Memes

☠ Deadn.✎ 3

Vaccine Selfie

The photograph of the arm, the plaster, the card, posted in early 2021 as a milestone and a signal, and the discourse about whether it was a flex. The record's entry for the jab as content.

▸ 2021peak 2021†2021

☠ Deadn.✎ 1

Web3

A decentralised web owned by its users, which meant tokens. Nobody could name the product for two years; the funding ran out first.

▸ 2021peak 2021†2023

● Aliven.✎ 3

Wordle

Five letters, six guesses, one a day, and a grid of squares to post. Bought by the New York Times and, against every precedent in this dictionary, not ruined.

▸ 2021peak 2022still up

☠ Deadn.✎ 2

Zoom Cat Lawyer

A lawyer in a court hearing on Zoom with a cat filter he could not remove — 'I'm here live, I'm not a cat' — which was the pandemic's most-shared thirty seconds. The record's entry for the filter as a defence.

▸ 2021peak 2021†2021

◐ Dyingn.✎ 2

Animal Crossing Island

The game that arrived the week the world shut, in which you build a small island with animal neighbours, and which became the pandemic's shared living room: weddings, protests and turnip markets were held on islands. The record's entry for the game as a place.

▸ 2020peak 2020still up

● Aliven.✎ 3

Brookhaven

The Roblox role-play town where you pick a house, a car and a job and mostly drive around — 'Brookhaven' — from April 2020 into the most visited game on the platform and the closest thing many children had to a neighbourhood during lockdown. The record's entry for the suburb with no plot and billions of visits.

▸ 2020peak 2021still up

☠ Deadn.✎ 3

Clap for Carers

Ten Thursday evenings in 2020 when British streets applauded for health workers at eight o'clock, filmed from every doorstep and posted, until the organiser asked for it to stop before it became a ritual with no meaning. The record's entry for the applause as a meme.

▸ 2020peak 2020†2020

◐ Dyingn.✎ 3

Fall Guys

Sixty jellybeans in an obstacle course, in August 2020, which was the game everyone played for a month during the pandemic summer and the reason 'fall guy' costumes existed by October. The record's entry for the bean as a competitor.

▸ 2020peak 2020still up

● Aliven.

Glassmorphism

Frosted translucent panels over a blurred background. Became an operating-system design language in 2025, which is a long way for a Medium post to travel.

▸ 2020peak 2025still up

☠ Deadn.✎ 3

Imagine (Celebrity Video)

A group of celebrities singing 'Imagine' from their homes in the first week of lockdown, which was received as the most tone-deaf minute of the pandemic and became the shorthand for rich people misjudging a moment. The record's entry for the video as a warning.

▸ 2020peak 2020†2020

☠ Deadn.✎ 3

Lockdown Haircut

The haircut done at home with kitchen scissors in April 2020, and the genre of photo in which the result was shared with acceptance. The record's entry for the fringe as a confession, and for the clippers that sold out.

▸ 2020peak 2020†2020

● Aliven.✎ 3

Main Character of the Day

The person the whole platform is talking about, for one day, usually because of a bad post — and the rule, coined in 2020, that the goal is never to be them. The record's entry for the daily sacrifice, and the platform's most accurate description of itself.

▸ 2020peak 2022still up

● Aliven.✎ 3

Pandemic Pet

The dog or cat acquired in lockdown, when everyone was home, and the 2021 discourse about what happened when they were not. The record's entry for the animal as a decision, and for the puppies of 2020, who are middle-aged now.

▸ 2020peak 2021still up

☠ Deadn.✎ 2

Quarantine 15

The weight gained in lockdown, named after the college version and joked about in April 2020 by people who were baking, and argued about by May by people who were tired of the jokes. The record's entry for the pandemic's body discourse.

▸ 2020peak 2020†2021

☠ Deadn.✎ 3

Quarantine Baking

The spring of 2020 when everyone baked — sourdough with a starter that had a name, banana bread, focaccia with a vegetable garden on top — and posted it, and flour sold out. The record's entry for the loaf as a coping mechanism.

