became a hit in the early 2000s. A reference on Ed increased the clip's popularity and lead to hundreds of spoofs, including one from Family Guy featuring dog Brian doing his own rendition.
6. Dancing Baby
Year: 1996
Often cited as one of the earliest examples of a web phenomenon, this 3-D baby dancing to “Hooked on a Feeling” became globally popular through email chains. Fans created alternate versions including a “Kung Fu Baby,” “Rasta Baby” and “Samurai Baby.” Dancing Baby appeared in a recurring hallucination on Ally McBeal.
5. I Regret Nothing
Year: 2004/2011
Did you kickstart a backlash by making an unpopular statement on Twitter or Tumblr? This meme is for you. The "I Regret Nothing" meme first popped up on the Internet in 2004 when the phrase was used in the web series Red vs. Blue. However, it's most recent and popular incarnation is the one seen above that features the spinning disco chicken from a Domino's Pizza commercial.
4. Grape Stomp Lady
Year: 2006
Aired live on local WAGA-TV in Atlanta, this epic fail video features a FOX reporter falling face-first off a raised platform then howling in pain. The video went viral, leading to a number of parodies, including one by Family Guy.
3. Chuck Norris Facts
Year: 2005
Inspired by Conan O'Brien's recurring jokes about Walker, Texas Ranger and The Vin Diesel Fact Generator, satirical factoids about Norris's manly abilities began popping up on the internet in early 2005. The phenomena lead to a website, two books and similar memes for other celebrities and political figures.
2. Chocolate Rain
Year: 2007
Grad student Tay Zonday wrote and produced this nonsensical song with almost 80 million YouTube views. In addition to inspiring thousands of derivatives, the video was parodied on South Park and Tay himself has appeared on talk shows, in commercials and in the music video for Weezer's “Pork and Beans.”
1. Charlie The Unicorn
Year: 2006
Created by Jason Steele of Filmcow.com, this flash-animated short follows a lethargic unicorn on an adventure to the mythical Candy Mountain. The original video, in addition to two follow-ups, have been remixed, mashed up and parodied on multiple sites. Charlie's popularity spurred a popular line of merchandise.