2024 has had no shortage of incredible memes and viral moments. In fact, it's hard to believe that iconic bits such as the Willy Wonka experience and "This is going to ruin the tour" happened in the same calendar year as Elon Musk hopping around a rally stage and the internet going wild for a hot alleged assassin.
But even as we put this year to rest and move on to 2025, we know that some of these viral delights will continue. And some others...well, we won't be too sad to see them go.
January 2024
Dune: Part Two was a beloved cinematic experience for many fans of Timothée Chalamet, but will its legacy outlive that of its popcorn bucket? The creative design of this movie theater keepsake was intended to resemble the film's sandworms, but the puckered hole from which one was meant to retrieve popcorn called up thoughts of a very different nature. And the internet can never resist a good unintentionally NSFW meme.
February 2024
When children showed up to the immersive event in Glasgow, it differed so greatly from the AI-generated promotional images in such a tragic way that the whole internet couldn't look away. There was so much meme-able content from this train wreck, but no image will ever evoke the memory of that time better than the poor Oompa Loompa who looked like she'd stumbled into a Breaking Bad crossover.
March 2024
One of 2023's favorite memes, the TikTok Rizz Party (not to be confused with The Rizzler), had new life breathed into it after a group of teen boys went viral for scream-singing along to Kanye West's "Carnival" at a party. From there, we got off-shoot memes of two of the boys themselves, known to the internet as Turkish Quandale Dingle and Blue Tie Kid. The imaginary lore ran deep here, and it's one of those things where, some day, Gen Z will undoubtedly look back and say, "you just had to be there."
April 2024
Wifejak, a spin-off of the Wojak meme, saw a resurgence in popularity this year, mostly due to heated debate over what the hell the meme means and how it should be used. Is it misogynistic? Is it a meme for "wife guys?" Will Nick Fuentes ever get laid? Some questions simply can't be answered.
May 2024
@sobrizzle If the @Four Seasons Hotels ♬ Who Wants To Go To Four Seasons Orlando - Stefanie O’Brien
Are babies fully conscious? In May, a TikTok of a baby raising her hand and saying "Me!" after being asked "Who wants to go to the Four Seasons Orlando?" sparked the amused debate. It also sparked a slew of people repurposing the baby's volunteered response in meme format, edits and reimaginings of the original TikTok, and so, so many jokes about the baby acting like an adult.
May 2024
In early 2024, TikToker @alfonsopinpon_ started pranking strangers by telling them that whichever one of them moves first is gay. This led to many insecure dudes taking things too seriously and refusing to move—which led to a whole new meme mocking that phenomenon. This spin-off meme often features the question English or Spanish? superimposed on images of objects or people that appear frozen mid-motion, as a reference to how @alfonsopinpon_ began each video, asking the strangers which language they spoke so he knew how to proceed.
May 2024
The idea of a golden retriever boyfriend was pushed aside this summer for that of hot rodent boyfriends—men who have certain facial features that apparently remind us of rodents while also being sweet and a little strange. While this was intended as a compliment(?), memes mocking the idea of comparing hot guys to rats also made the rounds as everyone tried to figure out what was going on.
May 2024
"Aura Points" became a popular meme about gamifying life this year thanks to TikTok. The idea is that people can gain or lose points towards their aura through various activities—usually unserious ones, like not wearing all black (-5000 aura points). This is hardly the first aura-related meme to go viral, nor is it the last. 2024 also saw the rise of "it's called aura bruh," because there's just never enough of a good thing.
June 2024
Influencer Nara Smith unintentionally inspired a new meme format this summer as people riffed on her videos in which she makes items from scratch. While Smith generally sticks to food, meme-makers applied the "from scratch" concept to anything and everything, starting with mango Juul pods and including more nebulous concepts like "a good weekend."
June 2024
Italian TikToker Francesco Nozzolino himself became a meme this year after a video of his animated interaction with a couple in a shop went viral. Whether it was being deployed as a reaction meme or repurposed with an original caption, Nozzolino's enthusiasm and joy were at the center of this one. And some of his other videos soon began popping off in the same manner.
June 2024
Hawk Tuah girl had more than her 15 minutes of fame this year—for better or for worse. What started out as delighted amusement at Hailey Welch's NSFW answer to a random street interview question soon transformed into Hawk Tuah memes, merch, and even a surprisingly successful podcast. Unfortunately, her internet fame took a nose dive when Welch took on another modern trend and was accused of running a cryptocurrency scam.
