The top ten memes from 2024

2024 was tough. Here are the memes that cheered you up

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Welcome to my last newsletter of the year. What better way to go out than with memes?

I wrote 26 meme explainers throughout the year, starting Jan. 1, 2024 with a cannibalistic PopTart and ending last week with Cookie the Gingerbread Man. From the all-encompassing “brat” movement to the satirical “very mindful, very demure” trend, here are the best memes of 2024.

(If you’re reading this in your email, you’re going to have to expand it. Click “view entire message” to find out what meme took first place!)

10.

JoJo Siwa. Nuff said.

9.

How could we forget the ridiculousness of every single segment in the Paris Olympics?

8.

Exploring the female experience is so in. Enter: “girlhood is a spectrum.”

7.

We’ve come full circle. 2023 started with the unsettling, yet amusing cannibalism of a Pop-Tart at a football game, and now it’s ending the same way.

6.

Irony is timeless, and the internet is forever. Enjoy responsibly.

5.

Self-awareness, always a good thing to have. Even when you’re a baby.

4.

Perhaps I’m biased because this meme is more recent, but the chokehold this meme had on the internet was riveting.

3.

“Isn’t there just something so relatable about an aesthetic that boasts of both extravagance and minimalism?” I wrote.

2.

Campy, empowering, and insightful, “very demure, very mindful” ushered in a counter-movement to “brat.” I can only aspire to be very demure and very mindful one day.

1.

It’s undeniable. You can’t get any better than Moo Deng. There was so much content on the little hippo that I did a second Meme Monday. (That’s Gen Z Translator history right there). She was an uncontroversial queen – until she wasn’t – but she’ll forever hold a special place in 2024.

Happy 2025 y’all! Here’s to more good (and bad) memes in the new year.

Catch up on the Meme Mondays you missed here.