What Makes Up Great Memes?

Content creator, comedian, and broadcaster Trev Lewis was kind enough to share his thoughts on memes, comedy, and relatability with Bored Panda. “The two most common types of content that go viral are animals and food. This is what the data shows. No matter how many times algorithms get tweaked, or which platform we’re discussing, people remain fixated on nourishment and other creatures. We are quite animalistic in that way,” he explained to us.

That’s why pretty much anything relating to doggos, Grumpy cat, birbs, and other wacky animals became peak internet fodder. If you want to put his theory to the test, why don’t you check out these hilarious animal memes? If that doesn’t fill your belly, try these spot-on food memes.

He also stated that humor isn't necessary for viral content, but it helps. “Relatability is a more crucial component because this is the factor that often inspires people to share the content with others. Sharing is the highest form of engagement and the one true path to viral content. All the other forms of engagement will follow it,” he told Bored Panda. That’s precisely why awesome internet memes can make people have a good laugh and inspire them to share it ahead.

According to content creator Trev, our sense of humor online grows more sophisticated with time. That means even the best memes and their creators must constantly adapt to the times.

“When I curate content for The Best and Worst Of Twitter group, I often search for viral Tweets from the platform's earliest days. Some of that content still holds up, but much of it does not,” Trev said.

What Is the Most Popular Animal in Memes?

“The earliest memes were things like the ‘I Can Haz Cheeseburger’ cat. Cats have remained a constant, proving my earlier point a bit. They are the Internet’s favorite animal, and it’s not even close. But the simple act of editing some text onto an image of a cat has lost its novelty.” Just like Trev stated, cat memes have evolved a lot since the early days of the Internet and have provided us with some of the most popular memes of all time.

Trev put it simply: amusing folks these days takes far more effort. “I suspect we will only get more creative as time marches on. There’s also an interesting theory that humor is primarily a coping mechanism or even a trauma response,” he said. That’s also why some people tend to prefer weird and unhinged memes. Regardless of people’s tastes, we can all agree that some of the best funny memes are universal, like the Internet’s favorite ‘Rick Roll.’

Let’s face it: we have all cringed when hearing the lines:

‘Never gonna give you up,

Never gonna let you down,

Never gonna run around and desert you.’