This Week's Best Memes, Ranked
Here at Digg, we like to pride ourselves on aggregating, showcasing and covering "what the internet is talking about." And the internet is constantly talking about exciting, important things and also dumb things, and increasingly the language used to have those conversations is the language of memes.
We try our best to cover the most important and confounding memes that come across the timeline, but there are just so many to keep track of. That's why we're rolling out out a new recurring feature, Memes, Ranked.
For the week of February 4, we have a handful of contenders: Jeff Bezos memes, Nancy Pelosi memes, and "I made queso."
3. Bezos Memes
The meme: Ugh. Okay. So Thursday afternoon Amazon CEO and Founder and world's richest/horniest man Jeff Bezos published a post on Medium. The post alleged that the tabloid publication National Enquirer tried to blackmail him by threatening to publish nude photos of both him and his partner, Lauren Sanchez.
This is a fairly newsworthy event, and it's also about dick pics. So naturally people took to Twitter to make fun of the whole thing.
The examples:
Verdict: Okay, there's definitely humor here. And what is happening to Bezos stinks. But any jokes that are supposed to make us pity the world's richest man are going to inherently ring a little dry. Sorry, Jeff. Keep it under wraps next time. Or at least encrypt your sexts!
2. Nancy Pelosi Memes
The meme: Wait seriously another crummy current events meme? Weird flex… Anyway, on Tuesday, President Trump gave his second State of the Union address. Sitting behind him was Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. Toward the end of the address, a very good image was captured of the speaker by New York Times photographer Doug Mills. You can read what he has to say about his still in this interview with CJR.
Almost immediately afterward, memers on both sides of the aisle began using Mills' photo to further their comedic and political agendas.
The examples:
Verdict: Look, most of these memes stink hard. But they are a good indicator of who is good and bad at memeing. My rule of thumb for this one: if you see someone sharing one of these dumb things they probably are new to the whole "internet" thing, which is useful to know sometimes.
There are exceptions though, which are also helpful to keep an eye out for, and that's an irony-dipped use of the Pelosi Clap pose. Those can be pretty funny, like this one from practiced meme-maker Adam Friedland:
1. I Made Queso
The meme: On Sunday night, minutes after Super Bowl LIII kicked off, Fox News anchor (and White House Press Secretary under George W. Bush) Dana Perino tweeted a photo of "queso" that she "made." It looked like this:
For the next 24 hours, a (left-leaning) chunk of the internet clowned Perino for her less-than-appetizing-looking dish by tweeting equally gross-looking foods with the same caption.
The examples:
Verdict: It's simple, but it's funny as hell. It's easy to combine with other memes (see how Blink-182 bassist Mark Hoppus combined I Made Queso with a classic Fyre Fest reference? Not bad, Mark!) Also imagining dipping a corn chip in that dirty cigarette water haunts my dreams. "I Made Queso" is not only the best thing to come out of Super Bowl LIII, it's also the best meme of the week.
The Official Josco™ 2019 Meme Power Ranking
We finally have a full top ten. Click each entry on the ranking to see when it debuted.
- Shen Yun
- I Made Queso
- John Mulaney Memes
- Choking Sasuke
- Thotiana
- Ultra Instinct Shaggy
- Fyre Fest Memes
- Nancy Pelosi Memes
- Jeff Bezos Memes
- Really Really Really
For the third week in a row…
Shen Yun will be loved.
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]
