Top 10 Greatest Internet Memes of 2009 By phact0rri [10 more lists]

For those of us just tuning into the world of the intertubes, a "meme" is an on-running internet joke that can start anywhere: a news story, a picture, a video or even a celebrity's fashion choice. People put their own take on the ridiculous occurrence and the rest is history.

Examples of famous Memes include "epic FAIL", the Star Wars Kid and, of course, "LOLCATS". Whole businesses have been built around memes...aren't you glad you live in this world?

Here are 2009's Top 10...

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1

Drunkest Guy Ever

So a guy goes into a liquor store drunk off his ass wanting SO HARD to just buy beer. He just wanted one more beer. His epic journey to the refrigerator was something that caught the eye of the internet almost instantaneously - battling the elements, gravity and his own body, this man is truly a drunk hero.

BUT, it turns out this video was a fake.

So inevitably, people edited the movie, then people edited the edits and so on, as they did with the Star Wars kid. And much like the Star Wars kid, people started to add intense, dance-y or heavy background music to the video...but the best work came when people started adding AfterEffects.

This is the most epic video that came out of this meme. The best part? The wizard.

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2

Balloon Boy

In October of 2009, a some really lonely and desperate six year old boy climbed into a helium balloon, that was supposed to levitate only twenty feet off the ground…aaaaand it went further than that. For the next several hours network news was all over the story showing video of the balloon going over 8,000 feet into the air.

The internet was on this in such a quickness that it blew minds. Whereisballoonboy.net was released before the balloon even landed. Soon we were assaulted with ridiculous YouTube videos spotting the balloon, and of course macros of the balloon, and songs about the boy himself, who probably should've gotten beat by his RealityTV Star parents, but probably didn't because they most likely staged it...but I mean c'mon, YOU pay their mortgage.

After all the 99 Red Balloons parodies that came out of this, here is an original song with animations that really made you "FEEL" how ridiculous this event was. Plus points for Never Ending Story reference.

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3

I'm 12 years Old

This one is kiiinda "wrong" in the way it started.

Like many an internet meme, this one started out as a 4chan prank where users posted a ridiculous amount of child p**n on YouTube in the guise of “lazy Town” and “Jonas Brothers”.

This prank got the attention of the BBC, who did a special on this prank. At one point in the story they showed a comment left on YouTube “I’m 12 Years old, what is this” and thus this meme was born. Like many of the great memes, it’s a macro designed for trolls, when newbs don’t realize they are being trolled so a photoshopped variant of this meme is posted.

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4

Peekaru

In mid 2009, a picture circulated the internet, of a woman with a snuggie, made for a mother and child. The snuggie has a hole cut out for the baby.

Obviously, this is funny in and of itself. But it only got all the more hilarious when the mother’s head was edited out and some random crazy head took her place every time you saw a new picture. This one, in particular, RULES.

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5

Whose Responsible THIS!

The origins of this meme date back to September 11th, 2009, when an article was written lampooning a Pokemon fan fiction that had incest, pedophilia, and bestiality. It was a rather rough and completely hilarious review. But the writer of this gem of fan fiction, wasn’t too happy about being openly mocked and left this comment:

“WHOSE RESPONSIBLE THIS? I wanna know whose idea was this RIGHT NOW. Who did this on purpose, huh? I found this little secret and I’m so angry I wanna know who did this and why or I’ll report everyone here to the site moderaters on this website and Yiffstar and have the one responsible BANNED FOR LIFE. NOW TELL ME WHO DID THIS NOW?”

So upon reading this wonderful re-imagining of the English language, it isn’t a surprise that soon, a new Meme was created. This meme tends to be the vein of most of the hilarious mangling of words, and it essentially works on any sort of image, using the phrase, to make a picture all the more funny. Anything that seems hard to understand or just horrible can be christened by this beautiful meme.

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6

Remeber Me!

At this year’s E3, we were shown a new trailer for Metroid: the Other M. In the trailer there is the face of a black man who says “remember me?” This man has never been in any Metroid game.

So, of course, there was little guessing involved that new ammunition for Internet Lawls/lulz would be created. This meme, like many of the greats, is dissected in a variety of ways, but the classics are replacing the man’s face looking through the helmet with obviously unfitting images.

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7

Girugamesh

To people who follow Japanese metal, they know Girugamesh (well, the Engrish pronunciation) is a band. However, to most of the Internet public, they know it from a 2009 Web commercial for the Seattle Area anime convention. In the commercial, some guy in very tragic Mall-goth clothing shouts out his favourite J-rock band in the most awkward way imaginable — American engrish.

Obviously the internet community found this as fodder for the sort of macro we are thankful for.

Here is the obligatory Techno Mix of this particular meme.

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8

Aretha's Hat

During US President Obama’s Inauguration ball, Aretha Franklin appeared on stage, with an exotic bow fitted hat.

What followed was a blitzkrieg of celebrities, animals and random objects from every stretch of your imagination fitted with that hat on top of them. It's one of those priceless gems of a meme where words just aren’t needed.

This is another one of my favorites: http://www.papermag.com/blogs/aretha-hat-poster.jpg

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9

Three Wolf Moon T-shirt

Amazon has sold this horrible t-shirt design with three wolves howling at a full moon, since 2007. In 2009, a review was written in a satirical manner speaking in volumes about how much the ladies dig a man in the shirt.

Within days, the review caught a wave of inspiration via YouTube videos and a Redux of the shirt design... even Chuck Norris saw the awesomeness of Three Wolf Moon. Stranger still, people began to buy the shirt, and it is slowly becoming Amazon’s best selling t-shirt.

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10

Kanye West at the 2009 VMA's

At the 2009 MTV Music awards, Kanye West deftly interrupted Taylor Swift’s acceptance Speech for best Video of the year, by snatching the mic and telling everyone Beyonce’s video should have won. Within mere moments, the Internet was flooded with pictures of Kanye West interrupting everything known to man from keyboard cat to the ending ceremony in A New Hope.

Once Kanye interrupted Keyboard Cat, though, I think the man just went too far...

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11

Keyboard Cat was SUPPOSED to be #10, but Kanye Always Gets in the Way

Sorry Kanye West stole your spotlight, Keyboard Cat. Play us out...

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