▸ 2020peak 2020†2020

☠ Deadn.✎ 4

Quibi

Ten-minute premium television for your commute, launched three weeks into a lockdown. Spent $1.75 billion, lasted six months, and left behind one word: quick bites, which nobody said.

▸ 2020peak 2020†2020

☠ Deadn.✎ 3

Ratatouille Musical

A musical about the Pixar rat, written collectively on TikTok in the autumn of 2020 — a song here, a set design there — and performed for real on New Year's Day 2021 with Broadway actors, raising two million dollars. The record's entry for the crowdsourced musical.

▸ 2020peak 2021†2021

☠ Deadphr.✎ 3

Stay Home Stay Safe

The slogan on every sign, sticker, email and Instagram story of 2020, and the internet's tiredness with it by autumn, when it had been said so often that it stopped being heard. The record's entry for the instruction as a texture.

▸ 2020peak 2020†2021

● Aliveadj.✎ 3

Terminally Online

So online that the internet's arguments feel like real life — 'terminally online' — as the 2020 self-diagnosis and insult, used by people who were, by definition, in a position to know. The record's entry for the condition of most of its contributors.

▸ 2020peak 2022still up

☠ Deadn.

Tiger King

A documentary about a man with tigers, watched by everyone indoors during the same fortnight. The last monoculture, and it was about a zoo in Oklahoma.

▸ 2020peak 2020†2020

☠ Deadn.✎ 2

Tiger King Carole

The show's rival — the woman with the big cats and the missing husband — and the TikTok song about her, which was the spring of 2020's most-sung accusation and a legal risk the internet did not consider. The record's entry for the villain as a chorus.

▸ 2020peak 2020†2020

☠ Deadn.✎ 3

Turnip Market

The turnip-trading economy of Animal Crossing — buy on Sunday, sell to a raccoon during the week — which the pandemic internet turned into a real market with price-tracking sites, Discords and strangers paying to visit an island with a good price. The record's entry for the vegetable as an asset.

▸ 2020peak 2020†2020

☠ Deadn.✎ 3

Virtual Happy Hour

Drinks on a video call, in March 2020, which was novel for a week, mandatory for a month, and quietly abandoned by June when everyone realised a call is not a pub. The record's entry for the format that proved the point.

▸ 2020peak 2020†2020

◐ Dyingn.✎ 2

Zoom Background

The virtual background — a beach, a spaceship, the Simpsons' living room — that replaced everyone's actual room in April 2020, and the genre of joke in which the background moved and the person did not. The record's entry for the fake wall.

▸ 2020peak 2020still up

● Aliven.✎ 3

4B Movement

The South Korean feminist stance of the four 'no's — no dating, marriage, sex or children with men — '4B', which drew a wave of American attention in November 2024 as women posted about adopting it after the presidential election. The record's entry for the movement that became a search trend overnight.

▸ 2019peak 2024still up

☠ Deadn.✎ 1

Baby Yoda

A small green creature in a floating pram. Disney had withheld the toys to avoid spoilers, then released them, and the merchandise was the tombstone.

▸ 2019peak 2019†2020

● Aliven.✎ 2

Boy Mom

A mother of sons, self-identified — 'boy mom' — as an Instagram badge from around 2019 and, by 2023, a TikTok archetype accused of treating her sons as tiny boyfriends and future daughters-in-law as rivals. The record's entry for the label that started as a T-shirt and ended as a diagnosis.

▸ 2019peak 2023still up

● Aliven.✎ 3

Moots

Mutuals — people who follow you and whom you follow back — shortened to 'moots' on stan Twitter around 2019 and now the standard word across platforms for the online friends you have never met and would defend in court. The record's entry for the relationship category that has no offline equivalent.

▸ 2019peak 2021still up

● Aliven.✎ 2

Ms Rachel

Rachel Accurso, the pink-headbanded YouTube teacher whose 'Songs for Littles' videos taught a pandemic generation of toddlers to speak, sign and wave — 'Ms Rachel' — from a 2019 channel into the most trusted adult in most households with a two-year-old. The record's entry for the babysitter who never once looked at her phone.

