Memes

● Alivephr.✎ 2

My Mom Is Kinda Homeless

A young player begging Speed to throw a game — 'please Speed, I need this, my mom is kinda homeless' — and Speed's face as he fights not to laugh. Used for any plea that is both sincere and impossible to take seriously. In 2025 Speed reunited with the kid, who confirmed it was true.

▸ 2023peak 2025still up

◐ Dyingn.✎ 2

Orange Peel Theory

The test of a partner: ask them to peel an orange for you. If they do it without asking why, they love you. A relationship theory from late 2023 that produced a lot of peeled oranges and a few breakups.

▸ 2023peak 2023still up

◐ Dyingn.✎ 3

Passport Bros

Men who announce they are leaving to find partners abroad because women at home have 'too many standards', and the response of everyone else, which was to wish them a safe flight. A 2023 discourse with a lot of airport content.

▸ 2023peak 2023still up

◐ Dyingn.✎ 3

Pilates Princess

An aesthetic more than an exercise: matching set, slicked bun, a reformer class at 7 a.m. and a green juice after, all posted. The 2023–24 successor to the hot girl walk, with more equipment.

▸ 2023peak 2024still up

☠ Deadn.✎ 3

Planet of the Bass

A parody of 1990s Eurodance so accurate it became the thing it parodied — 'everybody's so creative!' — with a rotating cast of Biljanas. Summer 2023's most-quoted song, and a real one by the end of it.

▸ 2023peak 2023†2023

● Aliven.✎ 3

Prebiotic Soda

The fizzy drinks that claim to be good for your gut — 'prebiotic soda', in pastel cans — from TikTok fridges in 2023 to a Super Bowl advert, a lawsuit about the health claims and a multi-billion-dollar buyout by 2025. The record's entry for the can that replaced the diet cola and cost twice as much.

▸ 2023peak 2025still up

◐ Dyingn.✎ 2

Rage Applying

Applying to twenty jobs in an evening after a bad day at your current one. Named in 2023, and one of the few workplace trends that describes something people had actually been doing rather than something a survey wanted them to.

▸ 2023peak 2023still up

◐ Dyingn.✎ 3

Resenteeism

Staying in a job you hate and making sure everyone knows it — presenteeism with a grudge. A 2023 coinage from a workplace-software company that named a mood every office already had.

▸ 2023peak 2023still up

● Aliven.✎ 3

Return to Office

RTO: the mandates, the memos, the badge-swipe counting, and the internet's three-year argument about whether any of it was about work. A policy that became a meme by being announced so many times.

▸ 2023peak 2025still up

◐ Dyingn.✎ 3

Silent Walking

Walking without headphones, podcasts or music — that is, walking — announced in 2023 as a wellness practice and received by everyone over forty as a description of going outside. The record's purest example of rediscovering the obvious.

▸ 2023peak 2023still up

● Aliven.✎ 3

Sludge Content

A video split into panels — a film clip, a satisfying-slime video, a subway surfer — so that no attention can escape, watched by people who could not watch one thing at a time. Named in 2023 as a symptom and consumed as a habit. The record's entry for the screen as a trough.

▸ 2023peak 2024still up

● Aliveadj.✎ 3

Swicy

Sweet plus spicy — 'swicy' — the food-marketing adjective that turned hot honey, chilli mango and pepper-jam everything into a 2023–24 trend, and the word food writers used with visible reluctance. The record's entry for the flavour profile that has existed for centuries and the word that has existed since a marketing deck.

▸ 2023peak 2024still up

◐ Dyingn.✎ 2

Tanghulu

The candied fruit skewer — strawberries or grapes dipped in hard sugar syrup that shatters when bitten — 'tanghulu', a Chinese street snack that became the ASMR food of 2023 and the reason several kitchens had sugar on the ceiling. The record's entry for the snack that was mostly a sound.

▸ 2023peak 2023still up

● Aliven.✎ 2

Tea App

The women-only app for sharing warnings and 'red flag' reviews of men they had dated — 'Tea' — launched in 2023, top of the App Store in July 2025, and hacked the same month, leaking users' selfies and ID photos. The record's entry for the app that promised safety and delivered a data breach within a fortnight of fame.

▸ 2023peak 2025still up

● Aliven.✎ 2

Tradwife

A woman performing traditional homemaking — bread, aprons, deference — for a camera, as content. Argued about as feminism, anti-feminism, cosplay and a business model, often all in the same comment section.

▸ 2023peak 2024still up

☠ Deadn.✎ 2

Tube Girl

A woman filming herself dancing on the Tube, alone, with total confidence and a wide lens, whose videos made 'not caring what strangers think' a format. Everyone did it on their own transit system for a season. The brands arrived by spring.

