Timeline of Ironic Memes

Timeline of Ironic Memes



I have an unhealthy internet obsession &Ihide behind multiple layers of ironic hu mor to masquerade the fact that I have crippling depression
A Picardía-themed mural seen under an overpass; location unknown.


I

n today's internet memescape, we seem to be living in the golden age of ironic humor, where absurd Facebook pages, circlejerk subreddits and meta jokes dominate the highly volatile meme economy.

When given a moment's thought, it actually makes a lot of sense. As memes have become more and more mainstream, we’ve had to find new ways of demonstrating our meme literacy to separate ourselves from the awful "normies." To show the true depth of your understanding of internet memes, you must be able to shitpost them into infinity with ironic and meta humor that only real memers would be able to comprehend. And memes tend to dramatically drop in value as a cultural currency when they are accessible to too many people. Memes are no exception to inflationary market pressures.

Some of the prototypical ironic memes were founded on an appreciation for the so bad it's good genre of social media entertainment, including classics like Duane!, The Room, Garbage Day, the Power Glove and Troll 2, just to name a few. This niche was popularized by events like the Found Footage Festival and sites like Everything is Terrible, who relentlessly foraged through VHS tape collections to find the most bizarre videos to meet the growing demand for this sort of content.

To better understand how memes became what they are today, we took at look back at some of the key moments in internet history to build a rough timeline of how ironic memes spread far and wide across the web.


2008

  • August: The ironic fandom of Cory in the House begins with the remix video "Top 27 Anime Boobs" on YouTube.
  • September: @Dril debuts on Twitter with the tweet "No."

2009

  • April: The ironic fandom of Smash Mouth's All Star begins with a Super Mario-themed parody of the music video on YouTube.

2010

  • June: A slowed down remix of the Olsen Twins' song "Gimmie Pizza" goes viral on YouTube.

2011

  • February: @Horse_ebooks debuts on Twitter with the tweet "How to Teach a Horse to Sit, Give a Kiss and Give a Hug."
  • April: Trollface is intentionally misidentified as "Smiling Man" on 4chan, inspiring a slew of other incorrectly named memes and internet characters.

2012

  • June: The Facebook group "Going to MacDonalds for a salad roll is like going to a brothel for a hug" launches.
  • October: The /r/me_irl subreddit launches on Reddit. "Coaxed Into a Snafu" goes viral on Facebook and spawns a series of poorly drawn rage comic and other popular meme characters. "Expand Dong" is posted on 4chan's /v/ board.
  • November: The Brogre fandom around Shrek is born on Facebook.

2013

  • April: The /s4s/ ("shit 4chan says") board launhes on 4chan, signaling the dawn of the "shitposting" trend.
  • June: The "フレッドYOLO" page launches on Facebook.

2014

  • January: Air Horn Remixes go viral with the launch of /r/airhornremix on Reddit.
  • February: The expression "Nice Meme" begins proliferating in Reddit’s circlejerk communities. People begin ironically posting lyrics from the 2003 alternative rock song "Bring Me to Life" by Evanescence on 4chan’s /v/ board. Nice May May Man is created on /r/circlejerk.
  • April: “Special Meme Fresh” Facebook page adopts the Meme Man as their profile picture. Neil Cicirega posts mashup of the song "Smooth" by Rob Santana featuring Rob Thomas.
  • May: "I play KORN to my DMT plants smoke blunts all day & do sex stuff" Facebook page is launched. Tumblr user woodmeat publishes a post with the message "she succ me thru my boxers", popularizing "succ" as an ironic slang term.
  • July: Gnome Child is popularized as an ironic meme on the /r/2007scape Runescape enthusiast subreddit.
  • September: Gnome child “Born just in time to browse dank memes” image posted by Redditor xEphr0m, subsequently popularizing the expression "dank memes".
  • December: The first appearance of the infamous "REEEE" screech on 4chan’s /r9k/.

2015

  • November: the first mention of the ancient Egypitan diety Kek on 4chan.

2016

  • April: The “Fresh Memes About the Mojave Desert and Other Delectable Cuisines” Facebook page posted the first unicycle-riding frog "Dat Boi" image macro. The "Succ my meme" Facebook page launched.
  • September: Imgur user TheRealOle uploads a gallery of "anti-memes".
  • October: the first "Bee Movie But" replacement remix is uploaded by YouTuber wankerflaps.



Did we miss anything noteworthy? Just drop us a line in the comments to be considered for inclusion in the timeline!



Top Comments

Bill-Stan, Gaijin Supreme
Bill-Stan, Gaijin Supreme

Meme Timeline:

1990s'-2005: Early/Classic/Innocent/Pre-YouTube Meme Era (Dancing Baby, Hamster Dance, the Star Wars Kid, and some Newgrounds/4Chan stuff)

2006-2008: YouTube Poop/Spadinner/YTP Era (CDi Zelda, Hotel Mario, DiC Mario/Sonic cartoons, Dr. Rabbit, George Volcano from Volvic Revive, Mario Head from Mario Teaches Typing, and others.)

2008-2010: Garry's Mod/Rubberfruit/Team Fortress 2 Era (The Idiots of Garry's Mod, GMod Idiot Box, Half-Life: Full-Life Consequences, Dr. Hax, Left 2 Dead Louis' PEELZ, TF2 GMod monsters like Painis Cupcake and Vagineer, various other TF2 memes like pootis, gottam, and SEE, and Rubberfruit videos in general)

2011-2013: The Impact Font/"Age of Rage"/Epic Fail/Pony Era (Rage Faces/Comics, Advice Animals, impact font captioned images, Lolcats, Demotivational Posters, "FAIL", unironic use of the word 'epic', and MLP:FiM/Bronies)

2014-Present: The Dank/Ironic/Twitter/Shitpost/"I have crippling depression." Era (Ironic memes, MLG Montages, "Why"/"Absolutely Disgusting'/"200% MAD"/Expand Dong, anything involving the DK Rap, JonTron, Vinesauce, penguinz0/Cr1tiKal, videogamedunkey, iDubbbzTV, Filthy Frank, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, comic sans, stock images, motion blur, glowing eyes, any combination of the previous four, pretty much anything out of the meme/shitpost side of Tumblr, Shrek/Bee Movie, and anything produced by SiIvaGunner)

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