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sono i meme
Una cosa che di certo non è mancata in questo 2020 funesto <anchor>sono i meme</anchor>: abbiamo trascorso ore e ore al computer, sugli smartphone, e in molti casi Internet è stato l’unico valido compagno in mesi di reclusione. Per quanto spesso alienante e criticabile sotto molti punti di vista, immaginare un mondo come quello del presente privo della risorsa incredibile che è il web sarebbe un incubo e anche nelle sue sfumature più futili e ironiche bisogna riconoscere il merito di un luogo non fisico in cui possiamo incontrarci anche a distanza di migliaia di chilometri. Tra i tanti sfoghi sarcastici sulla tragicità di questo anno appena trascorso – utili a sentirsi anche solo per un attimo alleggeriti dal vero e proprio disastro che stiamo vivendo – ce n’è uno che negli ultimi giorni mi ha colpito in modo particolare. Si tratta di un thread su Reddit che dice così: “ What if 2020 isn’t a bad year, but the beginning of a bad decade?” (E se il 2020 non fosse solo un brutto anno, ma l’inizio di un brutto decennio?), e questa domanda non solo è spaventosa ma è anche piuttosto lecita.
Best Memes of 2020 - Funniest Memes of the 2020 Year (So Far)
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# The Best Memes of 2020 Find Some Levity In Our Current Existence

Put on some Fleetwood Mac, grab a bottle of cran-raz, and roll into the good vibes.

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best memes 2020

Elaine Chung

There truly is no better way to gauge how twisted our 2020 brains are than to look at the memes we've used to define our year. In time, I like to imagine that historians will stumble across the digital archaeology field called the internet and find the images, gifs, and inside jokes that we used to communicate and deduce something about the batshit mental state we were all in while (1) time seemed to become a loose concept, (2) a pandemic ravaged the world, and (3) an autocrat flubbed an election and fell ultimately out of power.

That description makes the year sound bleak, and make no mistake, it was. But in these post-ironic times, the way we find solace and humor in the madness is to hit the World Wide Web, take a piece of pop culture, and turn it into a new hieroglyphic of internet language. Among this year's slate of greatest hits? A resurgence of Glee memes, the existential dread of pandemic life, and one very stoned dude who made us remember how much we love Fleetwood Mac.

From serious news stories to frivolous celebrity drama, memes have given our daily assault of reality some much-needed moments of levity. They also have gotten really freaking weird this year. Be it politics, Taylor Swift, or cake, the memes of 2020 have been a comfort in dark times. Long live the meme. May they forever reign.

## An Environment So Toxic

What does it say about us that two late entries into the meme category are Glee based? Are we just tired? Do we long for years passed? No matter, the Jane Lynch line, "I'm going to create an environment so toxic" has morphed throughout the year. Now it's nothing short of the internet's erasure poem. Take the photo and replace what you will. Black the rest out. It's a lesson to memes across the board: you will only exist long enough to be torn apart.

## Unchecked Hatred for Matthew Morrison

Man, you do several cringey covers of hip-hop adjacent songs on a Ryan Murphy TV show and the world will not let you forget about it. The unchecked, unwarranted hatred for Matthew Morrison has always been pulsing lightly among the online community, but in 2020, the (seemingly?) sarcastic hatred reached an apex. Mr. Schuester is a cop, a creep, a lonely soul. He's so many things, but none of them—NONE—is a hero.

## Mike Pence and the Fly

The 2020 election season has been unbearably long and painfully vile, but amid the mess, one small fly gave us respite. In the middle of the Vice Presidential debate, a fly landed on the Malfoy-white head of Vice President Mike Pence. Viewers waited with bated breath to see if he’d ever notice it, considering that it took residency up on his noggin for quite some time. By the time it flew away, the internet had deemed it a hero and turned it into a meme.

## How It Started / How It’s Going

Again, it’s the perfect example of the internet and existentialism colliding. Like many-a-meme from 2020, this one is all about the emotional toll that the year has taken. How it started / how it’s going is a tip of the hat to these chaotic times, though the meme isn’t all bad. The most brazen move of the year is using the meme to tell a story of success instead of despair. Keep up the good fight.

