The 50 Funniest Memes of 2012

Image via Complex Original

50. Felix Baumgartner

Month: October

Austrian skydiver Felix Baumgartner broke the altitude record for a manned balloon flight with a parachute jump from the highest altitude and the greatest free fall velocity from the Earth's stratosphere. This amazing feat earned him immortality in the record books and the Internet.

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49. Baby Animals Meet Amanda Bynes' Tweets

Month: September

When Lindsay Lohan ridicules you, it's time to hang it up. Former Disney star, Amanda Bynes, said lots of nonsensical things on her Twitter account before deleting it and avoiding further shame and embarassment. Luckily, someone thought adding cute baby animal pictures to her words would help. It didn't, but it's still pretty funny.

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48. "Loaded Lux Vs. Calicoe" Rap Battle Meme

Month: August

As a part of Smack/URL's Summer Madness 2 event, rappers Loaded Lux from New York and Calicoe from Philadelphia went head to head in a rap battle that will go down in history as one of the most entertaining of all time. Win or lose, both rappers definitely showed up lyrically. One of the most memorable moments of the battle was Loaded Lux's repetition of the phrase "He Gon Get This Work." That phrase, as the Internet has shown, is applicable to more than rap battles.

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47. What Should We Call Me

Month: February

The #WhatShouldWeCallMe blog came as a GIF rendition of the "My Face When" meme. It features GIFs and images of hilarious reactions to a variety of real-life scenarios. We recommend clicking through to see the images in animated form.

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46. Obama Rally Meme

Month: August

This photo was taken of President Obama at a campaign rally in Iowa looking like a Hogwarts prefect. The placement of his hands and the sun make it seem as if he is holding a ball of fire, so naturally, the Internet got a few chuckles out of it (including obligatory wizardry and global warming jokes).

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45. Ridiculously Photogenic Football Player

Month: October

New England Patriot Brandon Lloyd made an amazing diving catch with a huge smile on his face that was captured perfectly by a sports photographer. The picture had obvious connections to the Ridiculously Photogenic Guy, Zeddie Little, so the Ridiculously Photogenic Football Player meme was born.

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44. Everything is Like Facebook

Month: October

After hitting the one billion users mark, Facebook ran their first commercial that attempted to explain that Facebook connects us all, like chairs, or bridges, or the universe. The commercial pretty much failed to deliver its intended message effectively, but it did provide for a funny meme. The "AreLikeFB" Tumblr is a collection of absurd examples of how everything is like Facebook...everything.

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43. Ridiculously Photogenic Guy

Month: April

25 year-old Zeddie Little was photographed during the 2012 Cooper River Bridge Run in Charleston, South Carolina. His perfect appearance amidst typical mid-run faces made him stick out like a beautiful sore thumb and Redditors deemed him meme-worthy.

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42. Little Face Mitt

Month: August

Little Face Mitt is a single topic blog that features Photoshopped photos of Governor Romney with facial features disproportionately small for his head. Why? Because. Derp.

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41. Lil Wayne "He Can't Save You"

Month: September

As part of his lawsuit against Quincy Jones III over allegedly unauthorized use of music, Lil Wayne had to sit through a deposition that he obviously wasn't happy about. After a few minutes of questions about his persona and lifestyle, Wayne got upset and arguably threatened the deposition lawyer in the presence of a judge, saying "He Can't Save You."

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40. Cruel Summer Celebrity Facebook Statuses

Month: September

You can thank us for this one. When Cruel Summer leaked, everyone was caught quoting lyrics from the instantly classic album, so naturally, we imagined which lyrics other celebrities would choose to post.

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39. NFL Replacement Ref

Month: September

During a contractual dispute between the NFL and its referees, insufficiently trained replacement refs were hired to fill in and call the games. They sucked. During a Packers vs. Seahawks game, replacement refs deliberated and made one of the worst calls ever. Normal referees were never as appreciated by the fans and players as they were during that brief hiatus.

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38. Beast Jesus

Month: August

Also known at "Botched Ecce Homo Painting" or "Potato Jesus," this meme stemmed from a failed "restoration" of a Jesus fresco painting by an elderly amateur art restorer named Cecilia Gimenez. The "beast" face has been Photoshopped onto various photographs and famous art works, and it looks like its given Gimenez enough fame to successfully sell original paintings on eBay.

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37. Dogshaming

Month: August

Man's best friend does some pretty messed-up things sometimes. Dogshaming began with a photo of a Dachshund next to a pair of torn underwear with a sign that read "I am an underwear eating jerk!" Now, it's a popular Tumblr page and official website where users post pictures of their pets, often with guilt-ridden faces, next to their shameful acts...being shamed themselves.

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36. PSY Screaming At Things

Month: September

The definition of viral, PSY's "Gangnam Style" video owned 2012. In one part of the video, he screams at a girl's ass for no discernible reason. The meme plays on that premise of PSY screaming at the most random yet hilarious things.

