68 Memes For Anyone Who Needs A Break From Whatever They’re Supposed To Be Doing

To understand what inspired the owner of the Instagram page, Bored Panda reached out to @lilcasper.exe for an interview. They started this page in 2018 with barely 50 followers.

“I did it because I used to run meme pages when I was 12/13 on Facebook. So I kind of missed that and ended up making this page. I also wanted a way to promote my music. The inspiration for the name Casper was a Facebook page inspired by Casper the Friendly Ghost. So I just took inspiration from my page and added “lil” to it,” they noted.

When we spoke to the owner about the page’s specific brand of humor, they stressed that it’s for people who are chronically online, like themselves. They said, “I think it could also sometimes hit a mainstream audience, but I love irony a lot, which is a subgenre of memes.”

There’s no denying that memes are as important for digital culture as soft toys are for kids. Today, we even associate the word itself with something funny, but surprisingly enough, it has academic origins. Long before animals or celebrities took over the internet, Richard Dawkins, a British evolutionary biologist, coined the term “meme” in his 1976 book, The Selfish Gene.

He wanted a way to explain how cultural ideas spread, so he compared them to biological genes. He believed that just as genes replicate and evolve in our bodies, catchphrases, jingles, jokes, and habits also replicate as they are passed from one person to another.

Speaking about a post that went viral, the owner told us that it happened in 2018.

“I was getting other meme pages to promote this page, and I set a goal to reach 100,000 followers in 1 year, which my friends said was impossible. So I kept adapting, and at some point during the year, I created a song that went semi-viral to promote my page, which skyrocketed my followers to 100,000,” they explained.

From then on, they have created many viral meme trends and just memes, grown many other pages, and now have established their music career as well as their friends' music careers!

We also conversed with the owner about the biggest misconception people have about running a popular meme account. They think that it’s about how a lot of people say that meme accounts are either run by bots or by greedy people.

“It’s sad because I do see a lot of AI pages and greedy page owners that usually sell out very easily. But I’ve always stayed true to myself during all this time. Never took a gambling advertisement. Just promoted my music. And my friends’ music as well. I’ve also met a lot of cool page owners throughout the years that also stuck to their morals and didn’t cave in,” the owner concluded.

A surprising fact is that this word of the hour showed up in a 1953 New York Times crossword puzzle. It quizzed people about the French word for “same,” which is none other than “même.” Decades later, Richard Dawkins borrowed from that French root (along with the Greek word for “imitate”) to invent the word we use today.

The fellow was just looking for a catchy, one-syllable word that sounded like “gene” and hinted at “memory” to describe ideas that replicate and spread. Well, I think he did a pretty fabulous job, as most digitally active folks are not just familiar with it but also use it as a means of communication. 

The very first digital memes started popping up during the wild, early days of the 1990s internet. Many people believe that the bizarre “Dancing Baby” is the pioneer in this hilarious field. This eerie, 3D-animated child cha-cha-ing to a catchy beat went insanely viral. From early email chains to pop culture TV spots, it was everywhere!

What makes the Dancing Baby so special is that it actually created the blueprint for modern internet culture. It was delightfully strange, weirdly funny, and extremely shareable long before social media as we know it today even existed. It proved that if you give people something hilariously memorable, they are more likely to pass it along.

Speaking about the Dancing Baby meme, researcher and educator Phil Edwards explains, “More people have played with this newborn than any other infant in history. The thing that makes it the first meme is that it was a remix from conception to international glory.”

“In true meme fashion, this idea was flexible enough to go from blockbuster commercials to national TV, and it became the first meme. Great memes aren’t just the work of one person or a team. They’re the work of a bunch of people coming together to try to make it even bigger,” he adds.

Memes have come a long way, constantly reshaping themselves to match whatever tech and online spaces we are using. In the early 2000s, message boards and forums were popular playgrounds for web humor, giving rise to classic formats we still use today.

That forum era introduced the iconic “image + text” setup thanks to LOLcats, which proved how funny photos were incomplete without a zappy caption. It also showed us that memes were not just hilarious images. People even pranked friends with unexpected links to Rick Astley’s Never Gonna Give You Up. It turned Rickrolling into a legendary tutorial in internet trolling.

By the 2010s, social media took over the world. Netizens were able to spread memes faster than ever while also accessing relatable human emotions. Suddenly, a simple photo of a toddler with a clenched fist, aka the Success Kid, became the face of celebrating small, satisfying wins for ordinary people.

As the decade slowly rolled on, sharing memes became the internet’s favorite pastime. I am sure we have all seen the Distracted Boyfriend stock photo. Even though it came out in 2015, that meme is still extremely popular as it illustrates bad choices and temptations. Alas, human emotions are universal and haven’t changed since the old days. No wonder we can still relate to it.

Today, life is busy, and many people prefer to keep in touch with friends and family by sharing memes. Stats show that Instagram users share more than 1 million memes per day. These shared memes spread and evolve rapidly on social media. In fact, in one example, researchers found 121,605 distinct variants of a particular meme across 1.14 million status updates. 

Kit Chilvers, the chief executive and founder of Pubity Group, claims that “Memes bring people together through humor and can act as a catalyst for creating social or political commentary.” With authoritarianism on the rise globally, Gen Z is using memes as a tool to stand up against totalitarian governments. 

When he coined the word, Richard Dawkins would have never guessed how it would evolve, just like its meaning, and turn into something so meaningful. In fact, brands have also latched on to this trend and effectively use memes for marketing purposes.

Well, I must say, we must be grateful to our meme distributors, who ensure we stay afloat in every trend. You might have seen some of the memes from this list, but did you spot any new ones? Also, which ones made you laugh the loudest? Give them an upvote, or feel free to share your thoughts with us in the comments!