The Best Memes of 2019 Paint a Hilarious Portrait of Our Unhealthy Times

From Esquire

Here’s the thing: the internet is a bad place. This is, simply, indisputable. But there’s also good pockets to be found. That’s where memes come in. While online culture seems to become more and more toxic each year, it’s meme culture that really makes Logging On totally worth it. The year 2019 swept in and brought us some beloved and quickly forgotten jokes, trends, and meme templates.

Remember Marie Kondo and sparks of joy? That happened this year. And how did we make it this long without roundhouse kicking a bottle cap off a Coke while filming it? Lunch tables, avenging the fallen, the proud return of Jonathan Frakes: all of this is because all of you got bored and brought it to life online this year. So let’s gather ‘round and remember what we do best: piss away time online in hopes of making people laugh. We've rounded up the best of the crop because if anything is an unsettlingly accurate portrait of our times, it's probably the memes we produce.

Gonna Tell My Kids…

It’s as simple as… well, just getting it wrong. Started in September as a way to make fun of Justin Trudeau’s blackface controversy, the “Gonna tell my kids…” meme only requires you to choose someone like Jesus. And then post a photo of, say, Jared Leto instead. A rare find in the meme world, “Gonna tell my kids…” can simply be a joke, or it can make a statement in the same way its origin post does.

Baby Yoda

A late entry, Baby Yoda took the meme circuit by storm this year. A sweet alien angel who’s just here to look adorable and sip on soup, Baby Yoda is pure and a current reigning champ of the internet. He’s less of one singular meme and instead the perfect fodder for multiple templates. Perhaps you just want Baby Yoda in his egg cradle. There’s a meme for that. Or maybe you need him sipping soup (of course you do). That one’s around, too.

Lunch Table Memes

There are some people who say “high school never ends.” In the context of this meme, it means they’d be sitting at the “annoying table.” The lunch table meme is one of the most easily customizable of 2019’s memes, breaking lunch tables down into categories and then asking people to choose their seat. The creativity is really up to the meme maker on this one, but that one JPG of lunch tables appeared all over social media for a few weeks this summer. Everything from “choose your favorite emo band” to “bottled water preference” appeared before the lunch table meme was replaced.

Wife Guy

The wife guy meme is a strange one, and it seemed to appear out of nowhere even though the legend of the wife guy has definitely been around for ages. A wife guy is someone who becomes internet famous for something his wife has done. Remember that one guy who posts about how much he loves his “curvy wife?” That’s a wife guy. The guys who posted that video of his wife “falling off a cliff?” Also a wife guy. The trend was hilarious enough that multiple outlets reported on the rising up of the wife guy, and for the record—being the wife guy is not the goal.

Sorry to This Man

In a perfectly innocuous interview with Vanity Fair, Keke Palmer only had to be herself to launch one of 2019's newest memes. "Sorry to This Man" can be used in a few different ways. Sure, you can drag someone who is but just a memory to you. Or you can do an old fashioned (New Testament) throwback. It's perfect, either way.

30 to 50 Feral Hogs

This might be the only meme in existence to stem from... gun violence? After singer-songwriter Jason Isbell tweeted that we should all be working toward a resolution to America's gun violence problem, a man responded asking how he should deal with the "30 to 50 feral hogs that run into my yard within 3-5 mins while my small kids play?" Twitter took it by storm and launched it into a full fledged meme, proving that the internet comes through every once in a while.

You Were at My Wedding Denise

Only Meghan McCain can stumble backwards into a meme. Responding to conservative journalist (and apparent wedding guest?) Denise McAllister, McCain thought she was getting the last word with the response, "You were at my wedding Denise..." The internet picked it up quickly and turned it into a mock retort to every situation imaginable. Crossing the aisle to make Meghan McCain into a meme is called making America truly great.

Area 51

It all started with one bogus Facebook event (that also might have been an attempt to launch a Fyre Festival-esque event a military base? We'll never know.) From there, the lines were immediately blurred as to whether people were actually going to storm Area 51 or if it was all a joke. But it turned into hilarious memes that continued well after the event was a bust.

