What makes a great meme? Is it the image that must be perfect, or the wording of the text that really makes it shine? Perhaps how niche the subject matter is?
Whatever you think makes a memorable meme, we think we’ve got some down below that you’ll enjoy. We’ve taken a trip to the Memes.com Instagram page, which shares (You guessed it!) memes about anything and everything. Enjoy scrolling through these hilarious posts that will hopefully make you chuckle, and be sure to upvote the memes you’ll be sharing with your friends!
More info: Memes.com
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Memes.com defines a meme as “an idea, behavior, or style that spreads from person to person within a culture—often with the aim of conveying a particular phenomenon, theme, or meaning represented by the meme.” And as we all know, over the past decade or two, memes have become an integral part of internet culture. We share them with our friends, we use them to make light of stress and anxiety-inducing events such as the pandemic, we use them to comment on politics and promote social justice and much more. Memes come in all shapes, sizes and flavors, so you’re sure to find something you like!
Memes.com serves the largest meme community in the world, with over 7 million followers on Instagram and plenty on their own site as well, and is proud to be able to share these funny images that mean so much to them. “We at Memes believe that the cultural representation of our time will be expressed through the memes we’ve shared,” the team shares on their site. “As we look to the cave paintings or the hieroglyphics of ancient Egypt to understand the past, we will one day look to the memes of now to understand what our culture was today. Memes are how we express ourselves. Our ideas. Our passions. Our beliefs.”
It's supposed to be that he hold onto the vine with his armpit and legs, but now I cannot unsee this. XD
Although we associate memes with being images that we share online nowadays, according to Alexis Benveniste at The New York Times, some linguists argue that humans have actually been communicating with memes for centuries. If you consider a meme to be a “self-replicating chunk of information” that can be shared, spread and slightly altered over time, you could say that memes have been around much longer than you and I have been here. We repeat jokes and tell tales countless times, and inevitably they have their own lives where they shift and transform into new memes too. Memes are all around us!
The word meme itself has experienced a semantic shift over time too, Benveniste explains. It has actually been used 60 times in the New York Times Crossword since the puzzle began being printed in the 1940s, but today, of course, we use it to refer to these silly photos we share online. “Memes and their meanings are co-constructed by multiple users in a social context,” Jennifer Nycz, an associate professor and director of undergraduate studies at Georgetown University’s Department of Linguistics, told the New York Times. “This is really no different from any other process of communication or knowledge creation. It’s just especially salient in the case of memes because people explicitly construct them and then post them to the world for commentary.”
I asked a friend to come to my funeral in a black trench coat , black hat...holding an umbrella, to answer his phone during my funeral and say...." it's done". In a maniacal tone. Lol! F-ing hilarious. I hope he keeps his promise and does it.
When it comes to why we love memes so much, Saint Hoax, who runs an incredibly successful meme page on Instagram, told the New York Times, “Memes are basically editorial cartoons for the internet age. The power of a meme lies in its transmissibility and unique knack for being cross-cultural.” We can turn memes into literally anything, and their messages can be spread instantly online. Sharing and retweeting has never been easier, and memes allow us to connect to others around the world in the blink of an eye.
Also: I'll wait until Grandma comes to visit before I ask mummy what that means.
According to Helen Brown at the BBC, memes can also be incredibly powerful as far as spreading important messages. They don’t have to be just fun and games; memes have also been used to further social justice movements online such as #MeToo, critique politicians, and point out atrocities such as Putin’s war in Ukraine. In fact, the Ukrainian government even published memes on their official Twitter account prior to Russia’s attack to gain support. Memes can be lighthearted and fun, but like good jokes, they can also have a grain of truth behind them and cause readers to contemplate important issues.
As you might expect, we’re also more likely to share memes that align with our political ideologies, Brown writes for the BBC. Digital activism has become increasingly popular, and memes on Moroccan Facebook pages have even inspired subversive political discussions about their monarchy. “Protestors are taking internet meme culture back onto the streets in an attempt to use the humor and imagery they have honed on social media to drive their point home,” Brown writes. Memes have even been plastered across picket signs in Myanmar and in Women’s Marches in the United States.
If you’re wondering what makes a great meme, Andrea Garza at The University of British Columbia wrote an article diving into what makes for brilliant, viral content. Dr. Sandrine Han, a visual arts and visual literacy professor whose focus is on virtual worlds, noted that, “The relationship between text and imagery in memes is something very interesting. It should be relevant, but it shouldn’t be exactly the same.” So choosing the perfect image to convey your message, while also coming up with a brilliantly witty caption, is important. Don’t be too on the nose!
