The Top Feel-Good Viral Moments of 2018

2018: It’s over! That’s the nicest thing we can say about it, truly, but there are always the best memes, right? Particularly there were a few feel-good viral moments, at least, that bear revisiting. It’s easy to name the very bad, very horrible things that happened say, in terms of our current president, or some awful, many now-disgraced powerful men (or the fact that most of them are still pretty fine), or our swiftly warming planet. We should definitely dwell on those, but in a break from the introspection, here’s a list of the mostly nice, sometimes even heartwarming top feel-good viral moments of 2018, from Gritty to Beychella. Because when it comes to best memes, when we were all talking about the same thing, for once it didn’t suck!

Walmart Yodeling Boy

This meme has perhaps since curdled into sponsored content territory now that the Yodeling Kid has a new single, but, at first, in March, the footage of a lone boy yodeling very well (albeit nervously) to an old woman in a Walmart was sweet and pure. We eventually learned it was 12-year-old Mason Ramsey performing for customers (as lore says, his grandmother) at a Walmart in Harrisburg, Illinois. It spawned some excellent memes of its own and catapulted Ramsey to yodel stardom (and a recent Interview profile, as Andy Warhol intended).

Beychella

Beyoncé poked the Beyhive forever with her epic Coachella performance in April, prompting the festival’s new name, Beychella. From the Destiny’s Child reunion that took place onstage to Bey’s mid-show manicure change, she brought the house down, and produced some of the most share clips and memes of the year. We wouldn’t object to Coachella continuing forever as Beychella.

Meghan Markle and Prince Harry at the Royal Wedding

It’s hard to pick only one moment from the Royal Wedding to end all royal weddings (sorry previous royal weddings). There was the choir, the teenage cellist, the sermon, everything about Doria Ragland. But during the actual vows, Meghan Markle and Prince Harry exchanged some glances and words during the live telecast that made us all collectively freak out at 5:00 in the morning. On Harry’s side, there was the lip bite heard round the world; on Meghan’s, it was an angelic smile with just a hint of what we would come to call BDE, as he told her, in front of the universe, “I’m so lucky.” When everyone at home caught few moments—and turned them into memes, obviously—it was truly magical.

MPR Raccoon

The first animal to make the list, this little star of herstory was not only incredible to watch as she scaled a public radio tower in Minneapolis in June, but also a bit of light feminism humor for those of us slightly beleaguered by pervasive she-persisted-type marketing. The fact that not only was the little creature, who was eventually rescued, incredibly brave as she climbed, but she was an (likely) underestimated girl raccoon sticking it to the men in her life (in our fictional world where raccoons have gender politics), and, of course, that her journey had a happy ending meant we were all happy to be on Twitter that day.

“In My Feelings” Challenge

Perhaps it veered into oversaturation territory, but the Shiggy-crafted, Drake-inspired dance routine set to his “In My Feelings” song was just so damn infectious that we didn’t notice. Will Smith tried it in a daredevil locale, Dua Lipa did it while looking incredibly chic, whole sports teams tried it, and it had everyone on the planet, seemingly, begging to know à la Drizzy, “Kiki, do you love me?”

Big Cow/Hot Duck

We’re pairing these two viral animal memes because they go so handsomely (pun intended) together. First, the Mandarin duck in Central Park took the Internet’s collective breath away, with its beautiful opulent feathers and colors. Then, the large adult cow—an Australian steer, technically—that was simply too big for auction made the rounds. Its name was Knickers, and everyone we knew sympathizing with its plight of being different and doing its thing. Animal memes are vital to online health because, yes, they can be employed to discuss the latest political conflagration, but they are also wholesome and good.

Gritty

From the Philadelphia Flyers hockey team home stadium to the cover of Artforum, Gritty has had the biggest year of any perfect viral meme, considering how much his homespun scruffiness, garbage aesthetics, gender-eschewing anti-capitalist sentiments spoke to our current times. There’s nothing like watching Gritty Miley Cyrus himself into the rink and decry the scourge of fascism. Styled like the Babadook meets Animal from The Muppets, Gritty made us believe that things can be good again.