February's Meme of the Month

February has been a busy month for memes. We’ve seen a significant increase from last month to pop up on the internet, and although there has been one meme that has dominated, it hasn’t exactly set the internet alight as some other memes do. Some of the memes from this month have lasted mere days, so going through most of them will require a bit of work!

First up, we had a brief trend of people sharing images of food that was unimpressive at best, disgusting at worst, along with the phrase “follow me for more recipes”; perhaps a dig at standard cooking bloggers?

We also saw an image of a woman at a concert, holding up a sign saying “your music saved me”; this would, in turn, be coupled with an image of something like cartoon characters playing instruments, or some other comic, vaguely music-related image, like a cat playing the trumpet.

An early meme that made us particularly chuckle was an image of a group of stones with pouting faces carved into them, which was used to symbolize a group of people saying “ooooooooo”. A silly joke, but a good joke nonetheless.

One last meme that showed up briefly in the first week or so of the month was the “Spittin’” meme. Basically, it would usually take a lyric from a song or rap, and take it literally, with a creature or character relating to the lyrics and exclaiming that “this MF spittin’”. A little tricky to explain, so just look at it!

Our old friend Rick from Rick & Morty appeared several times in a meme that just appeared to be a remix of memes from the past (featuring Lisa Simpson, Spider-Man, PewDiePie and a Malamute in a bow-tie); Rick would tear a section of wallpaper from the wall, revealing a message that made a matter-of-fact statement.

Elsewhere, memes started to appear pointing out the name of the American rock band Foo Fighters; memes that suggested the band spends their time away from the stage fighting Foo, whatever that is!

Yet another meme appeared from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, this one featuring Chris Evan’s Captain America, in which he says something controversial, prompting a group of men in suits to try and wrestle him to the ground.

Speaker of the United States House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi found herself the subject of her own meme after becoming embroiled in political controversy. At President Trump’s State of the Union address, Pelosi, an outspoken opponent of Trump’s, tore his speech up in full view of everybody. For us non-political people, this was a great opportunity to create more memes, such as this one.

Remember the “Stonks” meme? This month (and last month, but we chose to ignore it because it was difficult to define as one meme movement), there has been a truly vast number of new versions of the meme, featuring that strange mannequin-esque face. They would often feature problems being solved in ridiculous, counter-productive ways, or incredibly simple tasks being performed, along with the word for the person who’s meant to be doing the job spelled completely wrong. There are hundreds of these, so let’s show you just a couple of corkers.

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Just a couple more before we pick our winning meme. One of our favourite memes has featured WWE superstar wrestlers The Undertaker and Randy Orton; The Undertaker entering the stage through a cloud of fog, to be greeted with Orton’s shocked, disbelieving face. Some of the memes that have come from this template have been absolutely hilarious, in the way they depict the apparent incredulity of situations.

Finally, in the latter stages of the month, for no apparent reason, the internet started to get very, very angry at the human baby from the 2002 animated comedy film Ice Age. People repeatedly expressed potent hatred, a desire to kill or hurt the poor wee thing, and even went as far as to blame it for the detriment of our society. A real shame, cause Roshan, as it’s named in the film’s credits, voiced by Tara Strong, is so cute! Perhaps this meme is another attempt at shock humour… 

So, lots of honorable mentions, but what is our Meme of the Month? We’ve seen this meme appear, along with close variations, perhaps more than any other on timelines and meme pages this month, and there are still variations appearing now. It is, of course, Bernie Sanders asking us for financial support. Mr. Sanders is running for the US presidency once again this year, so he released a video appealing to the public for donations to his campaign. This spawned a truly enormous number of memes; some were based on his original statement; others remixed the quote, and others allowed the meme to transcend into other classic memes.

Regardless of your political standing, you must love this meme; it’s simple, cute, and relatable. Plus, it’s been continuously popping up almost all month. For that reason, Bernie Sanders asking once again for our financial support is RGU Radar’s Meme of the Month for February! We can’t support him financially though; we simply don’t have that kind of money. Sorry Bernie!