All Your Base Are Belong To Us
"All your base are belong to us" is a mistranslated line from the 1991 game Zero Wing and one of the internet's first memes.
catchphrase2001
Decade
Memes of the 2000s
The 2000s built the foundations of meme culture: forum image posts, Flash video, early YouTube. The memes of this decade spread by email chains and message boards, long before the word "meme" was everyday vocabulary. Every entry below explains what the meme means, where it was first posted, and how it is still used — because most of them never really left.
41 memes
Star Wars Kid
Star Wars Kid is the 2002 school-video of a teen swinging a golf-ball retriever like a lightsaber — one of the first viral videos.
video2002
Numa Numa
Numa Numa is Gary Brolsma's 2004 webcam dance to "Dragostea din Tei" — one of the first truly global viral videos.
video2004
Advice Dog
Advice Dog is the 2006 puppy-on-a-color-wheel macro giving terrible advice — the template behind the whole advice animal genre.
image-macro2006
O RLY?
"O RLY?" is a snowy-owl reaction macro from 2006 — sarcastic "oh really?" used to mock a claim someone doubts.
image-macro2006
Chocolate Rain
Chocolate Rain is Tay Zonday's 2007 viral music video — a baritone performance whose delivery became as famous as its lyrics.
video2007
Dramatic Chipmunk
Dramatic Chipmunk is the five-second 2007 clip of a prairie dog turning to stare as dramatic music hits — an early template for reaction edits.
video2007
LOLcats
LOLcats are cat photos captioned in deliberate baby-talk misspellings — the 2007 format behind "I Can Has Cheezburger?".
image-macro2007
Rickroll
Rickrolling is a bait-and-switch prank where a link promises something interesting but opens Rick Astley's 1987 music video 'Never Gonna Give You Up' instead.
bait-and-switch2007
Success Kid
Success Kid is the fist-clenching beach baby photo used to celebrate small victories — one of the internet's favorite reaction images.
image-macro2007
Rage Comics
Rage comics meaning: the 2008 MS Paint comic format and its cast of rage faces — what each face means, where it started, and every face in our library explained.
rage-comic2008
Trollface
Trollface is the smug MS Paint drawing from 2008 that became the universal symbol of trolling, always captioned 'Problem?'
rage-comic2008
Socially Awkward Penguin
Socially Awkward Penguin meaning: the 2009 advice animal for small, cringey social blunders — the counterpart to Good Guy Greg. Origin and examples.
image-macro2009
Waiting Skeleton
Waiting Skeleton meaning: the skeleton-on-a-bench meme for waiting so long you have died — origin from "waiting for OP" and how it is used today.
image-macro2009