The history of the most popular memes (2004-2019)

2004 - 2007
"Wild West" stage of the internet. The internet is still relatively new; most memes are either about A: a funny video, B: references to movies, games, or tv shows, or C: a shock video. Occasionally, there's some trolling. Memes more often than not last for years- sometimes memes from 2004 will pop back up 2 years later.
2007 - 2008
Midpoint between the "wild west" stage and the age of lolcats/"haha funny image". Memes become more focused on images in general, rather than videos. Shock videos, of course, still reign almost supreme.
2008
It's pretty safe to say that at this point, this was when 4chan had a significant influence over meme culture in general. Memes also in general start to become more "edgy".
2009-Early 2010
And this, ladies and gentlemen, is the beginning of the "rage comic" era of the internet. There's still some non-rage comic memes, but eventually the internet will be completely flooded with them.
Late 2010 - Early 2011
By this point, rage comics and advice animals have set a foothold on meme culture, at least the rage comics.
Nyan Cat
Okay, so- this isn't an era, but Nyan Cat's appearance pretty much signifies perfectly meme culture's eventual dominance by rage comics and the like. Funnily enough it was never the most popular meme throughout its entire run, which is interesting.
Mid 2011 - Early 2012
Probably the height of the "rage comic" era, but advice animals and 'caption memes' would remain pretty much dominant in meme culture for the next couple of years.
Harlem Shake
Again, not an era- but the appearance of Joji/Filthy Frank in this marks a turning point- a halfway between the edginess that's soon to come and the lighthearted, "haha funny".
Early 2013 - Late 2013
At this point, rage comics and advice animals in general are starting to lose their influence. They're still popular, but other memes- and other types of memes at that, are getting increasingly more popular. Meme culture at this point starts to become intertwined with pop culture as the internet develops from this "wild west" to this actual thing, you know- used by millions of people.
Early 2014 - Mid 2014
This, ladies and gentlemen, is the beginning of the 'edgy phase' of the internet. I have this theory, in a sense- that the "meme culture" of the internet is in this sort of... balance act, between edginess and "wholesomeness", ech. If too many memes over a long period of time are edgy, wholesome memes will take over. If too many memes over a long period time are wholesome... you get the idea. After a couple years of "wholesome" memes that were eventually getting stale as more and more people used them: the internet at this point was slowly waking up to the fact that memes didn't last as long as they did back in the day, when the internet only had a few hundred thousand users at most. Don't @ me on that, I don't know.
Mid 2014 - Early 2015
At this point, we are firmly in the 'edgy' phase of the internet, the 'counterculture' era, where xenophobia, misogyny, and homophobia were barely cloaked as "haha funny memes". Also "dank memes" but those didn't last long.
Early 2015
This is also the start of the "Vine phase" of the internet. It's exactly what you think it is.
Late 2015/Early 2016
We see a bit of a break in the edginess here. Edgy memes still exist- make no mistake about it, but they've gone down under for a bit.
Lenny Face
I don't need to explain.
Mid 2016 - Late 2016
With the 2016 elections underway and with a "conservative counter-cultural revolution", quite a bit of the memes pertain to the 2016 elections, and also just "owning libs!" in general.
Late 2016 - Mid 2017
This is the start of the "edit phase" of the internet. The top memes, usually speaking- were videos (often with music) that were edited around to be haha funny. Think "we are number one", "how bad can I be", "let it grow".
Mid 2017 - Late 2017
Here, my friends, is what some may consider to be the beginning "dark age" for meme culture. I explained previously that meme culture is in this "balance" between edge and wholesomeness. Guess what happens here. Things are going to get a lot worse.
Early 2018 - Early 2020
This is the beginning of the 'reddit age' for the internet. Memes at this point have degenerated so much that they only last for a month at the most. It's called 'the reddit age' because most of these memes one way or another were tied to reddit and were also basically unfunny reddit humor. The "edit phase" and this overlap for a few, but eventually the 'reddit age' takes over entirely. Remnants of the "dank meme" era- the surrealist memes, make a couple of appearances here and there.
Early 2020 - Mid 2020
And here we see the beginning of the "irony" phase of the internet, where memes at this point have become completely absurdist in their nature to the point of circling back around to being unironic. The trollface here sees a renaissance as people begin to use previously "wholesome" memes- the trollface less so, and put them in 'edgy' scenarios. Wacky, even!
2020 - Present
Memes are completely nonsensical at this point. Post-irony has become post-post irony. If you aren't caught up in meme culture you can't tell anything anymore.