June 2024
TikToker @crawly_possessed left an impression when he started posting videos that showed him crawling through a mall dressed as a tiny green wizard. In person, observers oscillated between delighted and disturbed by the unexpected sight, but online, people were cheering him on—even creating fan art and videos of their own honoring his contribution to meme history.
June 2024
Justin Timberlake's DUI arrest by a cop who had no idea who the former boy bander and Trolls star was led to an unexpectedly delightful meme opportunity. The truncated version is that Timberlake allegedly complained that his arrest was "going to ruin the tour," later clarifying, "the world tour," providing the internet with a phrase applicable to far more scenarios than you might initially imagine.
July 2024
Brat Summer memes were all over the place this year. Seriously, who knew lowercase text on a lime green background could have such an impact on the culture? But we've got to throw a special shoutout to the "I'm so Julia" meme in particular. The phrase comes from Charli XCX's song "360," and references how Julia Fox "basically...started every trend in 2022." Being "so Julia" is akin to being everywhere, to being the moment. And the meme was particularly amusing when it was applied to actual Julias, although it certainly wasn't limited to that usage.
July 2024
There are more Donald Trump memes bouncing around social media than anyone could possibly need, but July saw the birth of a new round of them following an assassination attempt on the former and future president. These were all over the place, from referencing Shinzo Abe to merging with other memes to not-so-subtle suggestions that it was all staged. The memes were also the precursor to the Sloped Roof memes aiming at the Secret Service and, well, the second round of Trump assassination memes.
July 2024
Zoomers kicked off possibly the most cringe meme trend of 2024 with a video that featured cosmetics workers gathered in a circle describing themselves through a made-up chant/song. The original group ultimately reclaimed it, in a sense, when they chanted some of the negative responses they'd received in the same fashion. But overall, we might want to leave this one in 2024.
July 2024
Kamala Harris memes leave a bittersweet taste following the results of the 2024 presidential election. But months earlier, some choice quotes from the Vice President broke through into meme history. First, there was the coconut tree meme, which drew upon a somewhat confusing euphemism from Harris's childhood. That went hand-in-hand with the "what can be, unburdened by what has been" meme, which similarly highlighted a certain way Harris has of speaking and repurposed it for the internet's glee.
July 2024
Remember that time JD Vance got accused of fucking a couch? This meme became so widespread that even Tim Walz was making jokes about it. Hopefully, we'll see a resurgence of this one in 2025, if only because we deserve to find some sort of joy in U.S. politics for the next four years.
July 2024
"Clairo Shade" has become shorthand for suggesting that various pop stars are throwing shade at singer Clairo. The twist is that it's mostly been used ironically, pointing at things pop stars like Katy Perry or Chappell Roan have done that one would have to twist themselves into knots to try to claim as shade towards Clairo, who usually isn't being mentioned or referenced in any way.
And then of course there was that whole situation with the Clairo Shade cake at the lesbian Bushwick party where the twink fell through the roof...
July/August 2024
The 2024 Olympics birthed a number of memes to keep those of us who aren't particularly interested in sports entertained for the duration of the games. There was the French pole vaulter whose junk needed a tighter tuck, the Turkish shooter who looked like he just stumbled into the Olympics by accident, that chill "pommel horse guy," and, of course, Australian breakdancer Raygun.
People still aren't entirely sure whether the performance put on by the latter was legit or some sort of advance-level trolling, but for now, we do know that this was both the first and last breakdancing competition in the Olympics. What a legacy.
August 2024
Nothing highlighted how rapidly memes can rise and fall quite as well as the "very demure, very mindful" trend. The phrase originated with TikToker @joolieannie, and hit so hard that a parade of brands jumped at the chance to repurpose it for marketing. And as everyone knows, nothing signals the death of something fun and organic on the internet quite like brands getting their grubby hands on it. There's also been a fair amount of drama surrounding attempts to trademark the phrase. And so we all moved on.
September 2024
Saddam Hussein's hiding spot has been around as a meme for a few years now, but it experienced a resurgence in popularity this year thanks to TikTok. The 2024 take centered around calling out places that looked like the 2003 BBC illustration of Hussein that started it all.
September 2024
A baby pygmy hippo from Thailand by the name of Moo Deng captured everyone's hearts this year. Her palpably chaotic nature was just too relatable to the masses—and the fact that it's so easy to use images of her for such a wide variety of scenarios online kept Moo Deng happy mug in circulation for all of autumn. (Sorry, Pesto. We love you, too!)
