The 2010’s have been butter-stuffed with memes about everything from a sad puppet frog, to a hammer holding baby with questionable motives, to a meme about an entire nation uniting to raid a military base. In a lawless land where memes drop like people in the 1350s it can be hard to keep track of the biggest and baddest memes of the last 3,650 days. Welcome to WatchMoJo and here are our top meme picks for the 2010 decade. 

Before we start, we need to know what makes a meme the meme of the decade. These traits include but are not limited to:  timelessness, changeable yet still be recognizable, and it can be used in other memes. For it to be truly what the world has memed the most in the last 10 years it must be impactful, yet lighthearted. So, after careful deliberation and many minutes of arguing. We have decided that the meme of the decade is………  Going to be told to you after this quick message from our sponsors. 

https://youtu.be/oHg5SJYRHA0

One does not simply know the greatest meme of the decade without first understanding some of the other categories that memes were graded upon. So, here goes…

Starting off the list with the best meme template meme of the decade: The Drake Meme. 

Ever felt like your opinion was better than others? Want to show the world the most favorable outcome? Use the Drake meme! As you can see, Drake demonstrates a feeling of dissatisfaction in the first image, and a feeling of happiness in the second. The template comes from Drake’s 2015 music video, “ Hotline Bling.” Simply use this template and people will agree with you.

On a more serious note: the Drake template has inspired many other templates with a similar idea.

Next, we have the most memed meme of the decade: Loss

Despite busting many laughs out of people throughout the decade, Loss was originally about a miscarriage the comic describes the author’s, Tim Buckley, wife had experienced. However, meme culture still made a meme out of this comic. A common joke is asking, “Is this Loss?” whenever a four-panel picture has one person in the first panel, two people in the second and third panel, and two people in the fourth with the one on the right laying down. Throughout its existence many pictures and even t-shirts have memed this meme. 

Let’s take this list into a different direction and take a look at the shortest running meme of the decade: Ugandan Knuckles

Ah, Ugandan Knuckles. Despite making me want to destroy Western Civilization as we know it upon sight, Ugandan Knuckles somehow isn’t the worst meme of the decade. However, it is the shortest running meme of the decade. Originating between late December of 2017 and January 2018, Ugandan Knuckles was a hit when it had its moment in the spotlight. People flooded VR chat just to play as this character. The amount of people making memes with Ugandan Knuckles in its one month life-span was insane. Then… it just died. People still made some memes about it, but to everyone else, it was just a distant memory. Goodbye and good riddance.

Before we get into the better categories, we first have to look at the worst meme. The Daphne to the Velma. The Clay to the Luke. We look at: Big Chungus.

Why does this exist? Why did Satan send such a foe? Centuries ago, the Mayans predicted that the world would end in 2012. Sadly, the Mayans were wrong. They left us a world where everyone thought it would be a good idea to make this thing popular. One cannot measure with thought how gruesome Big Chungus is. It can only be measured by loss of hope.

When you think of influential, I’m sure you think of someone along the lines of Angelina Jolie or even possibly Howie Mandell. But what if I were to tell you that the most influential meme of our decade was but a few thousand generations away from being human. Harambe came to fame as all famous artists do, after death. In doing so he ignited the spark that united our world, against what? We don’t know. All we knew was that Harambe was our new god. ̈ ̈Rest in peace Harambe.¨ He was the first to protect our internet browsing eyes from all other evil. He was the first to truly bring together the young and tall, the old and the small, from red folk to blue, everyone and you. And for that we thank you Harambe, may you rest in peace.

Here we stand now at the edge of the meme of the decade. However, a thick fog obscures it. So, while we wait for the fog to clear, let some honorary memes make themselves known. Spongebob and Kermit are both two memes that sprouted many different iterations. In fact, after going on for years, these two show no sign of slowing down. Next, we Doge. Doge is a strange case because after seemingly losing popularity around 2013-2014, it  has made a surprise comeback in the last two years. This is mostly due to the Dogelore subreddit. Finally, Car Salesman and Dat Boi appear. Like Doge, these two memes seemed to die for surprisingly no reason. However, in their lifetimes,they made a great impact by being two great memes.

Alas, the fog has lifted. We can finally see our generations bestest work. Our choice for the meme of the decade is…. Pepe. Now you might be thinking to yourself, Pepe wasn’t that great, he was just another Doge, or even as bad as a simple Spongebob meme. Why did we choose Pepe as our meme of the decade? In his prime, Pepe was a meme about a happy frog assuring you that everything was OK. His graceful hand and his beautiful smile brought joy to all who beheld him. But unlike other memes, Pepe’s death was not natural causes.  Just when Pepe was reaching his peak, running for president along with Donald Trump. His trademark ̈OK ̈ was turned against him by essential-oil-sniffing baby boomers. The meme was brought to the spotlight. Pepe was framed, and I’m not talking photoshop.

And there you have it. The best and worst of random pictures that rose and fell in the 2010’s. We got a fat rabbit, a murdered gorilla, and a couple green frogs. However, no matter how good or bad these may have been we know that they all made us who we are now.