Memes are defined as being an idea that spreads from person to person within a culture-often with the intention of conveying a particular trend represented by the meme. However, memes cannot be defined by a mere Wikipedia definition, they are so much more than that. Memes make the world go ‘round, they bring joy and hilarity to the faces of many people, and they bring people together. One of the biggest platforms for memes is Twitter. People are able to create and share them for the entire Twitter community to come together and laugh at. The year of 2017 was a monumental year for memes; arguably the best year yet. Here is a run down of the most viral memes and twitter trends from every month of the year 2017:

January

Salt Bae was the most viral meme in January. A Turkish chef posted a video of himself cutting a steak, the way he cut it was so extra that it blew up as a Twitter meme. The meme was taken from when he sprinkles salt over his forearm at the end of the video. 

The beauty blender was also a huge trend on Twitter in January. The origin of this came from when a girl sent her guy friend a picture of a beauty blender, a makeup tool used to blend makeup, via text message and simply asked him, “what is this?” Everyone began doing this and posting the responses which generated even more memes surrounding the trend.

February

Roll safe is one of the most viral memes from February. Roll safe is a screen-shot-ed image featuring actor Kayode Ewumi grinning and pointing to his temple. The image is often captioned with jokes mocking poor life decisions in a sarcastic way and mocking ways of critically thinking.  

Drew Scanlon reaction is another viral meme from February. A GIF of Drew Scanlon, video editor and podcaster, circulated and is used as a reaction to capture feeling slightly insulted or confused.

March

Meryl Streep yelling is a viral meme from March on Twitter. Twitters users would tweet this picture that is usually captioned, “Quote this with lyrics you’d scream,” Twitter users would then quote this original tweet with their favorite song lyrics.

Me, an intellectual is a Twitter trend in which needlessly formal language is used to correct well-known phrases (i.e. calling a “Slim Jim” and “Slender James”)

April

With the release of the movie “It”, a new meme was born onto twitter. The It memes depicts the infamous clown with the caption of the meme being something tempting that Pennywise would use to entice you into the drain.  

In April, the most viral thing on twitter was #nuggsforcarter. Carter Wilkerson twitter messaged the main Wendy’s account asking, “how many retweets for a year of chicken nuggets?” Wendy’s responded with 18 million, Carter posted the conversation, and the tweet exploded. Carter ended up getting 3.6 million retweets and 991 thousand likes.

May

Mocking Spongebob was the most popular meme from May. The image was accompanied with a caption that had a mocking tone towards an opinion or point of view.

The infamous “what Redbone would sound like if…” meme was also a popular one in May. “Redbone” by Childish Gambino began being remixed into funnier versions after the “what Redbone would sound like in the bathroom of a house party” remix blew up on twitter.

June

After “the floor is lava” trend hit twitter where people in random places would try to get off the ground as quickly as possible, a new meme circulated. “The floor is…” meme is captioned with an action that one person will try their best to avoid doing.

July

”Nothing but respect for MY president” is used to caption a picture of something that is not the president but something people respect/give admiration to.

August

Really the only meme/trend that matters from August is the “open for a surprise” pictures. The popular caption started when users posted pictures with cute dogs being slightly out of frame, when you click on the picture to enlarge it a super cute doggo is revealed. The trend has generally been used to reveal cute animals, mainly dogs, but is now being used to showcase humorous photos.

September

”You’ve heard of Elf on the Shelf” is the caption to a meme in which an image of two things that rhyme with each other are pictured.

October

The biggest meme from October was the couple’s costume idea parodies. This meme refers to jokes in which people post pictures of a funny duo in a sarcastic suggestion for it to be being a two person costume idea.

November

The “it be ya own” meme is a catchphrase used to express feelings of betrayal. It was used on twitter to caption a picture that could be interpreted as depicting disloyalty.

December

December really brought it home for Twitter. The Keaton Jones video spread rapidly through twitter. At first everyone felt bad for this kid who was sobbing about being bullied at school, these feelings of sympathy quickly changed when the kid ended up being bullied for being racist towards his classmates. The Net Neutrality debate was also huge during December when everyone took to twitter to voice their opinion either for or against it. After the repeal was voted on and decided, people took to twitter to make memes out of it. The year ended on a bang when tide pods blew up as a meme and challenge on twitter.