A lot happened in the internet in 2011. This was a big year for meme,as the internet was literally ruled by them, and some even started to crossover into the mainstream media. Rebecca Black became a superstar, advice animals were everywhere, Occupy Wall Street, Charlie Sheen, planking with all its derivatives were invading our eyes and ears. Prepare yourself for a quick flashback and have a look at some of the most popular, hilarious and memorable memes from the biggest meme year in internet history so far: 2011.
We'll start with Karate Kyle, just to warm up the hearts of all those poor geeks who have been molested in their high school. Karate Kyle is a symbol of retaliation for all of them. Those bullies will think twice before picking up on some poor nerd.
Awww... Isn't he just adorable so upset, in that little tuxedo, pointing his chubby little finger down and giving blunt orders filled with anger and threats to some unseen member of his mob crew?
The third picture with Obama having a "not bad" face expression was taken on May 24, 2011, when they were visiting the Queen of England at Buckingham Palace. It soon became insanely popular and was even turned into a comic. Then it was posted under images depicting all sorts of inappropriate situations, when the last thing you would expect to hear from the president and his first lady is "not bad"!
In an image that has in many ways become emblematic of the "Occupy Wall Street" movement, a police officer named Lt. John Pike was snapped blithely spraying pepper spray directly into the faces of student protesters at UC Davis. The incident occurred on November 18th, and within days, the photo was everywhere online, with Pike and his pepper spray being placed into a variety of different settings.
While the whole pepper spray cop was at it's peak, a sub-meme emerged when Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly said that pepper spray is essentially a food product. The result was galore of meme showing her picture with captions casually dismissing other abusive or violent behavior:
Here you can see an African child that is insanely happy about something and is dancing and celebrating some small victory. That immediately made us wonder what could possibly he be happy for? And of course, the most morbid ideas came to our mind, like the one above, for example.
The best taxidermist alive, Chick Testa, fools many people into believe that his stuffed animals are alive, driveing cars, etc. People simply loved this low-cost ad, and it went viral and became ridiculously popular.
It wasn't long until the first parody of Testa appeared on Reddit, and introduced the now-familiar formula: A photo in which someone or something appeared to be alive, but was then revealed to be manipulated by Chuck Testa.
When Bill O'Reilly recently spoke with David Silverman, the man who calls himself the President of American Atheists, he made one of the biggest gaffes he's ever spoken, and it caused so much ridicule that an entire meme came out of it.
O'Reilly: "I'll tell you why [religion is] not a scam, in my opinion," he told Silverman. "Tide goes in, tide goes out. Never a miscommunication. You can't explain that. You can't explain why the tide goes in."
Putting thousands or years of work from astronomers, oceanographers, and scientists to shame, O'Reilly throws his insight into the mix, claiming the existence of God to be proven through the inexplicable nature of the tides of the ocean.
This meme features a picture of a man named Jason Li wearing a Vancouver Canucks shirt, holding a hockey stick, in front of the shattered windows of a BMO Financial Group building. The picture was taken after the 7th game of the 2011 Stanley Cup Finals where the Boston Bruins defeated the Canucks 4-0, making the Bruins the victors of the series. Angry Vancouver fans then rioted in the streets.
The Zuckerberg Note Pass is a series of screenshots taken from the 2010 film The Social Network, in which Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg opens a note that was passed to him by a girl in class. The first panel is of thegirl looking at him in disgust, the second is the note, the final is Zuckerberg's (as played by Jesse Eisenberg in the film) reaction. Like this:
It all started with Scumbag Steve, but then it had so many different variations, it feels like it's been around for years. Blake Boston, a white guy rapper had a picture of himself that his mom took of him poking through a door. He was helping his mom with an art project for a class she was taking. In the picture, he looks like he's about to ask for a favor, and once Reddit got a hold of it (well, mainly /r/Trees, Reddit's leading Marijuana section and /r/AdviceAnimals, a section that became HUGE this year) they just kinda went nuts with the picture.
But who is Scumbag Steve?Scumbag Steve (not Blake Boston, the guy from the original image, but Scumbag Steve) is that guy we all knew in High School (or unfortunately know in "real life") who was the biggest inconsiderate, ignorant, egotistical, idiotic, mooching, freeloading, all-talk-no-walk, would-ruin-at-least-one-thing-at-parties tough guy who looked exactly like Blake Boston.
So many of us know someone so unreliable, and downright horrible, though, that after the Scumbag Steve was huge, the hat he's wearing in the picture started being put onto foreign objects which, then, would become scumbags themselves.
A number of new "advice animal"-style memes appeared in 2011, all of them referencing the common, shared experiences of students. Some focused on stereotypes or typical behavior of fellow students, while others took direct aim at educations, critiquing the job performance or irritating habits of teachers. (Many of these refer back to themes common in all the "Scumbag Memes" discussed elsewhere on this list.) Here's just a sample of some of these student or teacher-based image macros:
A sibling of the "College Freshman" meme, these images feature what appears to be a happy, smiling new female college student. The captions reflect and mock her lack of experience in the adult world, particularly as concerns sex and dating.
The photo - with its unfortunately relateable depiction of a girlfriend/wife feeling ignored in favor of the computer - first started making the Internet rounds back in the Spring of 2011.
This is actually a hipster mermaid Ariel, which is a sub-meme for the whole hipster meme group. Obviously, the whole last year, we were making fun of hipsters.
I simply love this one. The oblivious suburban mom is so hot, yet not aware of it, her teenage son's friends are drooling all over her and calling her MILF, and she of course has no idea what that means, but thinks they are really friendly. She keeps wondering how come each day after her kids go to a party a flu strikes, and they spend the whole next day puking and simply can't figure out why her son hides his plants and flowers in his room.
Grandma finds internet or Internet Grandma Surprise, or sometimes just “grandma memeâ€, is an image macro series featuring an elderly woman looking at a laptop computer screen surprised by what she finds on the internet. The overlaid text generally centers around reactions to questionable internet content, several of which imply she is looking at various shock sites.
PTSD Clarinet Boy is an image macro series based on a photo of a redheaded boy in music band uniform holding a clarinet. Superimposed onto the back of his head, the image of the uniformed boy gazing afar gives an impression that the boy is thinking about the past, hence the captions typically emulate the first-person accounts of a war veteran suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
Ordinary Muslim Man is an advice animal image macro series featuring a smiling man wearing a Muslim taqiyah hat. The images are typically accompanied by bait-and switch captions with an initial statement that can be perceived as anti-American, followed by a phrase the renders the statement innocuous.
Since 2011 was so crazy when it comes to meme and internet crazy trends, it is impossible to address them all here. I hope you've enjoyed this 23 most popular meme in this internet obsessed year. In the introduction I've mentioned Charlie Sheen, Rebecca Black and berserk concern with planking, owling, stocking and other internet crazes, but unfortunately, we didn't manage to squeeze all that in one article. Hopefully you'll keep reading stuff on artsyspot. To be continued...
written by: Sanela Todjeras
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