Know Your Meme

KYM Review: The Top Viral Videos Of 2023

December 13th, 2023 - 11:57 AM EST by Sakshi Rakshale

This year's viral videos speak to the internet's increasing tendency toward promoting weird, absurd and sometimes abrasive content, with a few breakout stars in terms of wholesome ingenuity.

From the same corners of the internet that gave us the Dracula Flow story also came the hilarious German Mud Wizard, all while TikTok was still reeling from the Pinky Doll NPC invasion and a pudgy preteen's earworm "One Two Buckle My Shoe" hit.

Here are some of 2023's most viral and talked about videos, from clips that were shared in their entirety to those that became remixed and repurposed into meme heaven.

Plane Woman / That MF Is Not Real

The video of Tiffany Gomas (aka the "TMFINR Plane Woman") being hurried off an airplane as she points to the back of the cabin and exclaims, "That MF is not real!" was an instant classic the hot July day that it dropped.

The brief public freakout went multi-million-views viral on TikTok and other platforms in a way that was only exacerbated by new facts about the incident slowly trickling out to the public.

Carrot Top, of all people, was on the flight and gave a brief rundown on how the lady was obnoxiously shouting about losing an earbud before she was booted. Dom Lucre, an X / Twitter account infamously known for posting some extremely questionable content to X, tried to claim that he had video footage of the person Gomas was pointing at, which turned out to be a total lie.

To make matters stranger, no one could figure out who the "Crazy Plane Lady" was for days. It's a sad fact of the modern internet that most armchair sleuths can close to pinpoint anything from a Discord handle to a home address in a matter of hours, which made the mystery surrounding Gomas's identity all the more exciting as it brewed for weeks before someone finally identified her.

Tiffany Gomas eventually realized that perhaps the best thing to do was to go on the record and clear her name from the many accusations of "crazy" that had been swirling for months.

In early November, she went on the "Pardon My Take" podcast to assure people that she didn't see an alien or a ghost or any mysterious being, but that her unfortunate mode of expressing her frustration ended up being blown out of proportion by the media.

PinkyDoll's NPC Stream

When TikToker @PinkyDoll's videos were first posted to X in July 2023, many viewers weren't sure about what exactly they were looking at. TikTok LIVE's NPC streams are now a well-recognized and weird internet phenomenon, but before the trend blew up, unfamiliar viewers thought that PinkyDoll was quite literally insane.

The visual of a beautiful woman conducting an inane task like popping popcorn one kernel at a time while repeating an endless stream of nonsequitur buzzwords was truly bizarre and confusing to the thousands of people who reposted her videos.

Only later did everyone understand the deep lore behind TikTok livestream gifts, and how each PinkyDoll refrain ranging from "Icecream so good!" to "Gang gang" was netting her incremental income that really stacked up.

PinkyDoll's viral NPC stream video not only unveiled a whole world of TikTok content not yet examined by the internet at large, but it also inspired several other creators to put their own spin on the videos with French "soldier" R.octavoc.r delivering the iconic "I Need More Boolets streams" in August.

1 2 Buckle My Shoe, 3 4 Buckle Some More

A TikTok video of a pudgy kid beckoning to the camera and breaking into what can only be described as a delightful ditty went massively viral in April, gathering over 18 million views in just two days.

TikToker @Edmondx's hilarious Vlone shirt (a trend that's often parodied in "Hood Irony" memes) and his god-awful, apparently homemade, and very "pilgrim-esque" shoes completely out of Thanksgiving season, and even his undeniably well-pitched singing voice all came together to create the perfect earworm viral storm.

But @edmondx can't take all the credit for the 1, 2, Buckle My Shoe trend. The concept of "shoe roasts" is largely derived from Bronx-based comedian @Slv_Soundss, who often films himself grabbing people's busted-up shoes by the tongue (the tongue!) and delivering a soul-crushing read of their fashion choices on the spot.

Planet Of The Bass

The euro-core dance track parody "Planet Of the Bass" ripped through the internet for weeks in the summer with everyone on TikTok to Tumblr to Twitter singing, "Life, it never die. Women are my favorite guy."

TikToker Kyle Gordon's smash summer hit was released under the pseudonym DJ Crazy Times, and the mallcore video featuring his and his blonde female sidekick Ms. Biljana Electronica perfectly encapsulated the very specific vibe of '90s-era Eastern European dance music.

"Planet Of The Bass" truly committed to the bit over the next few months, going so far as to recreate the classic Euro-DJ trend of remaking and remixing their song to create an objectively worse version of a popular track. In Gordon's case, his decision to forgo his beloved blonde sidekick elicited sneers that eventually turned to hoots when she made a comeback in the song's official music video.

Montogomery Alabama Riverboat Fight

The videos from the Alabama Riverboat fight in August created one of those rare instances where the internet was undivided in terms of moral righteousness.

A racially divided brawl was sure to bring out the worst internet users in any other instance, but thanks to the keen camera work of the riverboat passengers, everyone across the world got a clear view of what really went down.

After the co-captain of the "Harriet" waited for over 45 minutes trying to dock the boat in its assigned spot, he went to the shore to try and reason with the owners of the private boat parked in his way.

He was met with rude gestures and obscene cursing, with tensions eventually ramping up to the point where he was thrust into the midst of a 4-against-1 brawl with the owners of the offending boat.

But the passengers on the Harriet and other people on the dock did not stand for their captain being jumped by a gang of entitled boat owners, and a hoard of people descended in droves in an attempt to knock some sense into them.

The viral clips gave rise to some iconic characters, whether it's the folding chair that was used to bash someone on the head, or the internet-dubbed "Black Aquaman" who jumped off the boat and swam to the defense of the captain.