September 2024
Artist @PhillipBankss initially created the anthropomorphic dog character that would eventually become the Chill Guy meme in 2023. It wasn't until the following year that the dog started trending on TikTok with a variety of edits and audio clips that made this little animated fella go viral. Unfortunately, things veered left when someone began using the meme for a new crypto token without permission. Brands soon followed and the whole thing turned into a bit of a headache for the original artist. Not so chill, guys!
October 2024
An image of Elon Musk mid-jump on stage at a campaign rally for Donald Trump provided a new opportunity for everyone to mock the most annoying man on the internet. While many variations of the resulting meme included photoshopping a jumping Musk into other scenarios, the original image got a good run, too—due in part to Trump's seemingly disdainful expression while the guy who ruined Twitter flailed around like the attention-hungry baby he is.
October 2024
Broad City was resurrected in the form of a TikTok soundbite this year. This meme gets its name from the iconic "in da clerb, we all fam" scene from season three, and got hyped up when people started lip-syncing to the audio on TikTok. It also spread to other social media platforms, with the phrase often being paired with images of groups of mismatched people that otherwise have a single meaningful thing in common.
October 2024
Lookalike contests were all the rage over the last few months of 2024. They've taken place worldwide, with people showing up in parks to compete for often minuscule or non-existent prizes as the crowd determines who looks the most like Timothée Chalamet, Paul Mescal, or even the alleged CEO assassin. But no moment tops the one where Timmy himself made an appearance among his would-be doppelgängers.
October 2024
Memes surrounding Beyoncé conspiracy theories got an unexpected boost this year. Primarily, we got the Thank You, Beyoncé meme, which riffed on the idea that musicians are required to thank Beyoncé anytime they win an award because she's powerful enough that they'll suffer career consequences if they don't. Just to play it safe, random people online started making a point to thank her whenever they had a thank you to offer to the universe, as well.
Things got awkward when the timing coincided with some people trying to find excuses to link Beyoncé to Diddy and all the crimes he's been accused of this year. Both Thank You, Beyoncé, and the "Beyoncé kidnapped me" meme took on a sort of dark undertone with this in mind—albeit not as dark as the actual Diddy memes, such as Nice Try, Diddy and Pause No Diddy.
November 2024
"Black Solo Polyamorous Hijabi Amputee" is the kind of phrase you'll likely only ever hear if you're chronically online. Although it originates from a 2020 image, the term became a meme this year when it was highlighted by rightwing accounts to blast attempts at inclusion and cry over "wokeness." As is often the case, it eventually crossed over into other memes and moved further away from its original intent.
November 2024
Why did an image of a blue Grinch with the caption "That Feeling When Knee Surgery Is Tomorrow" go majorly viral this year? What does it mean? What does any of this mean? Honestly, don't even try with this one. You don't get the blue Grinch knee surgery meme; it gets you.
November 2024
Amidst the endlessly fascinating press for Wicked, a confusing interview question, Cynthia Erivo's overly earnest reaction, and a comforting finger grab all combined to make the hottest meme of the season. Actually, there was just so much to take from this one that it's practically a super-meme, but you'll be hard-pressed to find one Wicked fan with a social media account who isn't holding space for the lyrics of "Defying Gravity" these days.
December 2024
It's pretty incredible that Pepe the King Praw hasn't already had at least a dozen memes devoted to him. Despite being a lesser-known Muppet, the dude has the kind of face that was just made for memeing. He finally had his moment to shine in late 2024 when an image of hm from Muppets in Space started getting paired with text recounting deeply embarrassing stories.
December 2024
By the time the end of the year rolled around, just about everyone in the U.S. knew the name Luigi Mangione—the man accused of murdering a health insurance CEO in broad day before casually avoiding the police for days. There were memes before his arrest, and there were memes after his arrest. Some may call it dark. Others simply call it the natural progression of a society that devalues and oppresses the working class and then expects anyone to shed a tear for the CEO of a company notorious for denying insurance claims.
The proliferation of memes purporting to give Mangione an alibi during the time the crime was committed says...a lot. But we also got some Among Us discourse and yet another branch of the Gerard Way 9/11 domino effect theory out of all of this. And it seems incredibly likely we'll get more Luigi Mangione memes after ringing in 2025.
Bring 'em on.
The Daily Dot looks back at the year that was in our 2024 Year in Review.
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The post 33 memes & viral moments that defined 2024: The internet’s greatest hits appeared first on The Daily Dot.
