This Week's Best Memes, Ranked
Here at Digg, we try our best to cover the most important and confounding memes that come across the timeline. But the web is littered with tons of great memes that never quite hit the mainstream, instead bouncing around the weird corners of Twitter or Reddit.
Enter: our recurring feature, Memes, Ranked, where we not only rank the funniest memes each week, we also keep a running top 10 of the best memes of 2019. Skip to that here.
For the week of March 4, we have a handful of contenders: cheesing, John Mulaney & Pete Davidson, the Summoning Circle, Jesse Watters' whiteboard and Tim Apple.
5. Cheesing
The meme: You could have completely missed this moment if you didn't log onto the web over the weekend. Parents record videos of themselves throwing cheese on their kids' faces, then post said videos for internet points. The viral trend has, of course, spawned its own discourse and take economy, which is all part of the meme cycle.
The examples: There's the primary source documents…
And the secondary source memes…
Verdict: A waste of eating cheese indeed. Even the original cheese thrower himself is displeased with the viral trend becoming A Thing. I wish we didn't have to waste our time with this fake pasteurized dairy product nonsense so we could cut to the real memes, like…
4. Tim Apple
The meme: On Wednesday afternoon, President Donald Trump sat at a table next to Apple CEO Tim Cook and referred to him as "Tim Apple." It was funny. Jokes were had.
The examples:
Verdict: This meme wasn't never going to last forever, but it was a nice thing to joke about for a little while. Tim Cook publicly joining in on the clowning feels a little corny. We can just let this one fall off the tree in peace, probably.
Hopefully.
3. Pete Davidson & John Mulaney
The meme: Famous and funny friends Pete Davidson and John Mulaney recently attended a Knicks game together and a Getty photographer snapped a truly bizarre photo of the two of them. People ran with it, comparing them to other famous duos.
The examples:
Verdict: Mulaney makes for good meme fodder. His friendship with Pete Davidson doubly so. These get high marks because I sense longterm potential in Pete's wacky white hair.
2. Summoning Circle
The meme: An emoji-based meme. Make a circle of the candle emoji (๐ฏ) and put the object of your desire in the center. Pray hard and maybe you'll get what you're looking for, or so the meme logic goes.
The examples:
Verdict: Relatable, replicable, easy to iterate on. This is a good meme, and it still hasn't hit its peak yet. Do not be surprised to see this go supernova at some point later this year.
1. Jesse Watters' Whiteboard
The meme: Fox News host and famous racist Jesse Watters confused two black women journalist for each other live on air on Wednesday. Watters offhandedly referred to an interview conducted by Robin Roberts incorrectly as that of Gayle King. To apologize for the insensitive error, Watters held up an apology on a whiteboard.
That was his second mistake. The internet did not let him forget it.
The examples:
Verdict: This is what it's all about. When an unrepentant asshole does something repugnant โ like be racist on TV โ and then follows that dumb thing up with something merely dumb โ like hold up a whiteboard on TV โ the internet is supposed to step in. It's an unwritten rule. This is a good meme. It has served its purpose remarkably well.
The Official Joscoโข 2019 Meme Power Ranking
Click each entry on the ranking to see when it debuted.
- Let Me In!
- Shen Yun
- Strong Bunny & Little Bunny
- Jesse Waters' Whiteboard
- Summoning Circle
- Lady Gaga & Bradley Cooper
- Pokemon Memes
- Tim Apple
- Cheesing
- How Many Towels
"Let Me In" has no weaknesses, now that it has an HEV suit.
That's it! Was this fun? IDK! You tell me! Let me know if you liked this (and if I missed your favorite new meme) either on Twitter @jcosco or by email: [email protected]
