The word meme was added to the dictionary all the way back in 1976 as "an idea, behavior, style, or usage that spreads from person to person within a culture." And while memes may be nothing new, they are definitely getting better—and, many would argue, funnier—as the years go by. Fortunately, 2019 has been no different. From a viral stock photo of an egg to celebrities being compared to inanimate objects, the year has served up some hilarious memes. Herein, we've rounded up the funniest memes of 2019 so far.
1. The "And I Oop" Meme
One of 2019's most recent and most viral memes comes from drag queen Jasmine Masters, who is no stranger to creating viral content. The world's favorite "And I Oop" clip—which represents the paused reaction to any in-the-moment revelation—is just a few seconds from a longer video rant by Masters. The portion that went viral is now one of the best-known funny memes of 2019.
2. The International SpongeBob Meme
SpongeBob memes are some of the funniest memes on the internet, but 2019's International SpongeBob—which began with a French edit of the character—is one of the best ones yet. Not only has SpongeBob been photoshopped into different locations, but he's also been reimagined as iconic characters and celebrities, including Beyoncé and Spider-Man.
3. Casey Frey's "Stop" Meme
Casey Frey, a former Vine star, is a favorite among Twitter users. His odd, yet oddly charming content has made him one of the funniest content creators around. Representing any fight against authority or self-sabotage, Frey's newest "stop" meme comes from a dancing video he uploaded in May.
4. The Passionate Explanation Meme
This meme features two separate internet sensations—Twitter star Quenlin Blackwell and reality TV star Shirlene "Ms. Juicy" King Pearson from Little Women: Atlanta. Comprised of screenshots from a viral video by Blackwell and an Instagram post by Ms. Juicy, this meme perfectly captures the experience of passionately explaining something to someone, only to have them confused (or perhaps even scared) by your enthusiasm.
5. The "It's Above Me Now" Meme
The "it's above me now" meme comes out of this viral video from a Holiday Inn hotel clerk who fought back against a woman looking for a room who called him a racial slur over the phone before arriving at the hotel. In the video, you see the clerk denying the guest a room per advisement from upper management. As she argues with him about the decision, the clerk uses the phrase "it's above me now"—and, at that moment, a new meme was born.
6. The Film Studies Meme
What started out as a serious tweet praising a scene in the Game of Thrones finale has turned into a viral meme. Once people started attaching the text to some notably bad scenes from famous films, the meme took off.
7. The "And It Shows" Meme
Some of y'all ain't heard of this meme, and it shows. The "and it shows" concept is pretty simple: The meme writer explains something people either did or did not grow up with, that could have had an impact on them later in life.
8. The Celebrities as Things Meme
The incredibly specific "celebrities as things" meme compares celebrities to random, inanimate objects through matching photo color schemes. It started with a Twitter thread by a Beyoncé fan who compared the singer to sea sponges—and the memes have only gotten weirder over time.
9. The "Due to Personal Reasons" Meme
Following the typical phrase people give when requesting a day off work, this meme is just a tweet that starts with the serious phrase "due to personal reasons" and is followed by something comically absurd, yet oddly relatable.
10. The World Record Egg
Remember when an egg beat out Kylie Jenner for the most-liked post on Instagram? The creator of this meme simply posted a stock egg photo on Instagram and asked people to like it so they could beat out Jenner, the previous record-holder for the most-liked photo on Instagram (if you're wondering, it was for this photo announcing the birth of her daughter, Stormi). Within just 10 days, the egg won the title and spawned an entire set of memes.
11. The "You Were at My Wedding, Denise" Meme
When conservative commentator Denise McAllister posted a hate-tweet about The View, we highly doubt she expected to inspire a viral meme. Meghan McCain, a cast member on The View, replied to McAllister saying, "You were at my wedding, Denise…" and now, the meme is used as a retort to the mildest of criticisms.
12. The Passive Aggressive Daenerys Meme
It's no surprise that Game of Thrones has inspired more than a few memes in its time. When Daenerys Targaryen, played by actress Emilia Clarke, was offered this passive aggressive smile on the show, one user posted the photo online with the words "caption this," and Twitter did not hold back.
13. The "Old Town Road" Meme
Lil Nas X's "Old Town Road" became the hit song of the summer when Billy Ray Cyrus jumped on its remix. Since then, the country-rap song has garnered the love of Twitter, as well as Twitter's love for making memes out of anything.
14. The "I Don't Know Who Needs to Hear This" Meme
This meme started out as a format for religious tweets intended to be inspirational, but alas, Twitter turned it into something completely different. Now, "I don't know who needs to hear this" can be applied to any tweet that makes a bold statement that could be applicable to a large audience.