▸ 2023peak 2023†2024

● Alivephr.✎ 3

Type Shi

'Type shit' — the phrase of agreement or emphasis, 'on some real type shit', shortened to 'type shi' in comments and captions and repeated by Gen Alpha as an all-purpose 'exactly' by 2025. The record's entry for the two words that mean 'yes' and were never meant to be typed by a ten-year-old.

▸ 2023peak 2025still up

● Aliven.✎ 2

Unc

Short for uncle, applied by Gen Z and Gen Alpha to any man over about thirty who is still trying — 'unc status', 'that's unc behaviour' — from Black Twitter into general use by 2024. The record's entry for the word that made an entire generation check the mirror for grey hairs.

▸ 2023peak 2025still up

☠ Deadn.✎ 3

Water Dance

The hip-roll and water-pour choreography from Tyla's 'Water', which made a South African amapiano song the world's TikTok dance for a winter. Ended, appropriately, by spring.

▸ 2023peak 2024†2024

● Aliven.✎ 2

Algospeak

Vocabulary bent around automated moderation: unalive, seggs, le dollar bean. A dialect whose only native speaker is a classifier.

▸ 2022peak 2023still up

● Aliven.✎ 2

Are We Dating the Same Guy

The city-by-city Facebook groups in which women post a man's photo and ask whether anyone else is seeing him — 'Are We Dating the Same Guy?' — from 2022 into a network of millions of members, several lawsuits and a genre of screenshot. The record's entry for the dating background check that ran on a social network from 2004.

▸ 2022peak 2023still up

☠ Deadn.

Barbiecore

Hot pink, worn as a position. Was a brand from the start and became a bigger one, which is not the same as living.

▸ 2022peak 2023†2023

● Aliven.✎ 2

Capybara

The world's largest rodent, and the internet's calmest animal — the capybara — turned into a 2022–23 meme by clips of it sitting in hot springs, getting along with everything and a looping 'ok I pull up' song. The record's entry for the animal that became a personality type for people who wished to be left alone.

▸ 2022peak 2023still up

◐ Dyingn.✎ 2

Chopped Italian Sandwich

The sandwich in which the fillings — salami, ham, provolone, lettuce, peppers — are chopped together on a board before going into the bread, as the TikTok food trend of autumn 2022 and the reason a generation now owns a very large knife. The record's entry for the sandwich that made mess a technique.

▸ 2022peak 2023still up

☠ Deadn.✎ 2

Elden Ring Discourse

The month after Elden Ring: the difficulty argument, the 'let me solo her' player in a jar helmet, the maps, the fingers, and the way the whole internet was, briefly, in the Lands Between. The record's entry for the game as a season, and for the man in the jar.

▸ 2022peak 2022†2022

● Aliveadj.✎ 3

Feral

Wild, unrestrained, loud — 'going feral' — as the 2022 word for enthusiasm without dignity: a fandom, a night out, a reaction to a trailer. The record's entry for the animal state as a compliment, and the parent of feral girl summer.

▸ 2022peak 2023still up

☠ Deadn.✎ 3

Gentleminions

Teenagers in suits attending a Minions film in groups, applauding, and being asked to leave, in July 2022 — the 'gentleminions' — as a trend that made a children's film's opening weekend a formal event. The record's entry for the suit as a prank.

▸ 2022peak 2022†2022

● Alivev.✎ 3

Glazing

Excessive, unearned praise — and, from April 2025, the word for what a chatbot does when it tells you your business plan is genius. Sam Altman used it about his own model, which is how slang gets into the minutes.

▸ 2022peak 2024still up

● Aliven.✎ 3

Hallucination

A confident false statement by a machine. The term the field chose, and the term the field has regretted, because it makes the machine sound like it had a good time.

▸ 2022peak 2024still up

☠ Deadn.✎ 2

Heardle

Wordle for songs — guess the track from the intro — which was the second-best morning ritual of 2022, was bought by a streaming company, and was shut down by it in May 2023. The record's entry for the acquisition as a cause of death.

▸ 2022peak 2022†2023

● Aliven.✎ 3

Innie

The work-self created by the brain implant in Severance — the 'innie', as opposed to the 'outie' who lives your life — from the show's 2022 debut into general vocabulary by the January 2025 second season, when 'my innie can deal with that' became a Sunday-night meme. The record's entry for the word that made the work-life divide surgical.

▸ 2022peak 2025still up

● Aliven.✎ 3

Keith Lee Food Review

The quiet, seated, in-car restaurant review by former MMA fighter Keith Lee — food ordered anonymously, rated out of ten, delivered without shouting — from 2022 into the format that could fill a struggling restaurant overnight, and did. The record's entry for the reviewer whose visits were reported as weather.

▸ 2022peak 2023still up

☠ Deadn.✎ 3

Let Me Solo Her

A player in nothing but a jar on his head who let himself be summoned to kill the game's hardest boss for strangers, thousands of times, and became the game's folk hero. The record's entry for the helper as a legend, and for the jar.

