2021 In Memes: The Viral Trends Of A Very Unusual Year

We’re almost at the end of a very eventful year that many of us wish we could forget. We were so hopeful that 2021 would be better than 2020, and it was, if only a little. But while we’re still getting used to a world where people endlessly debate about wearing a mask, our viral jokes and memes have kept us going.

The world started to end last year. Unless you’ve been unfortunate enough to get sick, you probably haven’t had to quarantine anymore due to the vaccine … well until the most recent resurgence in cases. This pandemic has ruined our already limited social capabilities. If you’re like some of us, maybe you painted a face on a volleyball back in April 2020 and you’ve been talking to it ever since.

In this time of isolation, memes have helped us cope, and when schools and offices reopened, they’ve helped us cope with the agony of going back to the real world too. Take a walk down memory lane with some of the big events of 2021 that led to huge memes and viral trends this year.

Winter

The year didn’t start horribly. We had much higher expectations than we’d like to admit. It was the end of 2020, and now that a new year was starting, we really hoped we’d be able to return to what once resembled normal civilization. In a way, we were right, as some of the earliest vaccines began to be distributed. On January 20th, Joe Biden was inaugurated as President of the United States, and because we just can’t take anything seriously, we cared more about an image of Bernie Sanders sitting in a chair, wearing mittens. No one really can explain why the picture is so funny, but it’s one of the most recognizable memes of the year.

Vaccination rates started to increase more drastically in February. This (predictably) gave rise to more anti-vaxx memes because — let's not get into it actually. Anti-vaxx memes have always been a huge part of internet culture, but now they’re bigger than ever.

Then, early in March, Oprah’s interview with Meghan Markle and Prince Harry premiered, which provided us with many more completely irrelevant memes than comments about the actual content of the interview. Some people engaged in online debates about Meghan and Harry’s reveals, while most insisted on making memes about Oprah’s exaggerated reactions to everything the couple said.

Spring

By late March, things weren’t looking so promising. The Ever Given got stuck sideways in the Suez Canal, halting much of the world’s trade for nearly a week. Weirdly enough, this happened a second time later this year. The sheer absurdity of the situation was enough to generate thousands of memes, from those about the lone excavator trying to dig the giant ship out of the canal to petitions to add a second ship.

In April, it was time for the long-awaited Josh Fight. Due to the failure of the Area 51 raid, which was arguably similar in planning, no one really expected anything from it. Surprising everyone, the Josh Fight had a turnout of nearly one thousand people, both competitors and spectators. The event was also livestreamed to a vast and very confused audience. The original Josh Swain, who arranged the event, won the right to keep his name against a challenger, but 5-year-old “Little Josh” was declared the supreme Josh by the end of the day.

In May, Samsung Sam made her first appearance. Some wish this hadn’t become such a big deal, but an unofficial Samsung “personal assistant” concept went viral nonetheless. Not for any good reason, of course, but rather for the Rule 34 artists to use their "creative" imaginations. The whole internet saw some things it didn’t want to ever think about (or did), and now we’re sure Samsung will never make Sam a real thing.

Summer

June 2021 was memorable for having dozens of huge memes. While these memes didn’t necessarily coincide with any particular event, the spread of formats and trends such as Anakin and Padme’s "For the Better, Right?" and Sadam Hussein’s Hiding Place, more formats from Invincible and the famous TikTok meme "There’s No Such Thing as a Coincidence."

In July 2021, Jeff Bezos launched himself into space in a rocket shaped like human genitalia, then returned wearing a cowboy hat, so we don’t need to explain why this became such a famous meme. The postponed 2020 Olympics in Tokyo, Japan also started this month. Along with it came numerous viral rumors about the allegedly “anti-sex” cardboard beds the athletes slept on, pleas for Hatsune Miku to star in the opening ceremonies and memes about Annika Schleu’s horse. As usual, there were also a lot of memes about how no one seemed to have any fun watching the Olympics, and it’s just something they’re socially expected to do instead. Either way, at least we found humor in it somewhere.

August was a politically charged month, with many memes about the U.S. removing troops from Afghanistan. On the internet, we’re mostly terrible people, so it’s not particularly surprising that the chaos that ensued in Kabul was memed constantly. There’s one of these memes every year. We can’t say we’re surprised the world’s response was a bunch of dark humor memes.

Fall

September was when the second ship got itself lodged in the Suez Canal in a move that was somehow funnier the second time. It didn’t last long, and instead, we focused on the return to schools, which happened at approximately this time all around the U.S., and everyone was eager to complain about it through memes. We’d forgotten how inconvenient it was to leave our beds for the commute and wear normal clothes instead of pajamas to a class that occurs in person instead of through a Zoom call. We could no longer mute our classes when we got bored either.

In October, we had a lukewarm Spooktober. Not all of us were in the spooky spirit, and that’s not particularly surprising given the circumstances. But this is also the month when Squid Game gained a massive following, becoming one of Netflix’s most popular shows of all time, as well as a frequent source of new memes, such as the many screenshots and reenactments taken from Red Light, Green Light.

November saw the return of a particular meme holiday tradition we're sure you're familiar with. So instead, we’ll mention the Two Guys on a Bus meme and the trend of screenshotting NFTs to claim them as your own. It’s also that time of year when Mariah Carey thaws out and retail workers hear so much Christmas music they would rather gouge out their eardrums with a candy cane than tolerate it for another minute. Festive memes began to take hold, as well as COVID-themed festive memes.

Aside from a December full of our frustrations about holiday shopping and finals week in the U.S., we learned how to ponder our orb thanks to a new wizard-themed meme format that rapidly took over the month. The Omicron variant also took off, leaving us frustrated and largely back to where we were in early 2020. Overall, we’ve had a bad year, but some pretty good memes that came out of it. At least it’s not 2020.

At the very least, we have a couple of Marvel shows and movies, The Book of Boba Fett and many other time-killing things to look forward to in the near future, as well as the long-awaited Lord of the Rings television series. In theory, things will be brighter next year, but as long as it’s not like 2020, we’re not complaining too much.

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