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35. Angelina Jolie's Leg

Month: February

On the red carpet of the 84th Academy Awards, actress Angelina Jolie's Versace dress featured a slit that exposed most of her right leg. Her sexy limb became the talk of the night and even gave birth to the Twitter account @AngiesRightLeg. "Joliening" was coined as a photo hashtag for people imitating her pose, and Jolie's leg was Photoshopped into existing photos as part of a practice now known as legbombing.

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34. Stingray Photobomb

Month: September

As a novelty photo-op in the Cayman Islands, some tourists take photos with stingrays. One such photo was posted to Reddit as a photobomb because of the terrified looks on the girls' faces when the stingray was unexpectedly placed on their backs for a second snapshot. The 5-year-old photo made its way around the Internet this year and was parodied multiple times.

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33. "Obama's 'Ask Me Anything' On Reddit" Meme

Month: August

Reddit has a thing called AMA (Ask Me Anything) in which notable individuals are interviewed in real-time by the online community. On August 29th, President Obama participated, and the traffic to the already popular site was too much for their servers to handle, causing them to crash multiple times throughout the Q&A.

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32. Olympic Divers on Toilets

Month: August

When we watch Olympic divers twist and flip their way into pools, it looks so fast and effortless. Thanks to some great high speed photography, we know that's not the case. There are so many muscles at work during a dive, not to mention the effects of gravity and air on the skin of your face. Photoshopping these already hilarious-looking divers onto toilets makes them 10 times funnier.

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31. Binders Full of Women

Month: October

During the second Presidential debate, Republican candidate Mitt Romney told a story about his proactive hiring of women. His point was lost in the fact that he said he brought "binders full" of women to look through. The memes flowed before the debate was over along with a Tumblr dedicated to the idea.

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30. Storm Cat

Month: November

The original image was posted to Reddit with the title "My friend's cat on a windy day." The cat's creepy eyes combined with the stormy backdrop make it the perfect image for a meme (not to mention the Internet's unhealthy obsession with anything feline).

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29. Mitt Romney vs. Big Bird

Month: October

It was the threat heard 'round the world. During the first Presidential debate, Mitt Romney matter-of-factly stated that upon election he would cut funding to PBS, even though he liked Big Bird and the debate moderator, Jim Lehrer. Within minutes, Romney vs. Big Bird pictures were being shared around Reddit, Tumblr, Twitter, and Instagram.

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28. Drake and Chris Brown at the VMAs

Month: September

This photo was taken at the Video Music Awards following Drake and Chris Brown's bottle-throwing fight in a New York City nightclub. Hilarious!

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27. Feminist Ryan Gosling

Month: October

Probably better known as the "Hey Girl" Ryan Gosling meme, this series was technically started in 2011 on Tumblr but peaked this year. In the page FAQ, blogger Danielle Hendersen wrote that the idea was born as a way to keep track of feminism and gender study theories that she was learning at the University of Wisconsin .

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26. Annoyed Picard

Month: January

This still was taken from a Star Trek: The Next Generation episode that originally aired in 1990. It was posted to Reddit in January as a reaction meme with the words "Oh Come On!/You don't even know what a meme is."

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25. Gotye "You Didn't Have to Cut Me Off" Meme

Month: June

Inspired by the video for Gotye's hit song featuring Kimbra, "Somebody That I Used To Know," meme-makers have Photoshopped the lead singer's face into photos that take the lyrics literally.

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24. Hands Up Biden

Month: October

The animated Vice President had a hard time masking his disbelief at Paul Ryan during the VP debates. At one point, he threw his hands up and rolled his eyes as if to say "Are you f*cking kidding me?"

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23. Grandma Finds The Internet Meme

Month: October

This one is pretty self-explanatory. Take a stock image of a grandmother using a computer, add in what we all experience with old people and technology, and you have the perfect funny meme. This one was also made in late 2011 but gained popularity in 2012.

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22. Retarded Mom

Month: October

This meme came out of left-field, but it is still pretty damn funny. Naive Mom would probably be the more politically correct title though.

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21. Texts from Hillary Clinton

Month: April

The photo was taken by a Reuters photographer while Secretary Clinton awaited a flight from Malta to Libya in October 2011. Within two days, the Tumblr site had been shared over 46,000 times on Facebook, and the two founders of it got to meet her IRL.

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20. Hungry Kim Jong Un

Month: January

In late December 2011, a Redditor posted a photo of Kim Jong Un pointing at something with the title "Kim Jong Un looks...hungry" and the caption "Ok so...can I eat this?" Little is known about Kim Jong Un, but no liked his father (Kim Jong Il), and North Korea isn't winning any popularity contests anytime soon, so have no shame in laughing at him and his hunger.

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19. Call Me Maybe

Month: April

The chorus from Carly Rae Jepsen's 2011 pop hit "Call Me Maybe" became a part of our culture this year in ways we would have never imagined. These memes are no exception.

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18. The Unimpressed Queen

Month: July

Taken during the Opening Ceremony of the 2012 London Olympics, this photo shows the Queen with an expression that says she gives no f*cks. Class-based jokes are too easy, and the Internet definitely saw this meme through to its full potential.

