With the world coming to terms with living with Covid-19, knowing more about what a "conservatorship is", and wondering if JLo and Ben Affleck are a thing, 2021 (and the funniest memes of 2021) is turning out to be one heck of a sequel to 2020.
Bill Gates is single, Prince Phillip expired, The Suez Canal was blocked by one boat for nearly a week, Biden keeps sniffing children. We know it's not even halfway through 2021 yet, but the world hasn't disappointed and there's been some absolute banger memes already this year.
We're taking a look at the biggest & funniest meme trends of 2021 (so far) and sharing some of our favourites from each trend/meme.
So pull up a chair, put your mittens on and see if you missed any of the biggest memes this year (so far)!
Bernie Sanders mittens
It's the apparent lack of formality that Bernie ran with when choosing his outfit for Joe Biden's inauguration. That puffer jacket. Those crossed arms. Them cute mittens. Why overdress when it's cold out? Bernie is all of us when heading to an event we'd rather not get ready for.
Bernie memes went wild when everyone began whipping out their mad photoshop skills and placing him in other photos and situations.
The Bernie Sanders Mittens memes are also strongly linked to the original bernie sanders memes, where he asks for more money for his presidential campaign wearing the same shit.
thank you senator!!!!!! pic.twitter.com/iD5CwWRROz
— jordan (@JordanUhl) January 31, 2020
I'm not a cat
Lock-down and working from home have led to a huge increase in viral video call fails, such as when a Texan lawyer became trapped in a cat filter on a Zoom call with a judge. "I'm not a cat" he said over and over, while his assistant tried in vain to remove the filter.
The Evergiven
A 20,000 freighter called The Evergiven blocked the Suez Canal for six days in March, blocking an estimated US$9.6 billion worth of trade. Even more comical were the images of a lone bulldozer, trying in vain to dig the Evergiven out.
The best part of this story - BEFORE The Evergiven became wedged across the river, the captain drew a giant penis in the red sea, which was confirmed as accurate by maritime experts.
What is happing in #SuezCanal today explained.#Egypt
pic.twitter.com/T06bFDGQ7q
— Zaina Erhaim (@ZainaErhaim) March 24, 2021
Oprah Interview
When Oprah interviewed Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, the world watched in hopes of massive royal family goss and scandal. We were not disappointed. Neither was Oprah, who helped to build on the drama with her theatrical questions and outbursts.
We also loved seeing two trending memes collide:
“Were you a CONTAINER ship or were you a CONTAINED ship?” pic.twitter.com/hlmjmRPpFt
— Nike Jock Trap (@sweetlikeJT) March 30, 2021
Kanye and Jeffree Star Rumours
With the whispers that Kim and Kanye's marriage is over and divorce imminent, came the explosive revelation that Kanye had been involved in an affair with male beauty influencer Jeffrey Star. Of course, the internet went nuts, right up until Star addressed the rumours directly on his Youtube channel. Still, many a great meme was made.
Jeffree escaping when he heard Kim’s car in the driveway pic.twitter.com/Ni8nEAPOD1
— ☆ Lou Sifer ☆ (@ThePunxNation) January 6, 2021
The Capitol riots
Ah, so many memes. How could the first week of January be so action-packed? One tweet by former US President Trump was all it took for a mob of Republicans to swarm and take over Capitol Hill. The world watched in utter awe at what was the latest farcical nonsense to come out of the circus that is US Politics.
Gamestop
Because fuck hedge funds, right? A sub-forum of Reddit agreed to buy and hold GameStop stocks to increase the stock value and essentially screw over Hedge Funds that were trying to short-sell GameStop stocks. Hedge Funds and investors went broke, complained about the illegality of what was happening, which was ironic, because the entire thing was legal and something that happens every day on Wall Street. Just never with the little guys winning big.
Josh Fight
The Josh Fight actually happened on April 24th, 2021, in a field in Lincoln, Nebraska. In 2020, Joshua Swain started a Facebook group chat and invited other Joshua Swains to fight, with the winner getting to keep their name. The invitation extended to include other Joshuas and Joshes. It made global headlines and the World rejoiced when "Little Josh" was declared the winner after a lengthy pool noodle fight and rock, paper, scissors battle.
March 2020/March 2021 (How it started vs How it's going)
SO many memes about this. We all remember March 2020 as being the month everything went to shit, and this year things are arguably worse - vaccine rollout issues, covid devastating parts of Europe and South Asia, travel bans, face masks, politicians. Here's some of the golden examples we've found - we reckon they're some of the funniest memes of 2021, hands down:
Dogecoin/ The Dogefather (Elon Musk)
Cryptocurrency Dogecoin has been growing in popularity this year, despite facing the obvious challenge of not being taken seriously as a currency due to also being a meme.
But Dogecoin might be on it's way to the moon, thanks to Elon Musk's endorsement of the coin - Musk has announced that a Doge-1 satellite will be launched in 2022 to the moon, with the launch being paid for by Space-X entirely with Dogecoin. This announcement, along with Musks' history of tweeting about the coin, have led to him being labelled "The Dogefather" as the value of Dogecoin has skyrocketed (pun fully intended) - and the subsequent memes have been spawned.
SpaceX launching satellite Doge-1 to the moon next year
– Mission paid for in Doge
– 1st crypto in space
– 1st meme in space
To the mooooonnn!!https://t.co/xXfjGZVeUW
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 9, 2021
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The best thing about 2021 is that it's not over yet - with more than half the year left, we are sure that some of the funniest memes of 2021 are still yet to come!