Bonsai Kittens

My Favourite Meme Is Probably Doge

Shrek Was A Good Meme In 2004

R.I.P Doge 2010 I Think?-2023 You Will Be Missed But Never Forgotten

The Good Memes Started To Appear In 2010

I wanna see an updated version
did trollface actually come back full force??

R.I.P. Doge

2023: hood irony

The Dank Meme era was something else.

Bro cary going fire with these!!!

Man, as someone who has rewatched this during the July of 2023, i can imagine an updated version of this video that shows more memes past 2019, and seeing shit like Covid-19, Avengers: Endgame, FnF, Morbius, Glup Shitto, Joe Biden, Elsagate, COPPA, 3D Saul Goodman, Megamind “No B!tches?”, the Ukraine invasion, FNaF: Security Breach, Queen Elizabeth’s death, Disney remakes, Poppy’s Playtime, Changed, Pizza Tower, “Suck my Tongue”, Dall-E, the Chinese balloon shootdown, Elon Musk buying Twitter, the Reddit strike, Boykisser, Across the Spider-Verse, the Wagner Rebellion, Grimace Milkshake, the Titan submarine, AI SpongeBob, The Flash movie, Threads, Skibidi Toilet, and Barbenheimer just spike to the top one after another before sinking to the bottom again

What about "Subscribe to PewDiePie" meme

HELP

why did i see goatse, 2g1c, and instruction number 34 😭

Me gusta Jan 2010 - Aug 2014 😮😮😮😮

2023 CHATGPT

Who here remembers ballscrash, tootin bathtub baby cousins, and an experiment.

Bronies May 2011 - August 2015

Uhhhhh. Me gusta is created in March 2010, not January 2010, this popularity is wrong.

Where is the "roses are red, violets are blue" etc?

We need an update on this 🤑

2021 be like: AMOGUS!!! SUS AMOGUS!!! AAAAAJJJJJJJJ!!!!!

Boxxy forever !!!

bro lost £20k because we are number one XD

WHERE IS THE OH MY GAWD MEME?!??!!!?!?!?!?!?!?!

Shoutout To Anyone Who Lives In Jesusland

Virgin and Chad was never a top meme?

I snorted when I saw "Jesusland"

1996-2003 Geocities/Newgrounds Era
2004-2009 Classic/YTMND Era
2010-2012 Troll/Rage Era
2013-2016 Dank/MLG Era
2017-2019 Surreal/Ironic Era
2020-2022 Post-Ironic/21st century Era
2023- Post-Humor Era

Srsly pause every now and then, this is a joke

2023 update?

2022 status meme

Jelly time😪

How was MLG not on there?

Moment of respect for the Lenny Face, which never blew up in huge popularity, but still carved a niche for itself and stayed strong for multiple years. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
And a moment of silence for We Are Number One, which never became number one, they tried so hard.

2004: Jesusland
2005: 0 RLY?
2006: 0 RLY?
2007: Mr Hands
2008: Mr Hands
2009: Philosoraptor
2010: Jessi Slaughter
2011: My Little Pony
2012: Slender Man
2013: Doge
2014: Slender Man
2015: Lenny Face
2016: Dat Boi
2017: Cash Me Ousside
2018: Ugandan Knuckles
2019: Baby Yoda
2020: Coffin Dance and Always Has Been
2021: Ankha Zone
2022: Mr. Incredible Becoming Uncanny and NSFW Bowling Animations
2023: Ohio

I really hope someday that fun jokes and good times can come back again, I hope we can have good days again

Damn Daniel really was the start of everything huh

Get out of my room I’m playing Minecraft troll face was legendary

I thought the video froze then I rememebered this was made in 2019

Could go for an updated version

These memes aren't forgotten or dead, because they'll always live on as memories.

Wow. I now know I joined the internet in mid 2011.

Going through this I was like "Oh! I remember that being a big meme." I then looked at the date and was like "Oh! That was over 15 years ago? I'm getting old."

suprised that doge stayed alive for like a billion years

I love how much culture we've come to create and share over the medium of the internet...
We're like our own massive civilization of sorts
Which makes every company that's tried to use our memes and done a bad job at it has been the equivalent of the bri'ish museum