KYM Review: Sites and Apps of 2017

Editor’s Note: This article is part of Know Your Meme’s annual review series looking back at some of the most memorable and popular memes, events and people that defined internet culture in 2017 as we know it.

nline technology continues to reach new heights as our connection to the internet becomes deeper with each passing year. Mobile technology in particular has grown by leaps and bounds, as nearly everyone and their grandmother has a smart phone now-a-days.

While no one was able to surpass the virality of 2013's Flappy Bird, a number of notable mobile games took off this year. Nintendo jumped back on the scene with the release of their social simulation game Animal Crossing Pocket Camp and an Android version of their side-scrolling, auto-run game Super Mario Run. Meanwhile, the Pokémon Company hooked fans with the highly addicting gacha game Magikarp Jump, allowing players to raise a fleet of virtual fish to endlessly collect coins.

However, not all social media platforms and internet companies fared too well this year, with the internet bidding farewell to Vine as it officially shut its doors in January, though co-creator Dom Hofmann hinted a new project is in the works, while Uber, the world's largest taxi company and one of the most successful startups in history, struggled to shake off seemingly endless bouts of scandals involving its executives' conducts and massive data breaches. In digital publishing, many independent production companies like Super Deluxe continued to rack up millions after millions of views with their hilariously bizarre content, while major news publishers like DNAinfo and Gothamist suffered a shocking closure when Joe Ricketts, the publisher of silent made the stunning move to shut both operations down after the company's writers and employees voted to unionize, leading to an enormous backlash online.

Above all else, 2017 proved to be an enormously successful year for cryptocurrency platforms, as the price of Bitcoin soared from less than $1000 per token at the beginning of the year to upwards of $16,000 per token at the time of writing, yielding a whopping 1,500% jump in valuation.

In photo-editing apps, the mobile app Meitu gave users the ability to make anyone kawaii, while MakeApp boasted the opposite effect with their controversial makeup removal feature.

In no particular order, here are some of the top sites and apps to make waves throughout the tech world this last year.

Me.me

Seemingly out of nowhere, the online meme aggregator sign Me.me popped on to the scene this year in a big way. Initially launched as Onsizzle.com in 2015, the site does an impressive job of gathering memes from across the web, and even cites the source from which it was taken. This year, they teamed up with data scientist and former NASA researcher Evan Freitag to released Me.me Trends, a tool that graphs meme popularity in a similar fashion to how Google Trends tracks search volume for keywords. Most recently, the site appears to be working on some sort of meme exchange database, featuring presale form to trade 1 ETH for 3,000,000 MEME.

Musical.ly

In online cringe content, one application stood out this year as an impressive incubator for some of the most annoying videos on the web. After kicking off the career of teen pop star Jacob Sartorious, this social networking video app started attracting young cosplayers with some very high IQs. In September, Musical.ly clips featuring teens acting out various skits while dressed as characters from Rick and Morty came along just as fans of the animated television show were gaining an online reputation for being exceedingly irritating and obnoxious.

/r/MemeEconomy

The /r/MemeEconomy entire subreddit is a place on Reddit for internet culture enthusiasts to speculate about the viral success of various internet memes. Launching in late 2016, the community exploded in popularity this year by crossing the 300,000 subscriber milestone in September, cementing its place in Reddit's top 300 subreddits. If you're wondering which memes to "buy" or "sell," this is the place to find out. In case you missed it, be sure to check out our "Meme Exchange Stock Market Report" summarizing our meme economy-inspired April Fool's Day event!

FaceApp

There certainly was no shortage of bizarre photo-editing software this year, and the mobile application FaceApp may have taken home the crown for the weirdest of all. While it was initially released with a fairly innocuous set of filters allowing users to make themselves look old, young or paste a creepy smile on their face, an update to the app released in August allowed people to use filters that change a person's race to Asian, Black, Caucasian and Indian. Needless to say, the new feature didn't go over very well, and the race filters were removed just hours later.

HQ Trivia Game Show

This mobile application allowing users to play a live trivia game show gained a lot of buzz this year, leading the Daily Beast to write a profile on the app's popular host Scott Rogowsky. After finding out that Rogowsky had been contacted for the article, HQ Trivia CEO Rus Yusupov went off the rails demanding it not be published, even threatening to fire Rogowsky if the profile ever saw the light of day.

GoFundMe

This online crowdfunding platform became the go-to place to raise money for a wide variety of causes, including health care costs and charity projects. Following October's tragic mass shooting in Las Vegas, a GoFundMe campaign to raise money for victim's family collected upwards of $3.2 million in just two days.

Discord

Back in the 90s, Internet Relay Chat (IRC) was the top dog when it came to real-time group communications, but has seen a steady decline in popularity since 2003. This year, the application Discord exploded on to the scene with their multi-platform chat client, allowing users to create their own custom servers for both text and voice communications. Initially marketing itself as a video game-oriented service, Discord has since been adopted for a variety of different interests, including politics, music, hobbies and even memes.

Gab

After numerous high-profile conservatives saw themselves banned from the social networking giant Twitter, including the controversial British writer Milo Yiannopoulos, entrepreneur Andrew Torba launched Gab as an alternative social media platform dedicated to the principle of free speech. Since then, the site has been widely reported as a haven for racism and white supremacists, including a Vice News episode on HBO which referred to Gab as "Twitter for Racists."

Bitmoji

Remember Bitstrips? Well, it's dead, and Bitmoji has risen in its place. After being acquired by Snapchat in July of last year, Bitstrips shut its doors completely to focus on the emoji-style stickers. Since then, Bitmoji surged in demand, becoming Apple's most popular application of the entire year.

8values

As divisions widened in the wake of last year's United States presidential election, the 8values quiz site capitalized on the politically conscious zeitgeist with an impressive survey application. Asking users a variety of detailed questions, the site generates graphs outlining where someone falls on four basic political spectrums.