▸ 2022peak 2022†2022

● Aliven.✎ 2

Reddit Story Voice

A synthetic voice reading a Reddit post — 'am I the asshole for…' — over game footage, as the 2022–24 genre that turned forum posts into television. The record's entry for the voice, which everyone can imitate and which has read more stories than any human.

▸ 2022peak 2024still up

● Aliven.✎ 3

Seed Oil Discourse

The long-running argument over whether canola, sunflower and soybean oils are harmful — 'seed oil discourse' — from wellness podcasts around 2022 into restaurant menus advertising 'seed-oil free' by 2025. The record's entry for the debate in which everyone cites a study and nobody has read it.

▸ 2022peak 2025still up

● Aliven.✎ 3

Subway Surfers Gameplay

Footage of a 2012 mobile game running underneath any video — a Reddit story, a court clip, a lecture — to hold the attention of viewers who cannot watch words alone. The record's entry for the game as a pacifier, and the reason it is still one of the most-watched games in the world.

▸ 2022peak 2024still up

● Aliven.✎ 3

The Traitors

The castle-and-cloaks game show where a few 'traitors' murder 'faithfuls' at night and everyone accuses each other at a round table by day — from the 2022 BBC version into a global format, a celebrity spin-off and the meme reservoir of 'I'm 100% faithful'. The record's entry for the show that taught the internet to distrust a breakfast.

▸ 2022peak 2025still up

☠ Deadn.✎ 2

Wednesday Dance

A goth teenager's stiff-armed dance, recreated to a sped-up Lady Gaga track. Ran for one winter and was performed by a Prime Minister's staff, which is where these things go.

▸ 2022peak 2022†2023

☠ Deadn.✎ 2

Wordle Clone

The month in which every noun got a Wordle — countries, numbers, four words at once, a version that cheats — and the morning routine became a spreadsheet. The record's entry for the format cloned to death, and for Worldle, which was good.

▸ 2022peak 2022†2022

☠ Deadn.✎ 3

Bernie's Mittens

A senator in a folding chair in mittens, photoshopped onto every surface on earth within a week. The shortest complete life cycle on record here.

▸ 2021peak 2021†2021

☠ Deadn.✎ 2

Ever Given

A container ship wedged sideways across the Suez Canal for six days, and a single small digger. The world's supply chain as a metaphor for everyone's week.

▸ 2021peak 2021†2021

◐ Dyingadj.✎ 2

Goofy Ahh

'Goofy ass', with the vowel pronounced the way the sound clips pronounced it — 'goofy ahh' — as the 2021–22 TikTok adjective for anything ridiculous, from a haircut to a car horn, and one of the earliest words the record files under Gen Alpha. The record's entry for the adjective that was mostly a noise.

▸ 2021peak 2022still up

● Aliven.✎ 3

Hood Irony

A community of Instagram accounts making memes with a specific absurdist, low-res, heavily edited style — the source of the Eye of Rah, the Chopped Chin and most of the brainrot slideshows of 2024–25. The record's entry for the scene that produced a genre and rarely gets credited.

▸ 2021peak 2025still up

☠ Deadn.✎ 3

Hot Vax Summer

The summer of 2021 as promised: vaccinated, out, making up for a lost year. Named in April, complicated by July, and the record's entry for the summer that was declared before it was lived.

▸ 2021peak 2021†2021

◐ Dyingn.✎ 3

Huggy Wuggy

The tall blue toy with the needle-teeth grin from the 2021 horror game Poppy Playtime — 'Huggy Wuggy' — that escaped into playground chants, plush toys and a 2022 wave of school newsletters warning parents about him. The record's entry for the monster that was banned in assemblies and sold in supermarkets.

▸ 2021peak 2022still up

◐ Dyingphr.✎ 2

L Bozo

'L' for loss plus 'bozo' for clown — 'L bozo', often with 'ratio' — as the 2021–22 reply used to close an argument by announcing that the other person has lost it. The record's entry for the phrase that ended more discussions than any moderator, and settled none of them.

▸ 2021peak 2022still up

● Aliven.✎ 3

Pls Donate

The Roblox game that is not a game but a room where players stand on stalls and ask each other for Robux — 'Pls Donate' — from 2021 into a lesson in economics, charity and begging for a generation of ten-year-olds. The record's entry for the world's most honest social network.

▸ 2021peak 2022still up

● Aliveadj.✎ 3

Unhinged

Chaotic, unfiltered, slightly worrying — 'unhinged' — as the internet's compliment of 2021–22 for anything that abandoned composure: a tweet, a haircut, a friend. The record's entry for the loss of control as a virtue.

▸ 2021peak 2022still up