15. The "Twitter, Meet My Dad" Meme
This meme is based off a viral tweet where one user posted photos of his 45-year-old dad, who had just started pursuing a modeling career. The tweet ended with "So, Twitter, meet my dad," and it has since spawned a multitude of tweets with the same text accompanied by various photos—including this one (above) featuring Steve Carrell.
16. The "Someone Like You" Singalong
The "Someone Like You" video trend comes from the TikTok app. It started with TikTok user David Kasprak creating this video of a sea of gummy bears singing along to Adele's "Someone Like You." Since then, various adaptations have been created under the hashtag #HariboChallenge.
17. The "I'm Baby" Meme
The "I'm baby" meme comes from an accidental auto-corrected text sent by a mother to her daughter during a home invasion in 2017. Now, the meme has exploded with people using the phrase "I'm baby" to demonstrate immaturity in literally any possible situation.
18. The 10-Year Challenge Meme
The "10 Year Challenge," also know as the "How Hard Did Aging Hit You Challenge," had everyone participating—comparing photos of themselves from 2009 and 2019. Even Mariah Carey sort of joined in on the fun, tweeting the same photo of herself twice to indicate that "time is not something she acknowledges."
19. The "Change My Mind" Meme
This meme started after comedian Steven Crowder tweeted a photo of himself seated behind a sign that read, "Male privilege is a myth. Change my mind," outside of Texas Christian University last year. From there, internet users photoshopped the sign to display other "controversial" opinions that were often more humorous than they were political.
20. The Black Hole Meme
Leave it to Twitter to take a massive scientific feat and turn it into a joke. Once the National Science Foundation released the first ever photograph of a black hole, the monumental image was given the meme-treatment by Twitter users.
21. The Tough Guy Entrance Meme
This viral meme comes from a video of Jawad Bendaoud, who was entering the courtroom for his sentencing after he was convicted of providing shelter for two people involved in the 2015 Paris attack. Since then, people have taken the video of Bendaoud making a "tough guy entrance" and added hilarious, meme-worthy captions.
22. The "Nobody" Meme
The "nobody" meme, sometimes referred to as the "no one" or "literally no one" meme, describes an action or situation that's unprovoked or unprompted—i.e. something "nobody" asked for, yet you or someone else does anyway.
23. The "Let Me In" Meme
Comedian Eric Andre is the star of this meme, which includes a clip of him from a 2016 video where he's seen screaming "let me in!" outside of the Democratic National Convention.
24. The 6ix9ine Snitching Meme
When American rapper Tekashi 6ix9ine appeared in court, a picture of him addressing the room was released. From there, the photo took off as people meme-d it by adding captions of the rapper hypothetically "snitching" on people. No one was safe—not even Aunt Becky.
25. The "Is This a Pigeon?" Meme
"Is this a pigeon?" is a quote from the 1990s Japanese anime The Brave Fighter of Sun Fighbird. And just as the character mistakingly identifies a butterfly as a pigeon, the meme subsequently refers to anyone incorrectly labeling anything. This meme has been around for awhile, but it had a resurgence in early 2019.
26. The Fyre Festival Meme
Fyre Festival was an absolute disaster, but it did give us some good internet content—including documentaries on both Netflix and Hulu. The best thing Fyre Festival gave us, however, was a treasure trove of hilarious memes.
27. The "Some Personal News" Meme
The "some personal news" meme takes a phrase intended to announce a professional accomplishment and instead, twists it into an announcement for absolutely anything.
28. The Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper Meme
After a showstopping performance at the Oscars, Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper were subsequently meme-d with this photo of them looking a little more than friendly. Basically, you can apply this meme to anything you look at with googly eyes.
29. The "I Made Queso" Meme
After Fox News anchor Dana Perino tweeted a photo of queso that didn't look too appetizing with the caption "I made queso," Twitter was ready to troll. If you go on Twitter now, you can see a multitude of tweets captioned "I made queso," with photos attached of things that are most certainly not queso.
30. The "Me on Ellen" Meme
Ellen DeGeneres is known for being, well, generous. Her habit of surprising guests on The Ellen Show was the inspiration for the "Me on Ellen" meme, which has Twitter users dreaming up odd scenarios of what DeGeneres would surprise them with if they were on her show.
31. The Scantron Test Meme
Bringing you back to your high school days, this meme uses the format of filling in circles on a Scantron test as the punchline of the joke—like the original of dolphins only filling in the letter "E" for each answer.