The Bird Box Challenge

Bird Box came out at the end of last year, but its influence lives on in meme form. The gist of this "challenge" is people attempt to do various tasks with said blindfold on. It got bad enough that Netflix had to put out a statement asking people to stop.

Adam Levine's Super Bowl Shirt

This meme didn't end up being as good as the Justin Timberlake texting kid from last year, but then again, Maroon 5 wasn't as good as Justin Timberlake was last year. What we did learn though is that we all have very similar pillows in our homes, and Adam Levine has apparently stolen one and turned it into a shirt.

Marie Kondo

The Japanese organization specialist sparked all kinds of joy when her series hit Netflix. All about organizing, prioritizing the clutter in your life, and only keeping what "sparks joy," the Internet reacted accordingly and came up with a slew of memes.

AOC Dancing

When video surfaced of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez dancing in college, the GOP thought they'd found some real dirt on her. Turns out, though, everyone loved her dancing. And AOC's adorable dancing swept through the Internet, bringing joy in a way that we're not quite used to seeing when it comes to politics.

Shen Yun

Everyone has seen the Shen Yun Dance Tour ads. No one knows exactly what it is or if anyone has ever gone to an actual performance. But in 2019, it's emerged as a hilarious meme: an homage to arguably the most effective and ineffective marketing campaign of all time.

Nancy Pelosi Clap

The perfect golf clap heard 'round the Internet. Pelosi's Petty Clap is pettiness personified and best utilized when you're expressing absolute unimpressed congratulations. It can also be used simply for acknowledging Pelosi deploying the essence of Lucille Bluth.

Intimate Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga

As soon as they touched faces, A Meme Was Born (2019). Internet users quickly pasted some text over Gaga and Cooper's to meme-ify the moment. An example? Pizza over Gaga's face. Me, over Cooper's. Boom, you have it.

Momo

She is the face that caused widespread panic amongst parents as rumors spread that children were attempting suicide by looking at this horrifying chicken/woman hybrid. The media dubbed it the "Momo Challenge", which was really just a hoax.

Aunt Becky

The downfall of Lori Loughlin in the great College Admissions Scandal of 2019 has been one of those weird news stories that could only have been made in the Mad Libs that is our modern times. Bad news for Aunt Becky, but good news for basement-dwelling comedians waiting to make memes out of it.

Avenge the Fallen

When Avengers: End Game came out with a whole set of posters to tease the movie, it revealed who lived and who died at the end of Infinity War. Naturally, the Internet turned the treatment into a meme itself, applying it to all the fallen they've seen throughout pop culture history.

Meryl Streep Scream

Meryl Streep was always going to steal the show on Big Little Lies, but no one would have guessed it would have been with a scream that nearly shattered a million TV screens. Use it when you're at your wits end because no scream sends a message like Meryl's.

...and it shows

Proving that the internet can make anything out of nothing at all, "...and it shows" is one of those memes that doesn't rely on any particular moment in time, meaning it will probably stick around for the ages.

The Stark Family Trio

I mean, it's Sophie Turner JUULing like a boss. It's simply iconic photography.

Jonathan Frakes asking questions

Star Trek's Jonathan Frakes gives us one of the year's weirdest, most hilarious memes with a simple super cut of him asking questions. Apply it to any and all situations: the stranger the better.

Bottle Cap Challenge

Often attempted, rarely achieved, the Bottle Cap Challenge is the insane feat of uncapping a bottle with a roundhouse kick alone. John Mayer and Jason Statham managed it. Mariah Carey somehow did it with her whistle note. And one of the Jenner girls did it on a ski doo. The choice is yours.

Someone Like You via Gummy Bears

With all the memes out there this year, it's hard to find one more hilariously perfect than this one. And all those gummy bears? Good God. This is the kind of dedication all memes should require, because if you've put in that amount of time, you know you're committed.

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