A meme is not just a funny picture, it is a cultural code and an integral part of the digital world. In the last 10 years, active Internet users have created thousands of “masterpieces” that we “shout” every day. Like everything in this world, memes have real heroes and even backstory. In our material, we tell what lies behind the most popular memes of different years.
“SHTA” (2010)
One of the most popular memes that came out 11 years ago. The basis for its creation was a photograph of an old woman with an unusual expression and open mouth. By the way, for a long time it was unknown who is depicted in the picture, until 2014, one of the 4chan users stated that he found the grandmother from the breast. She died in 2016.
“Guf is dead” (2011)
In January 2011, a rumor appeared on the Web that Alexei Dolmatov (real name Guf) died in a terrorist attack at Domodedovo Airport. The information spread so quickly that the rumor turned into a meme after the backlash. He was associated with the deceased brother and the living Tsoi. By the way, in 2012 rapper Basta released a feature with “Guf is dead”.
“So You Can’t Accept” (2012)
In the first chapter of the Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring trilogy, which came out 20 years ago, the character Elrond uses the phrase: “You can’t just take Mordor and enter.” The first pictures began to appear in 2004, and in 2012 the meme was finally formed. The original users of the network began to add any ending that was appropriate in meaning. By the way, last year the director of the film admitted that the words for this scene were rewritten the day before the shooting, so the actor was constantly looking at the text.
“Are you sure?” (2017)
The illustration of this meme was created in 1987 by Italian artist Milo Manaro for the erotic comic Big Adventure: HP and Giuseppe Bergman. In the mid-10s, the picture hit Pinterest and then moved to Twitter. On Runet, the picture was spread through Peekaboo in 2017, where it was captioned “Are you sure…”.
“It’s a fiasco bro” (2017)
This meme came about after the owner of a Shiba Inu named Steve uploaded an old video online of his dog falling into the river. At the moment of the fall, the landlord shouts: “This is a fiasco, brother.” This phrase went viral and Runet users began to use it to denote various situations in life when something was not as expected.
“Below” (2017)
It seems that everyone remembers the scandal with Diana Shurygina (even those who are far from the program “Let them talk”). On the show, the girl said that she drank vodka the night of the incident and when asked about the amount, she replied “Below”. This phrase was picked up by resourceful netizens and turned into a meme from it.
“Easy-Easy Reel Talk” (2017)
This meme appeared after the legendary release of “Versus” with Purulent and Oksimiron. During the war, Oxy uttered the words: “Easy-easy, ryltok, bat about it” (English Easy-easy, Real talk, Think about it), and they immediately became a meme. Then Purulent parodied his opponent several times, repeating this phrase, and with him millions of Internet users (including us).
Zhdun (2017)
In 2016, Dutch artist Margriet van Brevoort created a Homunculus loxodontus sculpture for Leiden University. And a year later, someone posted an image on Peekaboo, users called an incomprehensible creature with the head of the sea elephant Zhdun, making it a symbol of waiting for everything in the world.
“How did you find this, Elon Musk?” (end of 2017 – beginning of 2018)
This phrase appeared on the Web after the launch of the space convertible Tesla. Then our compatriots began to jokingly think that Russian inventions could compete with the developments of Elon Musk. Many said that the author of this statement, mocking the news on Twitter that scientists from Novosibirsk learned to smoke herring in a collider, and “How did you find this, Elon Musk?” The blogger who wrote it believes it’s Stalingulag.
Quentin Tarantino in Moscow (2019)
In the summer of 2019, the Hollywood director Once Upon a Time in… came to Moscow for the Hollywood premiere and immediately became a meme. You’ve probably seen pictures of Tarantino “glued” to Soviet interiors on the Web, or Twitter posts like “find yourself someone to look at the way Medinsky looked at Quentin Tarantino”.
Stones (2019)
Memes with funny little guys have been floating around the internet since 2013. The first picture appeared in one of the American peoples, and the character was called “Mem Men”. In 2016, the group “Special Fresh Memes” released an image of a jacket Memes standing in the background of the market for the exchange rate of various currencies, and also signed Stonks. However, the meme reached the peak of its popularity by 2020, when witty users found several dozen Stone variations. With the help of this meme, people make fun of various situations, for example, when instead of a Russian word they say in English – “British woman”.
“Good job, Oleg” (2020)
In 2016, Kizaru released the album Mas Fuerte, which included the track “Rashan Most Wanted”. In the first 30 seconds, the song “Mumiy Troll” sounds – “Flow”, and then the rapper sings the phrase: “Good job, Oleg.” Four years later, a video appeared on YouTube of a teenager dancing with a mask, then jumping over a computer chair and being knocked over and broken. All this is accompanied by Kizaru’s song and the words “Good job, Oleg”. The video immediately became a meme, and many still do not know that the author of the phrase is actually Kizaru.
“Well, it’s okay, Chau Chau Chau Chau” (2020)
Another meme that we can’t imagine 2020 without. Whenever we said “okay, it’s okay” we always added: “Chaow Chau Chau Chau.” On July 19, Kyiv “rapper” Zipulya posted his new song on the Web, about the summer in which these lines sounded. As a result, its popularity began to skyrocket.
“Natasha’s cats” (2020)
The main meme of 2020 is impossible to imagine the spring quarantine without it. Then the whole Internet was “caught” with pictures of cats looking down at the camera, waking the stewardess and telling her the latest news. But it all started at the end of 2019, in the public “Catism”, where the directors published small comics with these animals. And Natasha is not a concrete person, but an abstract character.
“Jock Dog and Chims” (2020)
This meme has a whole background. In 2013, a photo of a Shiba Inu dog named Kabosu appeared on the Web, and users added funny captions in Comic Sans MS font. The meme became so popular that it ranked 12th on MTV’s “50 Things We Should Thank Him for Pop Culture” and became the face of cryptocurrency. And in 2017, another picture of a scared dog nicknamed “Chims” gained popularity on the Web. They were merged in 2020 and this is how the “Kachok Doge and Chims” meme came about, which is still used when comparing the same phenomenon in the past and present.
Source: People Talk