32. The #AvengeTheFallen Meme
The viral #AvengeTheFallen meme mocks the promotional posters for the Marvel's Avengers: Endgame. Once the posters were released, Twitter users began photoshopping their own parodies.
33. The J.K. Rowling Meme
Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling recently became famous for retroactively "adding" details to the stories—more than a decade after the final book was published. Because of this, Twitter users created a meme in which they added their own details to the series.
34. The "Sir, This Is a Wendy's" Meme
The phrase "Sir, this is a Wendy's" is a quote from The Office, and it's blown up this year as a response to anything someone might not like hearing from someone else. Even Wendy's official Twitter account has played along.
35. The Target Self-Checkout Camera Meme
If you've noticed that the self-checkout cameras at Target aren't exactly flattering, you're not alone. This year, Twitter users took off with jokes about how traumatized we all are by the camera's mirror.
36. The Drake Courtside Meltdown Meme
When Kevin Durant suffered an injury during the 2019 NBA Finals, Canadian rapper and notable basketball fan Drake was on the sidelines—and he was NOT happy. A video of his courtside meltdown hit the internet, and Twitter users made it a viral reaction meme.
37. The Buff Kim Kardashian Meme
No, Kim Kardashian hasn't been doing extra arm days at the gym. When one Twitter user started posting photoshopped photos of Kardashian with massively-exaggerated muscles, others couldn't help but get in on the joke.
38. The Global Warming Meme
Climate change is a serious topic, but if there's one thing Twitter is great at, it's finding a way to find humor in anything. The global warming meme takes anything someone is excited about in terms of the future and reminds us all that global warming might not let us get that far.
39. The Fake Laugh Meme
Former professional football player Anthony Adams is now viral content fodder. This short clip of him fake laughing, then turning the camera to give the perfect side-eye is the reaction meme we never knew we needed.
40. The Handshake Emoji Meme
Emojis have given us the ability to say a lot with a little, and the handshake meme from Twitter does just that. It combines two things (which typically seem like they don't have any similarities) with a simple handshake emoji underneath to show what they have in common.
41. The Casey Frey Staring Meme
Frey's same viral video not only gave us the "stop" meme but the "staring" meme, too. Twitter users took a screenshot from the video of Frey staring out a window and turned it into a meme about looking at something longingly.
42. The Sad Then Happy Meme
Turn your frown upside down! This meme has Twitter users posting a sad face then, when they remember something good, they bounce back with a happy face. Simple, sweet, and sure to make you smile.
43. The Beyoncé Courtside Shade Meme
Beyoncé is the internet's favorite superstar, but that doesn't mean she's safe from getting meme-d. When she appeared courtside at an NBA game next to her husband, Jay-Z, Twitter users noticed her giving some serious side eye to a woman who was leaning over her to talk to him—and the meme machine took off.
44. The Tati Westbrook vs. James Charles Meme
The internet was taken by storm when drama exploded between YouTube beauty gurus Tati Westbrook and James Charles. Even if you have no idea what the difference between foundation and concealer is, you knew about this beef—and the resulting memes.
45. The Chris Evans with Nails Meme
Twitter found their newest meme victim in Captain America. Users have started photoshopping everything from acrylic nails to hoop earrings on to photos of Chris Evans. And, don't worry, Evans has seen the memes—and he loves them.
46. The Kacey Musgraves Fake Surprise Meme
When Kacey Musgraves won Album of the Year at the Grammys this year, it was something no one expected—not even Musgraves herself. However, her odd reaction to the announcement seemed to convey the exact opposite of being genuinely surprised. Twitter responded with the "fake surprise" meme, which can be used in any situation in which you have to pretend to be shocked.
47. The Third Wheel Meme
Queer Eye's Antoni Porowski went viral this year after a photo surfaced of him looking very uncomfortable while Pete Davidson and Kate Beckinsale made out next to him. The trio was spotted at a New York Rangers game, and Porowski gave us some serious third-wheel vibes that we can all relate to.
48. The "Not a Cell Phone in Sight" Meme
The "not a cell phone in sight" meme mocks those who harp on modern-day smartphone usage. One of the earliest uses of the meme included a photo of dinosaurs biting each others' tails—and it has only gotten more hilarious since.
49. The Avoiding Pinpoint Meme
Even when's there's clearly a correct path to take, many of us have a habit of not taking it. The "avoiding pinpoint" meme draws a map of two choices, where users will skip the right path and take the one wrong one.
50. The Lizzo Meme
Artist Lizzo has garnered massive online support for her feminist, self-love anthems. Her song "Truth Hurts" is no exception, as Twitter users have meme-d the song for the way it makes them feel.
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