The Top 10 Meme Formats of 2021

We had so much hope for 2021. After weathering the proverbial and actual storms of 2020 like absolute champs, it felt like we were owed a good year. Maybe one with slightly less death, depression and destruction. The world had other plans. If you're reading this, you managed to survive - which is something to be thankful for. But today we're here to give thanks to the memes that got us through the hell of 2021. They provided us with therapeutic laughs, and much-needed distractions. Best of all, they were free. The staggering 6.8% inflation we're dealing with here in the United States doesn't apply to memes. So without further ado, and in no particular order, we present our top ten meme formats of this crappy year. May they serve as a reminder that it wasn't all bad. Just most of it.

1. For the Better, Right?

Existence is frequently disappointing, and nothing understands that better than memes. However, it’s rare that this idea gets distilled as clearly as in For The Better, Right?.

Combining its Star Wars source material with the easily exploitable four panel comic, this meme all but guaranteed its success by adding dashed hopes into the mix. It didn’t matter what your frustration was, it could be expressed through a made up dialogue between Padmé and Anakin.

Adjusting our expectations is rarely easy, but hashing out those feelings in Photoshop is.
This meme proves that when you give people a novel way of complaining, they will run with it until it can no longer carry on. 
 

2. Among Us

Among Us has been around since 2018, but it took a whole plague to elevate the infamous social deduction game to viral status. While everyone was stuck in quarantine, games like Among Us provided an opportunity to socialize with friends. The game became so popular that people started seeing the iconic crewmember in everything. Trash cans. Fire alarms. Logos. Chicken nuggets. And thus a legendary meme was born.

3. Sigma Males

Just when you thought alphas were the ultimate epitome of masculinity and dominance, 2021 dropped a new and improved archetype known as the Sigma Male. According to ‘hustle culture’ enthusiasts who take the ‘hierarchy of males’ seriously, sigmas are equal to alphas and yet somehow exist outside of the social stratum (because they’re just that freaking cool). Think John Wick or Han Solo. It didn’t take long for the Sigma Male to become a hit meme that mocks men who fancy themselves lone wolves misunderstood by society. 

4. Sections of a Joint

Smoking a joint can be a journey, especially for people who tend to toke in small doses. What starts out as a pleasant buzz can quickly spiral into paranoia mode by the end of a blunt. Just before 4/20/21, an exploitable meme emerged that humorously illustrated the stages of smoking a joint. Potheads and casual smokers everywhere used the format to express what getting high is like for them. 

5. 'Average Fan Vs. Average Enjoyer' 

Nothing gets people riled up like a healthy Pepsi vs. Coke style debate. And this meme format that gained popularity in February of 2021 was designed to do just that. The template uses photos of James Youniverse to portray a basic or classless preference (ahem, Pepsi) against a photo of a chiseled male plastic surgery victim to represent a more cultured opinion. It's classic “things I don't like” meme with a bit of a twist. While the memes cover our favorite eternal soda debate. they also go after scientific stances and, of course, a whole lot of anime references for the many weebs chillin' on the web. 

6. Shroomjak

How could we leave this super chill and sweet-looking mushroom out of our list? We were first introduced to this fungus-ified Wojak in January, when someone anonymously posted the first known image of Shroomjak to 4chan's /b/ board, accompanied by a mild message: 'I made my own wojak.' 

In another context, Shroomjak's pleasant, unassuming vibe paired with OP's innocuous comment may have provoked a simple 'good job' or maybe even a 'lol.' But we're talking about 4chan, where dreams are crushed and toxicity runs high. Instead OP was met with a vile “kys.” It wasn't until June that the benign mushroom started popping up absolutely everywhere. The meme may not have had crazy longevity, but it made us very, very happy while it was around. 

7. Gaslight Gatekeep Girlboss

She put up a good fight, but the reign of the Karen is over. There’s a new public enemy in town, and she comes armed with a slew of pastel Instagram infographics. The girlboss made a definitive mark on the online discourse of 2021, but her biggest contribution was probably this catchphrase meme. 

Describing the three main things that every ambitious woman should aspire to, Gaslight, Gatekeep, Girlboss openly celebrates being toxic if it helps a girl get to the top. Where Karen might be in denial that she’s ever in the wrong, the Girlboss embraces it, and knows all the buzzwords to make it seem like she’s in the right.

Most of the time, the only gaslighting she does is her attempts to hook you on her MLM scheme, and she pretends to gatekeep when you politely decline. It’s all good, though, because she’s empowered by the memers who want nothing more than to see her succeed. 

8. Trade Offer

We have to make choices every day, some of which are higher stakes than others. All this decision making can get us down, which is why this year came up with a meme for that. Trade Offer boils all our interactions down to a simple give and take, no questions asked.

The format came from humble beginnings, in which TikToker @bradeazy offers “nothing” in exchange for “sloppy toppy”. Over time, it blossomed into the perfect way to illustrate everything from major historical events to that thing your annoying Twitter mutual just posted.

Making an offer that’s hard to refuse, this meme represents a vital leap forward in spreading the insular world of TikTok to the wider internet. Is it the worst trade deal in the history of trade deals? That’s up for you to decide.

9. Saddam Hussein’s Hiding Place 

 The fallout from 9/11 is one of the defining events of the 21st century, and it has inspired plenty of questionable content in its time. In the previous decade, this could be seen in ironic memes with the likes of Jet Fuel Can’t Melt Steel Beams. This year, though, the internet decided it was tired of conspiracy, and that the humor was to be found in the details that actually happened.

This didn’t mean that the joke got any less absurd; in fact, things got even weirder. Saddam Hussein’s Hiding Place takes a diagram from a detailed news article about the Iraqi dictator’s capture and turns it into a meaningless in-joke with endless possibilities. Hibernating with the polar bears, lying low underneath your mom’s house, infiltrating other memes — for one crazed week, his featureless red silhouette was everywhere. No one could have predicted that the war on terror would come to this. 
 

10. Pondering My Orb 

Sometimes the “top” memes of the year aren't necessarily the best memes. They're the most popular. And as weary as we are of this wizard and his orb, there's no denying that this meme pretty much dominated the scene in November and early December.  That's when nearly every Instagram and Facebook page or subreddit seemed to feature the image that's actually the illustrated cover of Middle-Earth Quest: A Spy In Isengard. Even now, with January jus a day a way, we're still seeing the meme pop up on our timelines. So we have to give credit where credit is due. 2021 was a year for orb ponderers.