## Da Vinky?

Deep breath. Culture can be difficult. The “Da Vinky?” meme is proof of that. When TikTok brothers Chris and Patrick Voros used the trivia filter on Instagram and had the question “Who painted the Mona Lisa?” pop up, not only did they not know the answer, but they were pretty stunned by the name that popped up afterward. Thus, Da Vinky was born, nestled into all types of meme formats.

## Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams”

It’s the chillest meme of the year. Grab that cran-razz. Turn on some “Dreams.” To quote Kacey Musgraves, “Roll up a joint. Or don’t.” It’s all you need for the best vibes possible in 2020. After a TikTok user uploaded the feel-good moment and subsequently went viral, the meme has been recreated by Mick Fleetwood, Stevie Nicks, and the Ocean Spray CEO, but none of their mimicking hits as authentically as the original.

## “Does This Look Like an Appropriate Father/Son Relationship To You?”

When a Republican leader tried to make a statement by posting a picture of Joe Biden hugging Hunter Biden with a smooch on the cheek along with the question “Does This Look Like an Appropriate Father/Son Relationship To You?” the internet took the question to task. In one of the purest meme origin stories, sometimes a great meme is just embedded in someone else trying to be an asshole.

## Hannah Montana Leaves

This one emerged some time earlier in 2020—a repurposed Hannah Montana clip that seemed like it was going to have a big boom-bust moment in the Spring. The meme has hung around though, and its versatility allows for any number of uses. Oftentimes, the darker the better (i.e. goodbye rights!).

## Bardcore

Heavy sigh. You know what? Why not? In 2020, the online phenomenon of "bardcore" came to existence. What is bardcore? Just the mainstream embrace of medieval covers of popular songs. Like, if you had ever considered what Gotye's "Somebody That I Used to Know" might sound like in the year 1220, this is your moment. Grab your lute, fam. We're starting a band.

## This is Where I'm At

By the time we've hit September, we're just looking for some new way to communicate that, Hey, we're in a tough spot right now. That's where the "This is Where I'm At" meme comes in. As the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words. A video, presumably, is worth a million. So why try and vocalize the very strange place you're in when a photo of a deer head, a mechanical body, and prosthetic legs can do it for you?

## How the Email Found Me

Fire whomever came up with the phrase "I hope this email finds you well." I don't care what their job is. Fire them because when has an email—and I cannot stress this enough—ever found you well? Emails are the worst, and in this hellscape of a year, no email is finding me well. Do you think I'm sitting at my computer, joyously feasting on a salad and laughing for no reason? No, Debra. I'm not great. This meme was created to encapsulate that vibe. Let us all retire the sentiment.

## The Real Villain

The rare 2020 meme that isn't about total existential dread. Refreshing! This meme format is for the hindsight lovers out there. Voldemort? Maybe not as bad as we thought? Thanos? Perhaps there was another villain. Nate from The Devil Wears Prada? Human garbage. Sorry, it's canon.

## The 2020 Challenge, AKA, Reese Witherspoon Challenge

It's unclear who exactly started this challenge, but what became known as the "Reese Witherspoon" challenge is simply charting out your emotional journey over the past 8-9 months. A common through line is that after, say, May... it just doesn't get any better.

## What is Cake?

Now this— this is existential dread, personified. One BuzzFeed video launched a whole craze of cake madness: what hyper realistic things around us are actually cake? Are we cake? The meme is strangely dark and a bit heady, but at least there's icing on the outside.

## Which _______ Are You?

Another weird meme that took off on Instagram is the "Which _______ are you?" meme, which ran the gamut from which cow you might be to which Moira Rose. They're niche and weird and, unsurprisingly, largely crafted by a bevy of Gen Z teens who then used a big portion of the profits to donate to charity. You love a success story.

## Boys Thrusting to Taylor Swift

As TikTok looks into the face of its potential dissolution, memes are still emerging on the platform every day. In Summer 2020, the one that bubbled up above the rest is the Taylor Swift "Love Story" challenge, where boys—typically of the teenage persuasion—set up their camera on a skateboard or something that rolls, wait for the beat to drop as the camera moves away, and then thrust like their lives depend on it when the chorus hits. Youth is magical.

