The 10 Best Memes of the Decade

Hotline Bling Drake

When Drake released the music video for his 2015 single "Hotline Bling," it immediately became the object of mockery for his odd, minimalist dance moves — which largely amounted to hand gestures and facial expressions. Soon two of those hand gestures and facial expressions were screenshotted and juxtaposed in a meme format that allows the user to express distaste for one concept and approval for a related term.

While the "In My Feelings" Challenge ghost-riding trend was briefly a much broader phenomenon, the simplicity of this meme, with its recognizable gestures and expressions, makes it extremely flexible and enduring, with endless photoshopped variations, the most notable of which are the Cat Drakes.

Hide Your Pain Harold

In 2011, citizens of the internet discovered a stock photo model unlike any other. He was not the standard generic semi-handsome type you usually see in these images, wearing a vacant smile and glazed eyes. Harold, whose real name is András Arató, had a face that held thinly veiled depths of pain, the likes of which are rarely reached by mortal men. The slant of his brow above his eyes, and the way his forced smile failed to turn up at the corners made him look like the cameraman was holding a gun on him — and had already disposed of his family.

His prolific modeling work made him perfect material for any number of memes about hiding pain, but the best part about Harold is that, once Arató found out he'd become a meme, he got in on the fun.

Distracted Boyfriend

Another pearl plucked from the stock image oyster, the Distracted Boyfriend meme took off in 2017 when people started adding culturally relevant labels to a stock image titled "Disloyal Man with His Girlfriend, Looking at Another Girl." Suddenly, any news event that was getting more attention than a bigger news event could be succinctly captured in the form of an out-of-frame butt. Are you easily distracted? Do you procrastinate? Do you have patterns of stupid or irresponsible behavior that you can't seem to break? Then you to can be memeified by Distracted Boyfriend.

Epstein Didn't Kill Himself

The phrase "Epstein Didn't Kill Himself" is not really like other internet memes, in that it's kind of just an obvious fact — namely, that contrary to the official story, famed human trafficking billionaire Jeffrey Epstein didn't kill himself in August of 2019 — that's been codified into a four-word statement.

But seeing as it should be stated as often and as widely as possible, it deserves a spot on this list. It has been written on gallery walls, painted on boulders, and printed on beer cans, but in its most memeable form, the phrase is inserted into an unrelated list of instructions or information. For instance, there are three types of naturally occurring rock: Igneous rocks are formed when liquid magma solidifies, sedimentary rocks are formed when layers of deposited sand or clay are compressed into stone, metamorphic rocks are formed when either of the other two are altered under intense pressure/heat, and Jeffrey Epstein didn't kill himself.