From JFK from 'Clone High' to director Bong Joon-ho making his Oscars kiss, it's been a wild year.MTV; Courtesy of Lin-Manuel Miranda; Planters; Netflix; InnerSloth; Amy Sussman/Getty; Shayanne Gal/Insider
- Memes have been a crucial aspect of 2020, as more people turn to the internet for discussion and socializing.
- As time has warped and distorted across months of quarantine, memes have served as chronological markers that have helped define a chaotic year.
- From memes about "Cats" to the 12-foot Home Depot skeleton taking over everyone's timelines in October, here are the best memes of 2020 (so far).
Time warped in 2020. When everything about lockdown was novel, the days felt long. When every day became a version of the other, time accelerated. A consistent presence through it all, though, has been the memes. Looking back, online trends can help map how many weeks have passed and how we've spent our time passing them.
Throughout everything that's happened in 2020, from the global pandemic to the political turmoil, memes have ranged from wholesome to surreal, covering timely obsessions like Netflix's "Tiger King" and seemingly coming out of nowhere like the "everything is cake" memes of July. Of course, they've also reflected major news ranging from the USPS funding crisis to the California wildfires. One of the most online years ever — particularly for those who have been working, studying, and socializing from home — created one wild meme cycle.
Compiled by Insider's digital culture team, this is a chronology of the best memes of 2020.
January
"Cats" (2019)
Before the chaos of 2020 revealed itself, an omen of what was to come graced our silver screens. "Cats," the CGI nightmare adaptation of the cult-favorite musical, was released on December 18, 2019. But as the New Year's Eve ball dropped, "Cats" memes were still itching to be released, not unlike Rebel Wilson during the terrifying catsuit unzipping scene that inspired memes of its own. The memes ranged from attempts to recategorize "Cats" as a horror movie on Wikipedia to the frightening follow-up meme cycle about the rumored cut of the film where all the characters had CGI anuses. — Kat Tenbarge
Grimes and Elon Musk's baby
In January, Canadian musician Claire Boucher, known to her fans as Grimes, announced her pregnancy in a delightfully bizarre fashion on Instagram: with a nude photo featuring a photoshopped fetus on her belly. In the caption, she described pregnancy as a "feral & war-like state of being." The post, according to online meme encyclopedia Know Your Meme, racked up 113,000 likes within the hour — and it spurred a deluge of content envisioning the future of the offspring of the singer and her partner, Tesla CEO Elon Musk. — Margot Harris
Baby Nut
Baby Nut was the meant-to-be-viral Super Bowl ad campaign that literally rebirthed Planters' Mr. Peanut as, well, a Baby Nut. As is standard in 2020, the ad campaign was specifically engineered to inspire a wave of memes, drawing on the phenomenon seen after the introduction of Star Wars' Baby Yoda. Planters' plan was revealed after Insider reported that a series of meme accounts were created before Baby Nut's big debut. Baby Nut did become a major meme, but a large percentage of the organic Nut memes appeared to express a distaste for the legume. — Benjamin Goggin
Bernie Sanders: "I am once again asking..."
On December 30, 2019, Senator Bernie Sanders, then in the race for the Democratic nomination for president, called his supporters to action in a video shared widely online. "I am once again asking for your financial support," he said. According to Know Your Meme, social-media users started posting the still from the video that featured the quote in closed-captions in the middle of January, when Google search interest in the quote peaked. Soon, people were posting the meme without the dependent clause, instead inserting their own needs. In the 10 months since, the meme has continued to thrive online, with the phrase "I am once again asking" taking on a life of its own. — Rachel E. Greenspan
February
Bong Joon-ho making his Oscars kiss
"Parasite," the triumphant 2019 film from South Korean auteur Bong Joon-ho, took home four awards at the 2020 Oscars and became the first non-English-language film to win Best Picture, in one of the last Good Moments of 2020. Bong had plenty of memorable lines from the night, including saying, "Thank you, and I'm ready to drink tonight. Until next morning," after accepting the award for Best International Feature Film. One of his most endearing, meme-able moments was when he made two Oscar statuettes kiss. — Palmer Haasch
Billie Eilish's Oscars reaction
As audience members enjoyed Maya Rudolph and Kristen Wiig's performance at the Academy Awards, Billie Eilish appeared entirely baffled by their parody performance. The two comedians sang a rendition of the 1986 song "Lady in Red" as part of a running bit – and the cameras immediately panned to the teenage singer who, Twitter users noted, looked less than impressed. Her confused facial expression instantly became a meme and a callback to recently-popular "okay, Boomer" memes of 2019. — Margot Harris
Nancy Pelosi ripping up the State of the Union speech
As President Donald Trump concluded his State of the Union Address, a visibly exasperated Nancy Pelosi ripped a copy of his speech in half. When asked by reporters why she tore up her copy of the transcript, Pelosi responded that it was "the courteous thing to do considering the alternative." While she did not specify what she meant by "the alternative," Twitter was quick to guess. The moment immediately became a meme encompassing social media users' wide range of frustrations. — Margot Harris
April
'Gossip Girl' title riffs
These "Gossip Girl" title edits took over timelines for a brief moment in April, putting a surreal spin on the letters used in the now-over "Gossip Girl" TV show. The first viral instance of the meme was "Go Piss Girl," but there's a surprising number of phrases you can make by rearranging the letters of the show's title. This meme derives some of its significance from the cultural capital of "Gossip Girl," which has aged enough to attain a certain element of nostalgia, but even for those unfamiliar, the blank expressions on Blake Lively and Leighton Meester's faces and the hilarious text edits still make it a winner. — Palmer Haasch
Zoom memes
Much like only wearing draw-string pants, Zoom quickly became a staple of pandemic living. From accidental nudity to getting stuck using the pen filter, remote workers and students struggled to adapt to the video conferencing technology. Luckily, they turned to memes to document their Zoom mishaps, helping everyone feel a little less alone in the bizarre new routine. — Margot Harris
May
Grimes' baby's actual name
Elon Musk and Grimes are an unexpected, but fitting couple for the times given their chaotic energy and hyper-online personas. The pair chose a string of letters, numbers, and symbols for the name of their first child, which just added to the intense internet chatter around their child. The baby name instantly became a meme and eventually had to be adjusted from X Æ A-12 to X Æ A-XII to comply with California state law. There are some things even being a billionaire can't help you with. — Kat Tenbarge
My plans / 2020
COVID-19 has had a massive death toll worldwide, taking more than a million lives worldwide. But it also stole moments of joy and flipped the world upside down for most people. We've missed weddings, birthdays, movie premieres, and births. Colleges shut down campuses, athletes hung up their cleats, airports sat empty, and hotel stays were canceled. The "my plans / 2020" meme, which blew up on Twitter and Instagram two months into the stay-at-home orders throughout the US, shows a side-by-side of images that describe the grand plans we all had for 2020, compared to our 2020 realities — similar to the "expectation vs. reality" meme. — Rachel Greenspan