## The Ana de Armas Fan Account That Ana de Armas Blocked

To be fair, @ArmasUpdates is less of a meme and more of an exemplary study in internet humor. The account, which posts photos of Ana de Armas and then captions them with fictional happenings, is an internet sensation. It has also been blocked by the actress, who seems to not think the joke is as funny as everyone else.

## Nature is Healing

In late Spring, amid all the terrible news coming from Europe regarding COVID-19, one good thing seemed to be happening. Water quality hadn't been so good in Italy in decades. The internet then took good news and turned it into a meme. See something outside of the norm? "Nature is healing. We are the virus."

## Andrew Cuomo's Briefing Slides

While Governor Andrew Cuomo is far from perfect when it comes to governing New York and/or handling the coronavirus outbreak, his regular COVID-19 press briefings have offered a twisted, humorous goldmine for memes. And in a year where no one really knows what day it is (see below), his often simplified slides sure offer a bit of levity.

## My Plans // 2020

Well. We tried it. This year has come along and derailed just about everything good we had going for us.

## Esquire Select

From quarantine to everything else that happened in the Before Times, this year has decidedly not been the refresh we were hoping it would be. At least there's a good meme to follow. The format: what you thought your year was going to be in a photo, followed by how it turned out. Take this one: Mmmm whatcha say?

## X Æ A-12, now better known as X Æ A-xii

Leave it to Elon Musk and Grimes to make an easy task impossibly difficult. When their baby was born this Spring, they unveiled that their child's name was something akin to what happens when your cat walks across your keyboard. The full explanation, which you can explore on your own time, is prime Elon x Grimes content, but the internet when wild with the memes, prodding at the couple's bizarre naming technique.

## Dear Men, What is Preventing You...

We love a tone deaf tweet that gets co-opted into something grander. After one Twitter user posted a picture of a man with abs and asked the question, "Dear men, what is preventing you from looking like this?" the internet had a field day with their own variations on what men are supposed to look like.

## What Day Is It?

With the COVD-19 virus trapping the world at home, it’s scientifically proven that we’ve all lost grasp on exactly how time works. What day is it? Does it matter? While the virus itself is no laughing matter, it is pretty funny to take a step back and find ways to joke about how incredibly topsy turvy we’re all feeling about time. This particular take sparks quite a bit of joy. For reference, let’s just say that the day of the week is “Spring” for now.

## Wash Your Lyrics

As the COVID-19 virus spread, a revamped mandate to wash your hands came about. But washing your hands doesn’t mean briefly running them under a faucet and then simply showing them a bottle of soap. No, it’s 20 seconds of thorough scrubbing. Because we’re all children at heart, one website made it possible to chart the process out with the lyrics to your favorite song. Let the internet take control, and then you end up with a chart about washing your hands to Sylvia Plath poetry.

## Gossip Girl Meme

The internet loves to drudge up an old show and make a new meme. In this one, the objective is simple. You have a Blake Lively up top. A Leighton Meester on the bottom. You pose a question with Blake, and with Leighton, you use those crude Photoshop skills that kept you from succeeding in graphic design school, and you rearrange the letters to spell something ridiculous. Boom, a meme is born.

## No One Has the Range

Sure, Joaquin Phoenix is an award-winning actor best known for playing unhinged characters, but could he high-kick his way through the “Dancing Queen” choreography in Mamma Mia? You bet your bottom dollar he couldn’t--but Christine Baranski could. This meme celebrates the range of actors and actresses who’ve made a career out of playing diverse characters, from the serious to the zany. Go ahead and try your hand at creating a “no one has the range” meme of your own while in quarantine--we bet you’re watching enough TV and movies to identify some good candidates.

## TikTok Point to Text

What started as an innocent meme—where TikTok users would point at superimposed text to the wholesome tune of the Yoshi’s Island “Map Theme”—took a dark turn when medical Twitter (yes, that’s a thing) got involved. A user by the name of Nurse Holly, who has over 1.7 million followers, came under fire when she used the format to claim that abstinence is the best method of STD prevention. Holly deleted the video due to backlash, but not before other medical professionals piled on to set the record straight. Fact-checking—you love to see it.

