January 10: Lanky Kong Destroys the Liberals

A famous copypasta, a football meme and an NES catchphrase all link up on this day in meme history, from “John Is Kill” to “ManningFace” to “A Winner Is You.” All that, and Ben Shapiro “DESTROYS Liberals” every year on January 10th. However, the most infamous meme born today could be “Lankyposting,” because who could resist that Lanky Kong.

John Is Kill: 4chan Pops Out Another Banger

On 4chan in 2012, an anonymous user posted a thread to /tv/ that misspelled actor Heath Ledger’s name as, “Heat Legend.” Inspired by this, a user on BodyBuilding.com created the infamous copypasta, apologizing for their “poor English” and ironically emphasizing “John Is Kill.” From there, the meme spread to Reddit and FunnyJunk, where users referenced other great musicians of our generation … like Skrillex. Read more.

ManningFace: The NFL’s Rickroll

We guess being an NFL quarterback wasn’t enough for the Broncos Peyton Manning … he just had to be a meme too. After a photo of him taking a knee was posted to Reddit, his poorly balaclava’d face gathered upwards of 1,600 upvotes. It soon became a bait-and-switch trend known as “ManningFace,” where Redditors forced each other to click on the MVP’s action shot. Read more.

A Winner Is You: Let The NES Nerds Win

Other than this popular catchphrase, the NES game “Pro Wrestling” didn’t have many memorable aspects. When a player won their wrestling round though, a screen popped up reading, “A Winner Is You,” and showed a strong guy celebrating. It wasn’t until January 2004, however, that the image circulated online message boards with palpable sarcasm as it transformed into a meme. Read more.

Ben Shapiro DESTROYS Liberals: Where Would We Be Without Him?

In January 2013, political commentator Ben Shapiro appeared on CNN where he went head-to-head with Piers Morgan over the issue of gun control. After the clip was uploaded to YouTube, it slowly gained a following going into 2017 until, on Twitter that year, the concept of “destroying liberals” snowballed into ironic usage. Read more.

Lankyposting (HE): Why HE Look Like That?

As proven by this meme, “Super Smash Brothers” character hoaxes have historically sparked many notable memes. Lankyposting stems from this most basic instinct. Originally appearing in the DK Rap video from 1999, Lanky Kong surprised many with his hilarious body type. Going into the 2010s, his likeness was memed into relevancy, being posted unprovoked and unwanted across Reddit. Read more.

Today's trending memes and the latest news

QRposting:

QRposting refers to a practice of editing QR codes containing links to pirate copies of software, video games and other media into memes. In early January 2021, the trend, which mostly utilizes Barnacle Boy Sulphur Vision and My Child Will X meme formats, gained viral popularity on Twitter.

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Kazuya Crying:

Kazuya Crying refers to panel from the manga Kanojo Okarishimasu (Eng. Rent-A-Girlfriend) depicting the main character, Kazuya Kinoshita, imagining his rental girlfriend Chizuru Mizuhara having sex with another character named Umi Nakano, getting aroused by said thoughts and subsequently sobbing. The panels became widely criticized and mocked among the fanbase, with many posting memes around the chapter. Online, the sequence has become the focus of a redraw series of memes.

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Schadenfreude Abounds After Elon Musk's Traffic-solving Tunnel Swamped With Traffic At CES:

It seems your solution to traffic is not as foolproof as you thought, Mr. Musk.

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The Top 10 Memes of 2021

The annual community choice poll to select the “Top 10 Memes of 2021” has come to an end, so no matter if you’re still trying to process 2020, 2021, or even 2022, the internet has once again managed to spawn a slew of new meme formats this year to pass the time. So without rambling further, we present the “Top 10 Memes of 2021,” as chosen by you. [...]