It’s five months into 2019 and a lot has happened. But, how do younger generations explain how they’re feeling in such a complex digital world? Memes.
Here are the Top 10 memes of 2019 (so far):
- (Photo courtesy to PopBuzz)
Bird Box challenge
This challenge got famous for all the wrong reasons at the start of 2019. “Bird Box” is a Netflix original movie starring Sandra Bullock. The movie is about an invisible entity makes the characters hallucinate when they’re exposed to it. These hallucinations cause the movie’s characters to kill themselves. To avoid being haunted by their hallucinations, the characters in the film have to keep their eyes covered. The challenge started off as a harmless way to make fun of the idea of constantly wearing a blindfold, but then people started leaving their house and in some cases driving with blindfolds on. There have been reports of people dying due to this challenge, so DON’T TRY THIS AT HOME!

(Photo courtesy to @JjMilliken on Twitter)
Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper perform “Shallow” at the Oscars
Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper stole the show at this year’s Oscars. Their intimate performance of Shallow ended up winning Best Original Song for their film A Star Is Born, which was a huge hit. Towards the end of the performance, Cooper sets his mic down and walks over to sit next to Gaga at the piano, leaning in so their faces are touching. Everyone felt like the “third wheel” in this instance so much so that it became an Internet phenomenon afterward.
Yee Yee Juice aka Yee Haw Challenge
This TikTok challenge is set to Lil Nas X’s song, Old Town Road (I got Horses In The Back). The challenge typically features someone going to drink some water, with a piece of paper that says another subgroup of TikTokers like “e-boy” juice. The person takes a drink of the water, with the assumption that they would like to be a part of that group, and takes off the sheet of paper to see another sheet underneath it and reads “Yee Yee juice.” This means they will then be apart of the county side of TikTok. This happens as the beat drops and the song turns into more of a country song mash-up.

(Photo courtesy to @darth on Twitter)
Avenge the Fallen
Avengers: Endgame was one of the most highly anticipated movies of 2019. In order to increase the anticipation, even more, Marvel Studios released the extremely dramatic poster campaign. The colorized headshots featured the characters who had survived the last movie, with the monochrome headshots featured the characters who had died. The meme became popular since the format was very easy to replicate.
This VERY catchy song became a hit on a newly popular lipsynching app, TikTok. The song, which is actually titled “Mia Khalifa,” is by iLOVEFRiDAY. The song is actually meant to be a diss-track about the porn star but ended becoming a viral hit. Either way, the crowd on TikTok accepts it almost as their anthem, since so many ads feature the song.

(Photo courtesy to rolfthegoatking via Reddit)
Powerful Shaggy
Who would have thought that Shaggy from Scooby Doo (both the cartoon and Matthew Lillard’s live-action version) would have turned into an all-powerful mastermind? The meme initially came from a video titled “Ultra Instinct Shaggy” on Reddit. This led to memes about the character using only a small percentage of his power to perform various incredible feats.
Choking Sasuke
The scene comes from the popular anime series, Naruto, featuring the show’s main character, Sasuke Uchiha. In the show, Sasuke has made it his life’s mission to kill his older and estranged brother, Itachi. This scene comes from an episode earlier in the series where the two fight and Itachi ends up choking Sasuke.
“Someone Like You” crowd singalong
Another TikTok challenge that’s becoming popular, is set to a live performance of Adele singing “Someone Like You.” Adele starts off this audio clip with a line of the chorus, “Nevermind, I’ll find–,” typically someone will then show just one item. Whoever is recording will then pan their camera to a large amount of the same item mimicking the fans singing the next line “–someone like you / I wish nothing but the best for you too.” Some people find it oddly satisfying to see the massive amount of just one object in the video.
Throwing cheese
Instead of telling babies to say “cheese” for the camera, Twitter users are now literally throwing slices of cheddar at them. The quirky Twitter trend, which has been called the “Cheesed Challenge” started late February. People are throwing slices of American cheese not just babies but their pets as well. The reactions of shock and confusion are probably why this odd phenomenon is so popular.
Here’s the MFing Tea
One creator of TikTok became popular by posting rant like style videos on the typically lip syncing and dancing platform. All of her rants start with her putting a straw in her Starbucks drink, taking a sip, and “ahhing” in delight to her drink. She then proceeds to tap her phone’s camera with her long nails and say “here’s *clack clack* the MFing *clack clack* tea!” Let’s just say there are many parodies of this now popular phrase.
Intervention Section includes Sara Bichler, Caitlin Egan, Jessica Reed, Danielle Weber.
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MEMEsTOO