## Bernie “I Am Once Again Asking for Your…”

If there’s any positivity to be found in what’s promising to be a nightmarish 2020 Election, it’s in the memes. Yes, our democracy might be in shambles, but at least we can share stupid images on the Internet right? This one is simply a still from a Bernie Sanders fundraising video. Simply insert what you’re asking for.

## I’ve Tried, But I Can’t

Little Women didn’t win Best Picture at the Oscars, but who needs that when we have some very prestigious memes? Saoirse Ronan’s impassioned speech to Timothee Chalamet is the perfect antidote for any vibe you’re feeling when you’re just utterly defeated. Assign it to an impossible to-do list. An exhaustive reading list. Tracy Turnblad trying to stop the beat. You get the gist.

## Billie Eilish Oscars

Poor Billie. Seemingly unaware of anything that happened in pop culture before the year 2000, the Oscars and all the Olds threw the young woman for a loop. When Kristen Wiig and Maya Rudolph went into a musical medley, she seemed fully confused by all of their references. And don’t get us started on the face she made when Eminem performed “Lose Yourself.” In her defense, that performance has been 17 years in the making.

## Nancy Pelosi Rips Up a Speech

If Speaker Pelosi seemed chill throughout Trump’s third State of the Union, you didn’t stick around until the final moments. With a few seconds of airtime left, the Speaker of the House ripped up Trump’s speech as she stood behind him. Thus, a meme and a 2020 mood was born.

## Instagram Filter

If you’ve ever been curious which Harry Potter character you are or which Disney Prince you are most like or any other general question, chances are there’s an Instagram filter that will reveal it to you. Based on no science or discernible decision making criteria, the filters took off in 2020, continuing the tradition of Instagram being the lazy man’s TikTok.

## The Jennifer Aniston/Brad Pitt Wrist Grab

26th annual screen actors guild awards   media center

Emma McIntyre//Getty Images

This is art. A captured exchange between former spouses Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston launched all kinds of memes and debate about the couple. Meeting backstage at the Screen Actors Guild Awards, the quick photo is likely just a strange shot as Aniston passed Pitt, but man if it didn't light the internet on fire.

## Marriage Story Fight Meme

Marriage Story has had such an interesting trajectory. First it was beautiful. Then it was a bit overwrought, and then everyone realized just how much potential there was in using some of its most dramatic moments as a meme. Though there are other variations on this beautiful moment, how long has it been since you had "Chop Suey" stuck in your head? Welcome home, System of a Down fans.

## Not Even to Dinner with the Kushners?

Note: If you fuck up on Project Runway, turning on the judges isn't going to save you. Note 2: Turning on the judges could make you go viral. That's what happened when contestant Tyler Neasloney's design got panned by the judges, including Karlie Kloss. When one judge said he couldn't see Kloss wearing the design in Paris, and she agreed, Neasloney said, "Not even to dinner with the Kushners?" and a meme was born.

## Tom Hanks at the Globes

Ricky Gervais knows how to make a room cringe, but Tom Hanks, America's dad, encapsulated it perfectly with this cringe-worthy face... an expression that hasn't leant itself so perfect to meme-status since Chrissy Teigen's face a few years ago.

## Which is the Best Seat?

What started out as a debate about the best seat on the New York MTA system turned into a whole new meme. Applicable to... any place with seats, the more creative, the better.

## Canceling Plans is OK

The best part of the "canceling plans" meme is that it starts out as self-care. Then it absolutely spirals into hyperbole, meaning that if you need a bit of space to relieve yourself from the anxieties of the world, you can do so by going as much in the opposite chaotic direction as possible. Stress, meet stress.

## I Just Got Impeached for Making the Perfect Phone Call

Trump's gonna tweet. People gonna meme.

## Get You a Woman Who Can Do It All

Did Dolly Parton technically create this meme? We think not. But she did breathe life into it again, and when Dolly touches something, it turns to gold. Every timeline—Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook—was flooded with the #DollyPartonChallenge. And in case you're wondering, no one pulled it off better than the originator herself.

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