"2012 will forever be known as the year the meme went mega-mainstream," declares Dave Stopera at BuzzFeed. As the internet becomes an increasingly integral part of our lives, these silly meditations on everything from political gaffes to orthodontic retainers
have claimed a serious hold on our attention. Here, a look at 11 of the
best memes from the past year, in rough chronological order:
1. Etch A SketchGOP
presidential candidate Mitt Romney has one of his top aides to thank for
uttering the words that would secure his place in memedom. When asked
how the Romney campaign could succeed after moving so far right in the
primaries, aide Eric Fehrnstrom told CNN
that Romney was "like an Etch A Sketch. You kind of shake it up and
restart all over again." The comment went viral, and was immortalized
with the help of websites like etchasketchmittromney.com.
2. Angelina Jolie's legWhile the 2012 Oscars lost viewers over previous years' telecasts, Angelina Jolie made sure that those who were watching got a good look at her shining white leg, which she insistently thrust
through her black dress' dramatic slit in what seemed like a strange
bid for attention. Naturally, the internet took to photoshopping Angie's
leg into nearly everything.
3. ErmahgerdWhat started as a funny photo on Reddit of an awkward teenager with orthodontics excitedly displaying her Goosebumps books quickly became inescapable on the internet. The image's first caption,
which read "Gerseberms / Mah fravrit berks," opened the floodgates,
ultimately creating "a language game akin to Pig Latin or Verlan," says The Economist.
4. Texts from HillaryAfter a photo of Hillary Clinton wearing sunglasses and checking her cellphone went viral, two D.C. PR professionals created Texts From Hillary,
a blog that juxtaposed the photo with shots of other famous people
texting, accompanied by witty captions in which "Hillary" tersely rains
on various parades.
5. "Call Me Maybe"
The
infectious song of the summer began its rush to ubiquity after Justin
Bieber tweeted that it was the "catchiest" song he'd ever heard and
proceeded to upload a lib-dub video of him and his friends dancing to it
to YouTube. Countless YouTube parodies and shameless sing-a-longs later, the rest is history.
6. McKayla Maroney is not impressed
The star gymnast was the favorite to win gold in the vault competition during the 2012 London Olympics, but a surprise fall left her with a silver medal. The photo of her looking less-than-pleased on the podium — duly inserted into countless other scenarios — was basically a gift from the Internet Gods.
The star gymnast was the favorite to win gold in the vault competition during the 2012 London Olympics, but a surprise fall left her with a silver medal. The photo of her looking less-than-pleased on the podium — duly inserted into countless other scenarios — was basically a gift from the Internet Gods.
7. The botched frescoAn elderly Spanish woman was just trying to help when she decided to take on the restoration of a centuries-old Ecce Homo fresco. Her amateur brushwork prompted
snickers from around the web, and many began photoshopping the sub-par
restoration of Jesus' likeness into a variety of scenes.
8. Big BirdIn the
first of two meme-able debate comments, Mitt Romney suggested during the
first presidential showdown that if he became president, he would cut
funding to educational television channel PBS to reduce the deficit.
"I'm going to stop other things," he said.
"I like PBS, I love Big Bird… but I'm not going to keep on spending
money on things to borrow money from China to pay for [it]." Sesame Street fans everywhere were immediately up in arms.
9. Binders full of womenDuring the second
presidential debate, Mitt Romney attempted to explain how his company
had taken pains to hire women. "I went to a number of women's groups and
said, 'Can you help us find folks,' and they brought us whole binders
full of women," the GOP nominee said. Before the debate ended, @Romneysbinder Twitter handles and a "Binders Full of Women" Tumblr hit the internet to poke fun at his all-too-easy-to-take-literally gaffe.
10. Drunk Nate SilverThe New York Times' statistical prognosticator Nate Silver caught a lot of flak
from Republican commentators during the campaign for pushing his
in-depth poll analyses with extreme confidence. But once the results
came in, Silver got the last laugh, having correctly predicted how all 50 states would vote. Silver's astounding accuracy unleashed a barrage of Twitter jokes that roasted him as a soothsayer of all sorts of odds.
Drunk Nate Silver is riding the subway, telling strangers the day they will die
No post on memes would be complete without a cat-humor palate-cleanser, and this profoundly sad-looking cat does the trick.
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