According to Dictionary.com, Memes are defined as “cultural item[s] in the form of images, videos, phrases, etc., that [are] spread via the Internet and often altered in creative or humorous ways.”
In a nutshell, the past year sucked for a variety of reasons, which include the effects of the ongoing Coronavirus Pandemic, tragic deaths of celebrities (whether it was due to COVID-19 or not), fallouts from major scandals, the summer , the 2020 Presidential Election, and the not-so, ongoing peaceful transition of power, to name a a few.to the ongoing events and protests against Police Brutality, to name a few.
Given how horrific 2020 has been, memes have provided an escape from today’s events and ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Throughout 2020, there have been a plethora of memes that have gone viral across all social media platforms. These memes were not only memorable but they also brought many people together on social media during the pandemic.
Now, with all of that information being said, let’s take a look down below and check out the 20 Most Hilarious and Memorable Memes of 2020:
The 2020 Presidential Election produced so many great and memorable memes. Among the most notable were the ones from the first presidential debate, which was a total dumpster fire due to interruptions (most from Donald Trump), name-calling (mostly from Donald Trump) and shouting from both Donald Trump and Joe Biden and moderator Chris Wallace.
Another one of the most viral memes of this past year is this out-of-context Glee screenshot in which Jane Lynch’s Sue Sylvester plots to ruin the glee club. The screenshot of this scene (from the episode “Throwdown”, which aired on October 14, 2009) became one of the best meme formats of the year where users paired the line with various captions and used text blackout to change the image itself.
Remember the fly that landed on Vice President’s Mike Pence’s head and stayed there for two minutes before flying away? The infamous incident occurred during the VP debate and spawned hundreds of memes “The Fly on Mike Pence’s Head” Twitter accounts. Grammy-winning singer Lizzo even dressed up as the fly for Halloween this year.
One of the most popular and viral memes of the entire year was the “My Plans vs. 2020” Memes, which had everyone in stitches. The My Plans vs. 2020 Meme, pairs images using images of naiveté with the impending reality. These images are snagged from almost from pop culture and sports.
#WashYourLyrics was one of the memes that quickly became popular on social when the coronavirus pandemic shutdown the entire world in early March. Those dissatisfied with the monotony of singing “Happy Birthday” twice in order to ensure that they were thoroughly washing their hands took to Twitter to share 20-second snippets of songs, which could then be entered into a hand-washing diagram.
ESPN’s The Last Dance, the ten episode docu-series on the Chicago Bull’s last championship run (the 1997-1998 NBA Season) received critical acclaim from sports fans, television and film critics, and NBA players. The docu-series also produced several iconic moments and memes that quickly went viral on social media.
One of the most notable memes that came from The Last Dance was Michael Jordan (who’s not only the GOAT of basketball, but also sparked the popularity of internet memes with the image of him crying while delivering his 2009 NBA Hall of Fame induction speech), viewing footage on an iPad, cracking up at something Isaiah Thomas said.
Also known as the “#DollyPartonChallenge”, this meme was created on January 21, 2020 by the country music legend herself, when she posted a four-panel image showing four photos of her (see the screenshot below), labeled LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, and Tinder. “Get you a woman who can do it all,” she wrote.
In an instant, the image quickly went viral as people, including celebrities began posting similar arrays of photos showing how they’d portray themselves on each social media platform.
Surprisingly, the Twitter Misinformation Labels became one of the most popular memes that came from the 2020 Presidential Election. These labels appear on all of the tweets that President Trump has posted claiming election fraud and that he “won” the election, as Twitter found his tweets to be “disputed” and “misleading.” However, as the labels appeared, they quickly turned into memes to fact-check just about everything.
Actor Will Smith has produced so many legendary memes. The screenshot of his face during an August appearance on his wife Jada Pinkett-Smith’s talkshow Red Table Talk to talk about her rumored entanglement with August Alsina instantly went viral and became the subject of numerous jokes and memes on various social media platforms.
Remember when Dodgers pitcher Joe Kelly got suspended for eight games for his role in the brawl in the Astros-Dodgers game (which was the first time both teams payed each other since the 2017 World Series, the same season and World Series that the Astros were found guilty of electronically stealing signs). Well, the brawl not only made Kelly an icon in Dodgers History but the pouty face he made at Astros player Carlos Correa instantly went viral and turned into a meme. ESPN even named Kelly’s pouty face as the best sports meme of 2020.
Remember the Joe Biden and Barack Obama Memes that went viral after Donald Trump won the 2016 US Presidential Election? After it was confirmed on November 7 that Biden won the 2020 election, the Biden-Obama memes returned. In my opinion, the one featured below is one of the most savage 2020 Presidential election memes out there on social media.
Another of one of the most memorable memes of 2020 were The Show Villain/ The Real Villain Memes, which went viral over the summer. In this meme, users showcased who the real villains were in our favorite movies and TV shows opposed to the classic on-screen ones we’ve been sold.
Another one of the moments that went viral from The Last Dance and produced one of the year’s most memorable memes was this line from Michael Jordan during one of his confessionals in the docu-series.
Just as it implies, this meme is ideal to use in any situation that you’ve taken… personally.
One of the most talked about moments of the NBA restart was the league’s decision to set up The NBA Anonymous Hotline, which allowed players and coaching staff to report any social distancing violations in the NBA Bubble anonymously.
However, the NBA Anonymous Hotline blew up on social media and since been known has the “NBA Snitch Hotline”. Many memes and jokes were created on social media platforms by users (including NBA Players) to state their thoughts on it and/or predict which players they believed would likely use the hotline. More memes and jokes about the NBA Snitch Hotline spread like wildfire when the league announced that it would keep the hotline active during the 2020-21 NBA Season, which began in late December 2020.
Although the video was posted in February 2020, it didn’t become a viral meme until June when DJ Suede The Remix God, the same producer behind the Coronavirus Remix, posted a remix of the arrest video.
Remember at the start of the shelter in place orders when there was a shortage of toilet paper? Well, said-shortage produced a plethora of funny coronavirus memes that had everyone around the world in stitches, like this one below:
Besides The Last Dance, another docs-series that became popular around the country was the Netflix series Tiger King, a docu-series about eccentric and shady exotic animal enthusiasts. The series also captured the longstanding rivalry between Joe Exotic and Carole Baskin, both of whom the subjects of the plethora of the memes that social media users created while talking about Tiger King on various platforms.
Remember the very loud speech that Kimberly Guilfoyle, the girlfriend of Donald Trump Jr. (President Trump’s eldest child) gave at the RNC? It quickly became a meme and lead to the creation of the #GuilfoyleChallenge, where users screamed the last line of Guilfoyle’s speech (“Ladies and gentlemen, leaders and fighters for freedom and liberty and the American dream, the best is yet to come”) as loud as they could.
The press conference that Rudy Giuliani, President Trump’s personal lawyer set up a few days after the election at Four Seasons Total Landscaping, a small landscaping business in Pennsylvania sparked a lot of confusion over whether it was supposed to be held there or at the Four Season Hotel in Philadelphia.
Both the gaffe and the actual press conference sparked many memes on social media about it being the best way for Trump’s reelection campaign to end and the location of the business, which was situated between a sex shop and a cremation center.
Last, but not least, another one of the most viral memes that represents what the year 2020 was in a nutshell is the “How It Started vs. How It Going” Meme. Similar to the “My Plans vs. 2020” Memes, people were using their their favorite characters from TV, film, and/or anything under the sun to depict how good things had been going, say, at the beginning of quarantine versus the nightmare of dealing with months of being stuck indoors.
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