There are a lot of memes created every day. Most of them don’t take off and hit the “mainstream.” Or, I guess in this case, the equivalent of going viral on Twitter or Bluesky or whatever other website/social media that platforms memes.
But this summer in particular has been a hot bed of exciting news stories, world events, viral videos, and it all got turned into pure gold. Here are the best of the best, ranked in order of what I personally think is the funniest.
What narrowly missed this list? Sophie Cunningham pointing on the court during a WNBA game, and Xbox laying off 1600 employees. The Sophie pointing one is at least used below, in a fun mix of memes. It’s a great format.
If you disagree, too bad! Although we do take suggestions at our official account here. And if you’re also saying to yourself “the summer isn’t over,” please shut up nobody cares.
6. Bison and Snakes
Two videos hit the internet like an atomic bomb. One is of a wild bison tossing some jabroni into the air at Yellowstone, and the other is hundreds of snakes rafting down the river. The context for either of these? None. The jokes? Immaculate.
5. Train Dog
I have no idea where the original footage of the dog is from, but it being plastered onto the front of a train captured the internet’s imagination like nothing I’ve seen in quite some time. Shout outs to the people who rightfully yelled at all of the Generative AI versions because fuck LLMs and chatbots!
4. Bald George Costanza
I really wish I could rank this one higher, but this is a battle between my own personal taste, sense of humor, and bias vs. what the web seems to think is funnier. And as much as I LOVE the weird glow-ups people are doing with the main characters from “Seinfeld,” it is a meme stuck in time, that doesn’t evolve, and is just more of an etch-a-sketch on top of Jason Alexander. But it’s still one of my favs of the year so far.
3. Lindsey Graham
Senator Graham is dead. Good riddance. This meme making fun of him and his shitty life/politics got coupled with the rumors of Mitch McConnell’s death. The two go hand in hand, but we will get to Mitch next. For now, enjoy these fuckers slowly dying off because they are ghoulish evil forces of nature!
2. Mitch McConnell
Rumors have spread for weeks that McConnell either died, was on life support, was brain dead, or in a coma. And the meme du jour seemed to be “I talked to Mitch on the phone, and…” as the primary format. But then as of this writing he appeared again, seemingly alive, and more memes spread like wildfire. People haven’t been this pissed off since Sony announced it was abandoning physical media.
1. World Cup
What can I say that hasn’t already been said, or joked about? The World Cup has the entire planet’s attention, the games have been dramatic and compelling, there were underdogs we all rooted for (Cape Verde, Norway, Japan) and villains to boo (the US, Argentina, England, colonizers). But maybe the best sub-plot to emerge was the “Heated Rivalry” esque bro-mance that formed between ex-teammates Erling Haaland and Jude Bellingham. The memes of each nation’s fanbases have been going on since the beginning of June, but the hatred for VAR and the refs has only gotten more intense and more hilarious (and more rigged) as the tournament narrows to the final two teams.
haaland and jude bellingham
Image credit: The Government
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