January

• Tide Pods

These laundry cleaners took the Internet by storm in early January, earning them the number one spot on this year’s meme list. #TidePodChallenge swept the nation, resulting in likely thousands of people – mainly teens – being sent to the hospital for consuming Tide Pods (or, technically, letting them melt on their tongue). With the running joke of actually eating Tide Pods in mind, the Internet made many, many memes about them during January.

• FBI Agents

This meme that started in January is still a joke amongst most teens even all the way in December. Instead of freaking out about the possibility of a government agent or hacker looking at people through their laptop’s webcam, it’s now become common for people to form friendly relationships with the imaginary FBI agents watching them.

• Ugandan Knuckles

This meme started when a character, Knuckles, from the multiplayer game VRChat was in a video that went viral. The origin of the character is rather long and has been manipulated through various YouTube channels. However, the end result was a character that was red, chubby, and spoke in a mock African accent saying “do you know the way.” This line and the character itself spread across the Internet rather quickly, but also became annoying just as fast.

• Off-Ramp

This meme sort of just appeared, but was popular because it was very customizable. It shows a car planning to go straight, but then sharply turning right onto a ramp. The sign above the car has two sides, and it was because of this that the image quickly became a meme.