“[The] image needs to be bold, needs to be clear,” Han added, explaining what makes a wonderful meme. “When you see the image, you know the intention.” Some meme experts who weighed in also said that controversial and edgy memes tend to do well too. And while you want to jump onto trends while they’re hot, be careful not to fall too far behind. “Really good quality memes are ones that tap into inside jokes really early on,” Luc Briede-Cooper says. He recommends participating in popular meme trends you spot immediately, just “in a different format, to create this inside joke … that you only understand if you have seen the original source.”
Finally. My older friends used to flip out when I said I didn't get the appeal of 6 super-white, unfunny people living in NY🤷♀️ Ross was a whiny c**t, Joey was an idiot..good for a chuckle but it got real old real fast, Chandler was the equivalent of Walmart white bread, Phoebe was ok, but also only good in small doses, Rachel was self-centered and ditzy- don't know how she landed jobs when she had no real skills, and Monica...🙄
Awww why did you get downvoted? You were just giving your opinion. (That I absolutely agree with!) Here's an upvote from me!
Load More Replies...Big Bang Theory and Barney on How I Met Your Mother - too many sex jokes. I don't mind sex jokes, but that is all there was. They could have been good with more rounded-out characters. HIMYM had that without the Barney factor
Load More Replies...Can I confess that I absolutely love Friends? I have all 10 seasons on DVD. I also have a trivia game that no one can beat me at. I actually hate watching it on TV because they cut lines out and I know it so well that I notice. I didn’t know this was so uncool! But I’m not sure I care. I still love it.
It's not cool to dislike Friends and it's not uncool to like it, so you don't have to "confess" lol. A show doesn't have to be hilarious to be good, and most sitcoms aren't. If it's not your thing otherwise, cool - if it is, awesome. Even with feeling like Ross's character was written really poorly, and not really liking Phoebe's character, I still love it
Load More Replies...It's moderately entertaining to watch in a hotel room in the middle of the night.
“Moderately” is pushing it for me. I’d have to go with “vaguely.” Then, I’ve never actually made it through an entire episode. Same with the one with the cradle-robbing comedian somehow impresses people with his banal, hackneyed observational humor. Steinbaum, Steinfeld. Something like that. And, no, I never wondered why…
Load More Replies...Upvote for a reference to a vastly underrated film! Bruce Campbell just slays as Elvis.
Load More Replies...I think that Friends is kind of a Gen X thing. Our humor tends to be outside the range of understanding to those older and younger than us.
I saw a post saying that some guy was gonna edit the laugh tracks out of FRIENDS just to "show how unfunny that s**t really is"
Never seen even one episode of it. The only thing I am familiar with is, "How you doin?".
My 7yr old watching me cook any kind of vegetable, fish, meatloaf etc lol
This movie had the most attractive cast of any movie ever made, and I will die on this hill.
If you’re looking to make some memes of your own pandas, there are plenty of generator sites and resources online. Plus, editing photos is easier now than it has ever been before! But I would recommend spending some time on Twitter or Reddit first to find out which memes are trending, as they seem to go in and out of style every single day. Remember when Pepe, Bad Luck Brian and Philosoraptor were going viral? Yeah, I barely do either!
It’s hard to find things we all agree on nowadays, but I think it’s safe to say that everybody loves a great meme! We hope these funny pics have brought a little bit of joy to your days, pandas, and keep upvoting the ones you find most relatable! Then, if you’re interested in checking out another hilarious Bored Panda list full of memes from your dreams, we recommend clicking right here!
I always close my eyes when I need to concentrate. It frightens my passengers a bit.
...ain't nothin' but a heartache...tell me whyyyy ai'nt nothin' but a mistakeeee
Oh, my dear sweet children. It’s not the size of the ship that matters. It’s the ability of the Captain to keep it in port until all passengers have disembarked.
I try to remember to pour the water from the cat’s bowl into the plant’s pot at least once a week. Waste not want not, true?
My great uncle Joe would always do that when they came to visit. “Go buy some candy, but don’t tell your Mother.” We lived 7 MILES outside of town. I sure miss that man.
Note: this post originally had 138 images. It’s been shortened to the top 50 images based on user votes.
Bp not approving the memes beforehand? Some of these are pretty bad…
In fairness, it was either this or another AITA about a bridezilla….
Load More Replies...I laughed so hard at the drunk hog fighting a cow, I almost suffered a cardiac arrest
Bp not approving the memes beforehand? Some of these are pretty bad…
In fairness, it was either this or another AITA about a bridezilla….
Load More Replies...I laughed so hard at the drunk hog fighting a cow, I almost suffered a cardiac arrest