2024 is coming to a close — which means it’s time to look back at all the big online moments that helped define the year. We’re talking about the happenings, trends, and jokes that resonated with us most. This stuff crossed cultural and ideological lines, amusing or annoying us to no end.
In other words, we’re talking about memes. Defining a meme used to be much easier, but now that we’re dealing with a household word that even your grandma knows, we feel the term meme is a much larger umbrella than, say, five years ago when a meme was a simple joke image or GIF passed around on social media sites amongst terminally online people. These days it feels like modern life itself is a meme.
I suppose the best we can do is let the memes themselves define what memes are. So here is 2024’s year in memes. Our favorite, the funniest, and for better or worse, the most pervasive. These were the memes we found inescapable in this very very strange year on Earth.
Emotionally Unloading On Elmo
Social media has led to all sorts of weird marketing moves, like those fast food social accounts that have built a following from being snarky and rude to each other. And then there is Elmo. A wholesome, bastion of optimism and empathy. What happens when you subject such a thing to the internet? Shit gets weird.
At the start of this year Elmo posed a simple question on X: “Elmo is checking in! How is everybody doing?” to which countless X accounts emotionally unloaded on the Muppet, causing the official Sesame Street X account to jump in tweeting: “Thank you, @Elmo, for checking in with reminder for us to pause and take a mindful moment to focus on how we’re feeling.” and then dropped a link to a website about emotional well-being.
It’s safe to say as the calendar turns to 2025, Elmo probably won’t be checking in.
The Willy Wonka Experience
If you could say one thing about this year, it’s that it has felt incredibly long, so it’s easy to forget that the Willy Wonka Experience in Glasgow — which gave us countless images of what might be the saddest place on earth — happened this same year that we’re currently in.
What better way to represent the disaster that was this “experience,” than the sad Oompa Loompa lady? Through her now iconic image, she telegraphed to the world: “look at this disaster that I’ve been dragged into,” and now as we hit 2025, we’re all feeling the same way.
Tinashe Helps Us Find Our Inner Freaks
@sistermaryblaze Nasty @Tinashe #tinashe #nasty #nun #sistermaryblaze #nuntok #churchgirl #foryou #fypシ゚viral #fyp #fy
Some of the best, most resonant songs are the simplest, and one of the easiest and most universal things to write about is being incredibly horny. Which is why Tinashe’s horned-up anthem “Nasty” had us all singing “I been a nasty girl, nasty, I been a nasty girl, nasty.”
The hook not only became a TikTok go-to for everything from cat videos, to… well… horned-up dances, but the song also gave us the phrase “Is somebody gonna match my freak?” which has become a popular meme template.
Hawk Tuah Girl, Talk Tuah Podcast, And Celebrity In The Year 2024
Haily Welch, aka Hawk Tuah Girl, showed us that the internet celebrity to podcaster to alleged crypto coin scammer pipeline is alive and well! If you don’t know who Hawk Tuah girl is — do you get all your meme news from our end-of-the-year list?— here is the rundown: back in May some YouTubers hit the streets of Nashville talking to bar hoppers and randomly asked Ms. Welch “What’s one move in bed that makes a man go crazy every time?” to which she replied, “You gotta give ‘em that ‘hawk tuah’ and spit on that thang.” And well, the rest is history.
Will Hawk Tuah girl live on in 2025? Probably! Hawk Tuah girl has been quiet since the whole meme-coin controversy, but people love a redemption arc, so don’t write her off just yet.
The Paris Olympics
The summer Paris Olympics were the gift that kept giving for everyone who is terminally online. There was the somehow controversial opening ceremony, which hardcore Christians took as mocking Christianity (it wasn’t), the many memes that grew out of the Olympic shooting event, everyone’s favorite breakdancer Raygun, and oh yeah, and a French pole vaulter lost his event because the pole got caught on his junk.
We could describe to you all the funniest images from the Paris Olympic games in great detail, but can’t for the life of us remember who won what.
Charli XCX’s Brat Summer
kamala IS brat
— Charli (@charli_xcx) July 22, 2024
As a massive Charli XCX fan, this summer’s collective obsession with her felt like a long time coming. Us hardcore Angels have been talking about Charli like this since the singer first linked up with the late producer Sophie, so it was nice to finally have the rest of the world on board.
Not everything about Brat summer panned out. “Kamala Harris is brat,” comes to mind, and we sincerely hope we never have to see another person doing the “Apple Dance,” again, but it also gave us old people on the news trying to figure out what “brat” means, and oh yeah, quite possibly the best album of the year.
