If you’re addicted to the internet as much as I am, you’ve come across your fair share of memes. In the following video, you’ll see which meme was popular the most in which year of the last decade.

But let’s take a step back and start by explaining the term “meme”, for those of you, who are not as addicted to the internet as we are (which is good for you!) Before we head into the clip showing us the Most Popular Memes of the Decade:

This is what Wikipedia has to say about the term “meme”:

An Internet meme, more commonly known simply as a meme (/miːm/ MEEM), is a type of meme which is spread—often through social media platforms—via the Internet. Colloquially, the term may also refer specifically to pieces of media that take the general format of such memes, traditionally but not exclusively combining image macros with a concept or catchphrase. These traditional types of memes can be very simplistic, often featuring a single word or phrase. In some cases, these words and phrases contain intentional misspellings (such as locates) or incorrect grammar (such as doge and “All your base are belong to us”). However, in more recent times, memes have evolved from simple image macros with text to more elaborate things such as challenges, GIFs and viral sensations.

Now that we got this covered let’s take a look at the video and the usage statistics:

Covering and explaining all the memes in this video would make this article 100 pages long. If you’re familiar with memes, you probably recognized some of them.

Let’s take a closer look at some of the most famous ones.

The Most Popular Memes

Let’s start in the year 2010. With Hollywood actor Keanu Reeves.

Sad Keanu (2010)

In early 2010 paparazzi snapped a picture of Keanu sitting on a bench with a sandwich, looking depressed.

Sad Keanu meme - most popular meme of the decade

Sympathy for the million-dollar actor spread virally across Reddit and other platforms.

The collective hivemind decided that the age of Chuck Norris memes was over, Keanu Reeves deserved our love. 

Different Sad Keanu meme

Doge (2013)

Throughout your time online you’ve probably come across Doge, a Japanese Shiba Inu (named Kabosu) with a very particular look on his face; a weird mix of judgment/fear and derision.

famous doge meme most popular meme of the decade

Doge began as a series of Tumblr macros featuring the Doge’s internal monologue in the internet’s favorite font (comic sans), an internal monologue in broken English which was emphasized by the words much, very, so, such, wow.

#TheDress/What Colour Is This Dress? (2015) 

dress meme - most popular meme of the decade

This one caught me a bit off-guard as I looked at the picture, saw the color and couldn’t understand what the huge fuss was all about.

In 2015 there were only two kinds of people: those who saw this dress as #BlackandBlue, and those who swore it was #WhiteandGold.

TLDR; If you look at the dress your brain assumes the lighting is white, the dress appears blue and black. But if your brain assumes lighting closer to blue, the dress appears white and gold.

If you want to learn more about memes, there’s one place on the internet that is like the official Wikipedia of memes. It’s the website called KnowYourMeme. They are also the creative people behind this cool “Most Popular Memes of the Decade” video!