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17. Inappropriate Timing Bill Clinton

Month: April

The photo was taken by Drew Angerer in the White House briefing room, where Bill Clinton and President Obama made a joint appearance to discuss a tax bill compromise in December 2010. President Obama's tired expression blended with Clinton's "hey guys" smile and open-armed stance equaled meme gold when the photo was posted to Reddit in April of 2012. 

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16. Really High Guy

Month: November

Also known as [10] Guy or Stoner Stanley, the photo was posted in late 2011 with the caption "Being at a [10] is not always pretty. Really high people say and do the funniest things, or so we've heard."

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15. McKayla Maroney Is Not Impressed

Month: August

United States Olympic gymnast McKayla Maroney was the favorite to win the gold medal for vaulting at the 2012 games, but a miscalculation on her second attempt meant that she would place second and take the silver. A photo was taken of Maroney on the medal podium with an unfavorable facial expression that was instantly turned into a meme, and the Tumblr "McKayla is Not Impressed" was created. Maroney also went on the Colbert Report and later met President Obama, who got his own "unimpressed" meme treatment.

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14. Sudden Clarity Clarence

Month: February

This meme came from a stock photo taken during the Australian Schoolies Festival in 2009. It gained popularity in early 2012 from the main subject's awkward "realization" face that has spawned over 3,700 submissions online.

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13. Overly Attached Girlfriend

Month: June

Youtube user wzr0713 uploaded a parody of Justin Bieber's "Boyfriend," where she sings creepy lyrics from the point of view of a deranged girlfriend. The video was linked in a Reddit post and received over 800 comments in 7 hours.

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12. Bad Luck Brian

Month: January

This meme was posted to Quickmeme with the caption "Takes driving test/gets first DUI" back in January and soon became one of the most used AdviceAnimals memes on Reddit. A Redditor later did an AMA post revealing that his name is actually Kyle and that the picture was for his 7th grade school photo (which he was forced to retake). Bad Luck Brian can't catch a break.

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11. Scumbag Steve

Month: January

Scumbag Steve had a good year in 2011 but an even better year in 2012...maybe 2012 was a bigger year for scumbaggery? Or maybe the spike in popularity could have had something to do with Scumbag Steve (Blake) deciding to restart his "rap career" and uploading the song "Scumbag Steve Overture" to Youtube, which was immediately shared to Reddit and featured on Mashable, Slate, and Geekosystem. Either way, that photo screams douchebag.

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10. Mo Farrah Running Away From Things

Month: August

Mo Farrah won the gold medal in the 10,000-meter and the 5,000-meter races during the 2012 London Olympics. His look of excitement as he won the second race lends itself so well to this meme, because his disbelief and excitement read as terror when taken out of context.

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9. Menacing Josh Romney

Month: October

During the second Presidential debate, one of Mitt Romney's sons, Josh Romney, was caught on camera with a very disturbing glare. This was another one of those hilarious memes of 2012 that could have written itself.

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8. Ermahgerd

Month: March

Described as a lisped pronunciation of "Oh My God," the meme features a photo of a very excited girl holding a backpack and Goosebumps books. The original was posted with the title "Just a book owners smile" and was altered and re-posted with "Gersberms/Mah favhrit berks" (Goosebumps, my favorite books). Ermahgerd can be applied to pretty much any situation, as evidenced by these memes.

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7. Grumpy Cat

Month: September

A picture of this very angry cat (named Tard, short for Tardar) was posted to Reddit under the title "Meet grumpy cat." Within 24 hours, parodies were on the front page with over 25,000 upvotes.

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6. Confused Cosby

Month: September

Confused Cosby (aka "Confounded Cosby") has mysterious beginnings, but the image is obviously a still from The Cosby Show. It features an expression that Cliff (Cosby) wore often, usually in disbelief at something that one of his five children did or said.

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5. Trinidad James

Month: October

Trinidad James and his hit song "All Gold Everything" came out of nowhere in 2012. You can go just about anywhere, quote the lyrics, and someone will finish your sentence for you. Woo!

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4. Sweet Brown

Month: April

After an apartment fire in Oklahoma City, Sweet Brown was interviewed by KFOR News Channel 4. If you haven't seen the interview or the musical parodies, please Youtube it right now! Absolute classic. One of the last lines of the interview with the energetic Sweet Brown became one of 2012's most-used catchphrases: Ain't Nobody Got Time Fo Dat.

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3. Drunk Baby

Month: June

A photo of a sleepy baby and a well-placed pint of beer is perfect for depicting what a drunken old man would say atop a bar stool...or rather, a baby if he was actually as drunk as he looks.

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2. Skeptical Third-World Kid

Month: June

By far the funniest of the "Success Kid" memes, the photo was taken by a Redditor while volunteering in Uganda. The raised eyebrow on the child's face is used with funny interrogative sentences to show that he is suspicious of the missionary's intentions.

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1. Manny Pacquiao Knockout

Month: December

Filipino welterweight boxer Manny Pacquiao jumped in the ring on December 8th with Mexican boxer Juan Miguel Marquez to compete for the WBO "Champion of the Decade" belt. With one second left in the 6th round, Marquez made Pacquiao go night-night with a booming right cross. The sleeping Pacquiao became a trending topic on Twitter and the heartless memes flooded Facebook profiles for days.

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