The 2010s have bought years of new trends and shows that will long outlive the decade, their impacts changing how people talked and acted. One of the uncanny trends would be meme culture. Meme culture on the internet has shown, over the years, just how much humor has changed. From clever puns to stupid pictures to meta (and almost ominous) jokes, let’s see the most memorable memes from this decade.

Early 2010s:

The early 2010s were what started turning meme culture into what it is today. It started out with weird reaction pictures with a bold caption, exactly what we’d define today as ‘boomer memes’. Sometimes there was a catchy (or annoying) song that caught the internet’s attention, like Minecraft song parodies (why cant i remember this), one of Tobuscus’ weird songs, or, my personal favorite, Nyan Cat.  

Mid 2010s:

The mid-2010s, like everything else in the middle, was an odd transitioning phase. This was where the actual jokes started turning into something of an entirely different breed. Here we have the infamous MLG twist on things, with overbearing colors and airhorns and so many things moving at once that it could put a carnival ride to shame. In the later years of the mid-2010s came Kermit and Shrek memes, ones that still haven’t died out somehow. Vine was also in its early stages, laying down the framework for a boom of popularity. That boom has ensured that the younger generations can speak solely in vines, creating a language of our own.

Late 2010s:

The late 2010s is where memes turned as cryptic and as meta as they could possibly be. It got to the point where things that were funny were only things that were built up over the years. Reaction images and weird characters and scenarios got more popular in this phase with the characters like the Yeast of Thoughts and Mind (please don’t ask me how to spell its name) and Ugandan Knuckles. Cursed images, pictures that are so weird and unsettling that they trigger a fight or flight response on sight, also grew in popularity during the late 2010s. 

Now, you may have noticed that I have forgotten the most influential game of the 2010s – Minecraft. While Minecraft had many, many memes and song parodies made of it, it just can’t be categorized. There have been so many memes spanning so many years it’s thrown into the same category as Spongebob memes- timeless.