Memes were once only for those who spent countless hours on the internet, and at one time were definitely not considered a “cool thing”. But that is no longer the case, as memes are no longer just apart of internet culture only, as some have found a way into our everyday lives. That is why today we will count down the internet memes and challenges we all fell victim to! You are probably already familiar with everything on this list, so keep track of how many you have participated in and let me know in the comments down below!
This challenge was to help spread awareness of the disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Many people also donated money to the research of this disease during the time of this challenge. So many people did this challenge. You had to dump a bucket of ice water over your head after you were challenged by someone else. Then you had to challenge three more people to do it. This challenge made over 5 times the amount for the funding of research for ALS than the year before. About 115 million dollars were donated to help with research! If that is not raising awareness then I do not know what is.
Hard to believe that flipping a water bottle took the country by storm a few years ago, but it really did. After the video of the kid flipping a bottle at his talent show, everyone had to see if it was hard to do. Everyone tried it at least once, but children specifically could not get enough of it. I remember my nephews throwing water bottles across the playroom literally all day long, and I am sure you may have had similar experiences.
Planking was the first time I remember my parents being aware of an internet trend. It was right around that time when memes and internet culture were making their way into mainstream media, and probably had the most participation of any modern-day memes. Everyone was laying down in some pretty wacky places to show off how much of a funny person they were. This one also takes the prize of being the first internet meme challenge I remember to kill someone… so yay!
(Never do anything that can literally kill you for a meme. It really is not worth the risk to get some dumb picture… it’s pretty wild I actually have to say this.)
This was the first real internet challenge I can remember taking off, and now almost every person has tried it. The goal is simple, swallow an entire spoonful of cinnamon and you win. It sounds easy to a n00b, but you will quickly learn it is impossible. Every person has tried to eat some cinnamon, and every YouTuber has a video of them trying it. Seriously, put “Cinnamon Challenge” in the youtube search bar and change the settings to “uploaded today”, and you will still see that people are still doing it!
The Harlem Shake was a strange time to be on the internet. We had all types of people joining in on the craze, from sports teams to bands, bars to airplanes, and virtually everywhere in between joining in on the fun. You play this song and have everyone standing in semi-normal positions for the first half, but when the beat drops everyone goes crazy. It was done to death and has no real place in modern culture, kind of like the guy who made it popular. The Harlem shake originated from the legendary Pink Guy. However, Pink Guy has since gone missing and no one has seen him in years, but we keep our hopes up that one day he will return.
“Spill the tea” is that new catchphrase the kids are saying that the grown-ups are confused as all hell about. Spilling the tea means you are gossiping or telling the truth about someone. Spill the tea is said to have begun on RuPaul’s drag race, but didn’t really take off until a few memes with Kermit the Frog drinking some Lipton tea, and those annoying “here’s, the motherfucking, tea” vines that I always hated. Now, “tea” is a commonly used term by all types of people, for those times when you just got to spill the motherfucking tea!
Rickrolling has had the longest life span of any meme. For those of you who are not aware of rickrolling, how did you find this page? In a nutshell, rickrolling is the act of tricking someone into clicking on a link believing it is leading to something else, only to see the music video to Rick Astleys “Never Gonna Give You Up”. It was around before internet meme culture took off, and I predict will still be around in a few years. Now if you want to know what memes were like in the early stages of the internet? Look up duck roll, considered to be the earliest version of a rickroll.
Spongebob has become the most memed television show, and it makes sense if you think about it. There is a SpongeBob quote for every situation, so it would only make sense to have a meme for every situation. It is too hard to pick a specific SpongeBob meme, but for the sake of list-making, I will choose the mocking SpongeBob meme. This meme is meant to mock a statement by repeating it verbatim, but switching between capital and lower case letters. Now, this is done simply with just the text and no Spongebob. This started in the proper meme format but has since become a common way people mock others online. “YoU sHoUlD NoT mOcK oThErS,” said a nerd somewhere probably.
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