🎠Meme Generator
The internet's picture jokes, explained - and made in seconds.
Stories
- What is a meme, anyway? - A word a biologist made up in 1976 now names the internet's favourite kind of joke. How a picture and two lines of text became a language millions of people speak.
- Top text, bottom text: the grammar of a meme - White capital letters with a black outline, one line above the picture, one below. Every part of the classic meme layout is doing a job.
- Advice animals: the colour-wheel years - A dog in front of a rainbow wheel started a whole family of characters, each with one personality and one job. How Advice Dog's descendants took over the internet around 2010.
- Rage comics: when the internet drew itself in MS Paint - Wobbly lines, a handful of faces and one big feeling per panel. The crude comics that gave us Trollface, Forever Alone and Y U No.
- Meme Celebrities: the people behind the faces - A yearbook photo, a stock photo shoot, a day at the beach. Nine ordinary people who woke up one morning to find their face had become a joke the whole world knew.
- From the big screen to the top text - A line from The Lord of the Rings, a smirk from 1971, a beer advert and a squinting cartoon. How film and TV became the internet's favourite raw material.
- Beyond two lines: panels, boxes and captions - Top and bottom text is only one way to caption a picture. The newer formats put words in boxes, beside panels or above the image - and you can make all of them here.
- How to make a meme that lands - Pick the right face, follow its formula, keep it short and be specific. Five rules from the millions of posts made on this site.
Meme celebrities
- Bad Luck Brian: the yearbook photo that went wrong on purpose - Kyle Craven pulled a goofy face for his school picture in Ohio. Seven years later a friend posted it online, and the unluckiest boy on the internet was born.
- Hide the Pain Harold: the stock photo model who smiled through it - A retired Hungarian engineer posed for a few hundred stock photos. The internet looked at his smile and saw a man quietly falling apart.
- First World Problems: the actress who cried on cue - Silvia Bottini was asked to cry for a stock photo on a trip to Shanghai. Three years later her tears were the face of every trivial complaint online.
- Overly Attached Girlfriend: the stare that started a YouTube career - Laina Morris made a joke video for a Justin Bieber contest and stared into the camera a little too long. One frame of it became one of 2012's biggest memes.
- Success Kid: the beach photo that paid for a kidney - Laney Griner photographed her baby son on a beach with a fistful of sand. His triumphant face became the internet's symbol of small wins - and later helped save his father's life.
- Scumbag Steve: the guy in the sideways cap - Blake Boston's mother took a photo of him at 16. Five years later the internet decided he was the worst roommate in the world.
- Disaster Girl: the smile in front of the fire - Zoë Roth was four when her father photographed her grinning in front of a burning house. The fire was a training exercise; the smirk became immortal.
- Ridiculously Photogenic Guy: the runner who looked too good - Everyone else in the race looked exhausted. Zeddie Little looked like he was in an advert. One photo made him the internet's most handsome stranger.
- Ermahgerd: the girl with the Goosebumps books - Two friends with a Polaroid camera staged a nerdy photo shoot in the late 1990s. Thirteen years later it gave the internet a whole new way of talking.
The classics, explained
The Most Interesting Man In The World
You don't always cook. But when you do, it is a three hour risotto on a Tuesday, every pan in the flat is involved, and the smoke alarm gets a speaking part. Takeaway resumes on Wednesday.
Philosoraptor
You are in the shower at 7 in the morning when it hits you: if a towel dries you, what dries the towel? You stand there until the hot water runs out. You are late for work, but you are wiser.
Success Kid
You reach the bus stop just as the bus pulls in. You didn't run. You didn't even walk fast. You step on like a person whose life is in order, which, for the next nine minutes, it is.
Skeptical 3rd World Kid
80 for a bottle of water, then £35 a month for a gym where you sweat the water back out. So you're telling me that's the plan. It is, somehow, the plan. The fridge is full.
First World Problems
The heated car seat has two settings: too warm and off. You spend the whole drive switching between them, quietly suffering, like a pioneer. The large pizza doesn't fit in the fridge.
Grumpy Cat
It's Friday and someone at work has organised "fun drinks". There is a quiz. There are teams. There is a man with a whistle. You had fun once. It was awful.
Socially Awkward Penguin
The waiter says "enjoy your meal". You say "you too". He will not be enjoying a meal. You think about it for the rest of yours, and again in 2034. Someone across the street waves.
Y U No
It's 8:58, the meeting is at 9, and the office printer says "PC LOAD LETTER", which is not a language. You had one job, printer. Y U NO print. Three minutes in the microwave. The edges are lava.
Forever Alone
The doorbell goes on Valentine's Day. Your heart lifts. It's a parcel for next door. You sign for it with real tenderness. On your birthday you get one message before noon.
Futurama Fry
She said "we should do this again sometime". Not sure if that's a second date, or just the thing people say while putting their coat on. You will spend four days finding out.
One Does Not Simply
One does not simply eat one crisp. You open the bag "just to have a few". You look down. The bag is empty and you're licking salt off a finger like a hunted animal.
Scumbag Steve
He borrows your car for "one quick errand". It comes back three days later with the fuel light on, the seat moved, and a parking ticket in the glovebox, folded neatly, like a gift.