Brat’s success also reflected a changing of the guard in modern pop. In 2025, we want less squeaky, clean, highly composed pop stars, ala Taylor Swift, and more messy, genre-pushing, experimental provocateurs like Charli.
”Demure” Is The Internet’s New Favorite Word
If you yourself haven’t used the word “demure,” in the last five months, your younger siblings or cousins have definitely proclaimed something as “very demure, very mindful.” It can all be traced back to TikToker Jools Lebron, a beauty influencer who explained the importance of keeping your work makeup simple.
“see how I do my makeup for work? Very demure, very mindful. I don’t come to work with a green-cut crease. I don’t look like a clown when I go to work.” If I could tell you how or why this term took off, I’d be a very rich person.
Either way, “demure,” was the flip side to Charli XCX’s Brat Summer. If the Brat album cycle was all about unleashing our inner party girl, the demure trend has us all channeling our inner Rory Gilmore.
The Rizzler, A.J. & Big Justice
We could do a whole article devoted to the Rizzler, A.J. & Big Justice — but we won’t because… we really don’t want to. Here is all you need to know about this trio. The Rizzler became an overnight internet sensation after dropping a wholesome video dressed like Black Panther, he does a thing called “The Rizz Face,” and is essentially a mini DJ Khaled. A.J. and Big Justice are a father-son duo who rate Costco foods.
Contrary to popular assumption, the Rizzler is not related to A.J. & Big Justice but has starred in many videos with the duo, including the above “We Bring The Boom (Crew Version),” which is essentially a real-life version of the DK Rap. The internet isn’t known for making celebrities out of wholesome family content, yet this trio exists. There is no edge here, no controversy, just wholesome, family-fun with three undeniable characters.
The Rise Of Moo Deng
The people of the internet are simple people. Give us a video of a cute animal, and that’s all we really need to become obsessed. Case in point: Moo Deng, a pygmy hippopotamus from Thaliand’s Khao Kheow Open Zoo, that essentially does what every hippopotamus does. Eats, sleeps, lounges around and acts grumpy — and yet, the internet can’t get enough because she looks f*cking cute doing it.
It has led many to proclaim Moo Deng as “goals.” We all just want to be loved for doing absolutely nothing but living and looking cute while doing it. Moo Deng even made an appearance on SNL’s Weekend Update. Be sure to watch that above.
Megalopolis — “Go Back To The Club”
I mean, where do we even begin with this movie? Megalopolis is a mess. Was it made by one of the greatest American filmmakers of all time? Yes, but a mess is a mess!
We could do a deep dive into everything weird about this movie — and there is plenty — but instead we will leave you with this now iconic scene. This simple 1-minute clip gives you an idea of the whole bizarre tone of this movie.
Megalopolis may not be the masterpiece some had hoped it would be, but at least it has the weirdest line read in the history of cinema in Adam Driver’s “so go back to the club” moment.
The Timothée Chalamet Lookalike Invasion
@newyorknico There was a Timothee Chalamet lookalike contest in NYC today. #timotheechalamet #nyc
Sometime in September flyers started appearing around Greenwich Village advertising a Timothée Chalamet look-alike competition with a cash prize of $50. It’s the sort of weirdo sh*t New York used to be known for, so the fact that it existed in the first place was enough to give us joy. What nobody expected is that so many people would show up.
On October 28th, New York’s Washington Square Park, over 2,000 people flooded into the small park with Chalamet lookalikes. Timothée himself even showed up!
As a result of the resounding success, we’ve had several lookalike contests since then, including a Dev Patel version in San Francisco, a Jeremy Allen White competition fittingly in Chicago, and a Glen Powell version in Austin.
When a person vaguely resembles a celebrity, it’s not that strange, but when you see multiple lookalikes in one place at one time, it’s incredibly eerie.
Just A Chilll Guy
@eybmk #drinkingtok #drinktok #drunktok #drunktiktok #real #relatable #alcoholic #alcohol #goingout #nightout #onlyliveonce #lifeisgood #chill #chillguy #justachillguy
Just A Chill Guy feels like an old-fashioned meme. It’s not some big pop cultural moment that is going to be covered on the news, it’s just a simple image on the internet that serves as a shorthand for a feeling and way of life.
First posted on October 4th, 2023 by X user @PhillipBankss, Just A Chill Guy was described by its creator as “my new character. his whole deal is he’s a chill guy that lowkey doesn’t give a fuck.” That tweet made little waves, but in the subsequent year, this image was shared countless times, inspired a meme coin (because of course it did), and has served as a shorthand for an unplugged personal brand and way of life that looks at the impending doom of our present day, and shrugs it off.
It’s the most meme meme of 2024!