Moreover, the video eventually led to everyone on the captain's side being acquitted of all charges and the antagonistic boat owners who instigated the brawl being charged with assault.

Let Me Do It For You

The hilarious cover of Muppet Miss Piggy singing British singer FKA Twig's iconic song "Cellophane" was first posted to the internet in 2022, but it was cemented in meme history thanks to an early 2023 "Borzoi-posting" trend.

Miss Piggy's nasally "Didn't I do it for you" refrain paired perfectly well with videos of the adorable long-nosed Borzoi dog, as seen in a video posted by TikToker @sugarthesilken that gathered over 9 million views this year.

So many Borzoi owners began posting clips of their own "Lord Foogs" set to this song that animator @drawzillazzz cooked up a hilarious video showing a Borzoi helping his owner get to the bottom of a long Pringles can. I guess they don't say dogs are man's best friend for no reason.

Give Me One Margarita I'mma Open My Legs

Give Me One Margarita I'mma Open My Legs was an off-the-cuff freestyle performed on a podcast by Angel Laketa Moore in May that inspired a global trend lasting for weeks if not months this summer.

After Moore heard a clip of an evangelical preacher named Sister Cindy giving a sermon on a college campus, she remarked that it sounded an awful lot like Sister Cindy was on the verge of breaking into a rap song.

The song went like this:

Give me one margarita, I'mma open my legs,
Give me two margaritas, I'mma give you some head.
Give me three margaritas, I'mma put it in my p---,
Give me four margaritas, I'mma put it in my tush.
Give me five margaritas, I'mma have some fun,
Give me five margaritas, I'mma put it in your b---

Moore's rendition of the song was an instant hit online and led to internet users remixing her barebones freestyle into full-fledged productions and even devising entire dance performances to go along with the track.

Life Is Roblox

DJ Khaled never misses a chance to turn a video into a motivational message, but his misattributed Life Is Roblox quote takes the cake for one of his best quotes ever.

The producer was recorded bungling attempt to maneuver his vehicle twice, whether it was getting his jetski stuck in shallow water or backing his golf cart over a curb. Both times, Khaled took a second to give his viewers some divine wisdom by saying, "Life is (full of) roadblocks."

Unfortunately for Khaled, his ennunciation led to people making meme upon meme mistranscribing his quote and making it seem as though he said, "Life is Roblox," in reference to the ever-popular video game.

The result was a cacophony of glitzy meme edits undercut by Khaled inadvertently giving us his most prized piece of wisdom yet.

German Mud Wizard

People often talk about how the French know how to protest best, but the German Mud Wizard at the Lützerath Anti-Coal Protest took the cake in funniest and most viral protest video of 2023.

The clip truly boggles the mind: A man shrouded in brown wizarding robes takes on a gaggle of policemen, half of whom appear to be trying and failing to extract their feet from the sticky mud enveloping their shoes, all while the Mud Wizard walks around them with ease and sometimes even pushes and jerks them around as insult upon injury.

The science of why the Mud Wizard was immune to the swamp that was attempting to swallow the police whole is yet uncertain, but his character arc fit well into a slew of Wizard-focussed memes that were popularized in 2023.

His laissez-faire attitude towards the pull of the mud was at odds with his passion for anti-coal activism, a goal that perhaps imbibed him power inaccessible to the police, who remained unable to extract themselves from the mud pit.

Perhaps the funniest aspect of this video going viral was the title with which it was posted to Reddit that gathered over 180,000 upvotes: "German Riot Police Defeated and Humiliated by Some Kind of Mud Wizard."

Dracula Flow

A free-flowing, beat-less rap performance delivered by an old man who appears to be wearing some sort of Dracula costume went viral on YouTube through a series of disparate uploads from April to December this year.

The videos may look like they have low production value, but the "Detroit Rap" style lyrics put the clips in a league of their own in terms of comic relief.

The buzz around the Dracula Flow videos was exacerbated by people speculating that Joji, who used to go by Filthy Frank on YouTube, is the man running the production company that has been creating these Dracula flow videos.

The raps inspired remixes, fan art and animations on YouTube and TikTok for weeks after each video was released, making it one of the most memorable videos this year.

Honorable Mentions

Some honorable mentions of this year's viral videos list are the unending and unavoidable Skibidi Toilet videos that took over everyone's feed and brain space for a big chunk of the year. You're sure to see this meme in many end-of-year lists, but it definitely deserves a spot on the KYM viral video review.

Another honorable mention is the Hibachi Britney, aka "Britney Knives," clip. Less meme-core than normie-lore, the video of pop star Brtiney performing an elaborate but dangerous-looking dance with instruments she insists are "prop knives" became the subject of much discourse and many remakes this year.

Looking for more of this year's best viral phenomena and memes? Be sure to check out our other 2023 meme roundups below:

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Related Entries 11 total

Britney Spears’ Knives Dance ...
Dracula Flow
Montgomery Alabama Riverboat ...
"Planet of the Bass" / Women ...
DJ Khaled "Life Is Roblox"
Pinkydoll TikTok Lives / Ice ...
Give Me One Margarita I'mma O...
Skibidi Toilet
1 2 Buckle My Shoe, 3 4 Buckl...
German Mud Wizard at Lützerat...
Let Me Do It For You

Comments 2 total

Rhettorical

Dec 13, 2023 at 02:11PM EST

I feel like we've entered a new Dark Age if this was truly the best the year had to offer. Can we go back to the time when the worst we had to complain about was Gangnam Style?

1

Rynjin

Dec 13, 2023 at 04:35PM EST Rhettorical

Gotta agree, most of these are fucking awful. Mud Wizard is still a legend though.

0

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