Editor’s Note: This article is part of Know Your Meme’s annual Top Ten Review series looking back at some of the most memorable and popular memes, events and people that defined the Internet culture in 2013 as we know it. And brace yourselves, the grand finale list Best Memes of 2013 is coming soon. In the meantime, check out Cheezburger's year-in-review of internet memes over at Memebase!
W
hile cats continued to reign supreme over the animal meme-dom in 2013, spearheaded by two celebrity cats Grumpy Cat and Lil Bub making their breakthroughs in mainstream America, the Year of Snake has been just as good of a year for other species as well: we saw an increasingly visible presence from our canine friends across-the-board and a slow but steady rise of the Sloths on Tumblr, not to mention a resurgence of the Yelling Goat with hilarious remixes of Taylor Swift's "I Knew You Were Trouble" on YouTube. Meanwhile, the Internet community's zero-tolerance policy on animal abuse was put to test on numerous occasions; in a rare moment of collaboration, 4chan and Reddit teamed up their efforts to track down South Carolinian teenager Walter Easley, who posted a self-recorded Vine video of him kicking a kitten off his porch, and a similar tension arose between Anonymous and California's Hawthorne Police Department after a video of police officers shooting a two-year-old Rottweiler dog surfaced and took off on YouTube. All in all, here's to yet another prolific year of animal memes and without any further adieu, Know Your Meme presents the top ten most memorable animals of 2013!
| | - Species: Cat (Felis catus)
- Breed: Snowshoe cat
- Debut: September 2013
- Breakout: Today I Became a Pirate | Facebook
- Profile: Rescue-adopted from the Multnomah County Animal Shelter in Troutdale, Oregon. Has one eye and the face of an old timey pirate who's seen it all. Broke into internet fame as the poster child of Pirate Day 2013.
- Primary Habitat: Facebook: 49,454 Likes
- Highlights: Meet Sir Stuffington | Fan Art
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