Even though we’re already almost three months into the new year, it’s not too late to look back at some of the memes we loved in 2023.

Jessica Maddox, assistant professor of digital media, recapped the last twelve months online by saying that memes seemed to be the main way people dealt with, reacted to, and processed the news, whereas senior writer Thomas Germain from Gizmodo (a media outlet) claimed that “judging by what we saw in 2023, it’s clear that the golden age of memes is over.”

To settle this, Bored Panda reached out to viral marketing strategist and CEO of Viral Marketing Stars, Katya Varbanova, who believes that memes in 2023 were brilliant, especially the ones about women’s empowerment.

“A lot of the memes in 2023 had to do with female empowerment, so is it possible that those who claim it was weak may simply be uncomfortable with seeing female-focused trends dominating their screens? Examples: the Barbie movie memes, Girl Dinner, Girl Math, and Tube Girl. I don't think it was weak. I think it was iconic.”

We also got in touch with meme researcher from Syracuse University (a private research university in New York), Alexander Smith, who agreed that last year was relatively good for humorous trends.

"I would not say 2023 was a "weak" year. From 2020 to 2022, memes expressed a lot of humorous nihilism, gallows humor, and helplessness that struck a chord with everyone following the pandemic.

2023 memes were an about-face from that mentality and a desire for personal stability and for things to make sense again. We also saw memes that referenced celebrity caricature humor like Josh Hutcherson and Kevin James, mashups like Barbenheimer, and a lot of references to memes that took on an aesthetic not entirely different from Flash illustrations during the 2000s. "

Furthermore, Smith reminds us that Cheems passed away in 2023, which had a big cultural impact with its Doge memes for over a decade.

He recaps the year by saying, "In that sense, maybe the expected humor of memes was a little lackluster, predictable, or reminiscing about "better times" in the meme world, but they were still everywhere, representing some kind of emotional consensus of the moment."

Naturally, we were curious to know which memes our interviewees liked the best in 2023. Varbanova told Bored Panda, “Some of my personal favorite memes were from the Barbie movie, for sure. They were iconic. For the first time in forever, we have a female main character whose life doesn't revolve around the main character (Ken). And some of the best memes show that."

Whereas Smith's favorite ones were about the desire for mental stability and clarity for the average person fighting against the odds of the pandemic and economic inequality.

He explained, "There were many exceptional representations of that, but my favorite was the ASMR Bentley parodies. People were going on TikTok to stitch this seemingly posh young woman showing off a Bentley with actual vehicular circumstances ranging from beat-up Fords and Hondas to semi-trucks to tractors to broken-down armored military vehicles.

It gave us moment-to-moment reflections on working-class circumstances next to the unattainable expectations being marketed. Memes showed up in 2023 to tell the wealthy to lower their capitalistic expectations around conspicuous consumption, unattainable body standards, and respect for the ultra-wealthy. It simultaneously reflected on what was entertaining, understandable, and representative of working-class circumstances. That resonated."

When asked why so many people find memes enjoyable and choose them as a medium to process world events, Varbanova explained, “I believe memes are powerful because they communicate visually what is hard to express with words. They are relatable, humorous, and easy to share. They're culturally relevant and allow for escapism. They truly impact the way the world operates because the memes in 2023 allowed our collective of people who feel the same to finally speak up.”

Smith had a similar view, saying that people like memes because they speak for us in simple words, in a way we often can't.

"A meme takes a collective emotional quality to exist and justify our lived experiences and culture. Memes are not just a medium, but a connective expression of culture that emerges from everyday people outside of the bounds of corporate formalities or editorial accuracy to say what we want to really say."

Maddox added that memes helped shift the way we use language, elevating and giving new meanings to words like “rizz” and “baby girl,” which already have entered the general lexicon. Additionally, this year was notable for its wide range of meme mediums, from text comments to TikToks to standard still images.

At last, we’re starting our mini meme review with last September, when women on TikTok found out that men think about the Roman Empire unusually regularly. Some of them reveal wondering about the subject weekly and even daily. Many knew the territory’s impact on modern society, along with the reasons why. Other platform users joined in the fun and shared their own “Roman Empires"—topics they think of weirdly often. Popular responses included Salem Witch trials, Meredith Blake from The Parent Trap, and the Eras Tour.

In 2023, the internet was obsessed with raving about babygirls and sweeping boyfriends under the rug. The term is used to describe adult men who are so attractive, cute, and comfortable in their masculinity that one would want to protect them. Some sweethearts who made it to the list are Harry Styles, Lewis Hamilton, and Colin Farrel. TikTok is the main place to look for babygirl fandom content. So if you’re in the mood for cutesy edits of Walter White as a catboy, you know where to look.

One of the fan-favorite babygirls, Pedro Pascal, also kicked off a meme in 2023 where he was peacefully eating a sandwich. Paired with pensive piano music, it’s used to represent a sense of inner peace. One TikTok shows Pascal in an office break room with the caption "When everyone at work is drowning in tasks, but I still have five minutes before my break is over.”

A promotional photo of actor Kevin James shrugging was seen all over the world as it found a new life after one X user captioned it with “me after 1 double rum and diet.” His sheepish grin, paired with his raised shoulders, made it the perfect medium for top-notch memes. A particularly successful one came with the question “Who put this song on?” referencing times when partygoers played tunes that completely didn’t fit the atmosphere of the gathering. The actor in the photo is sometimes edited to match the genre of the song. Surprisingly, James saw the meme and posted it on Instagram to promote his comedy tour.

Another honorable mention is the Girl Dinner and Girl Math trends, which showcase womanhood at its best. In the first one, women show an array of snacks that replace their whole meal. This typically includes some fruit, a block of cheese, sliced salami, fancy crackers, and some olives. The latter is sneaky logic that females use to justify their purchases. For instance, if you pay with cash, it’s free, and if an item is on sale, technically, you’re making a profit.

The last meme of the year we’re going to cover today is concerned with the creation of a new word in the dating world: rizz. For those who are a little bit confused, it signifies style, charm, or attractiveness—all of the qualities needed to find a potential partner. This expression attracted so much attention online that it was selected as Oxford's Word of the Year for 2023 with more than 32,000 votes from the public.

Having taken a brief look at some of the most viral memes of the past year, let’s look at the future and what it holds for this kind of popular content. Something that Maddox anticipates is the rise in video and AI-based memes. However, she adds, “The traditional meme will always be there, no matter what other type of media gets thrown into the mix."

Smith also believes that 2023 and onward are going to be a wild ride with AI-generated meme content.

"In the U.S., we're seeing the introduction of laws to fight similar things, as was recently made very public in relation to the Taylor Swift deepfake. To be clear, deep fakes have been around for a while, but the creation of all kinds of AI-generated memes is on the rise, creating entirely different challenges in making sense of the world.

Artificial intelligence is generating a memetic culture of its own in a world where most people aren't really sure if we should call AI intelligent or not.

2024 might be the year we see more AI-generated memes than ever, and it seems like soon we are going to see governments getting involved in memes in a different way than 'my personal FBI agent' memes. The legalities surrounding them, such as their appropriation of intellectual property and using the likeness of real people, have always been a gray area. Some of that might change because of AI. Memes were always political; that's going to be more apparent as we move onward."