▸ 2019peak 2023still up

↺ Undeadn.✎ 3

Silksong

Hollow Knight: Silksong, announced in 2019 and then silent for so long that the waiting became its own meme — every Nintendo Direct a fresh betrayal, every fan a 'Silksong is real' believer. Released in September 2025, at which point the joke died and the game began.

▸ 2019peak 2025†2025

● Alivephr.✎ 2

Wrong Answers Only

A photo with a question and the instruction to answer wrongly — the format that produced the internet's best replies and the platform's best engagement, and the record's entry for the prompt that made everyone a comedian for one thread.

▸ 2019peak 2020still up

☠ Deadn.✎ 4

Dear David

Adam Ellis's Twitter thread, begun in August 2017, describing a child ghost called David who visited his flat, with photographs, a cat that stared at the door, and updates that arrived at night. Millions followed it as a serial. The record's entry for the ghost story told in the format that was designed for breakfast.

▸ 2017peak 2017†2018

● Aliven.✎ 3

Engagement Bait

A post designed to make you reply — 'tag a friend who', 'wrong answers only', a deliberate mistake — as named by a platform's own rules in 2017 and practised by everyone including the platform since. The record's entry for the trap as a genre, and the reason 'wrong answers only' exists.

▸ 2017peak 2024still up

☠ Deadn.✎ 2

Fidget Spinner

A bearing between three lobes, spun for no reason. Went from unknown to banned in classrooms to landfill within a single school year.

▸ 2017peak 2017†2017

☠ Deadn.✎ 1

Ugandan Knuckles

A misshapen echidna asking whether you know the way. Lasted one winter and got people banned from a virtual-reality chat room, which was a novel place to be banned from.

▸ 2017peak 2018†2018

☠ Deadn.✎ 4

Bottle Flip

Flipping a half-full water bottle to land upright. Banned by schools worldwide within months, which is the only reason it lasted as long as it did.

▸ 2016peak 2016†2017

● Aliven.✎ 3

Gentle Parenting

The parenting approach based on empathy, boundaries and narrating feelings rather than punishment — 'gentle parenting' — named in a 2016 book and made a TikTok movement, then a TikTok punchline, by 2022. The record's entry for the method that produced the phrase 'I can see you're having big feelings' in every supermarket.

▸ 2016peak 2022still up

☠ Deadn.✎ 7

Harambe

A gorilla shot by a zoo, mourned first sincerely and then in a way that was not. The first meme where the irony had a body count of one and everyone knew it.

▸ 2016peak 2016†2016

● Aliven.✎ 2

One Bite Pizza Review

Dave Portnoy's format — stand outside a pizzeria, take one bite, give a score to one decimal place, 'one bite, everybody knows the rules' — from a 2016 Barstool series into the most quoted food review on the American internet. The record's entry for the review that made a 7.4 mean something.

▸ 2016peak 2023still up

◐ Dyingn.✎ 2

Quote Tweet Dunk

Reposting someone's post with a comment designed to humiliate it, to your own audience — the dunk — as the platform's main sport from 2016 to 2020, and the reason the quote-tweet button was, briefly, hidden. The record's entry for the reply as a public execution.

▸ 2016peak 2020still up

☠ Deadn.

We Are Number One

A song from a children's show, remixed thousands of times to fund the actor's cancer treatment. He died in August 2018; the remixes had already stopped by then, which is not to their credit.

▸ 2016peak 2016†2017

☠ Deadv.✎ 2

Dabbing

Sneezing into your elbow, but a dance. Performed by the Speaker of the House of Representatives in January 2017, on camera, which is the recorded time of death.

▸ 2015peak 2016†2017

● Aliven.✎ 2

Default Parent

The parent who is the one the school calls, the one who knows the shoe size, the one whose name is on every form — the 'default parent' — named in a 2015 essay and turned by TikTok into a 2023 genre of quiet fury. The record's entry for the job title that nobody applied for and one person always has.

▸ 2015peak 2023still up

● Aliven.✎ 2

Discourse

'The discourse' — the argument everyone is having today, named with an ironic definite article since 2015, and the record's most-used word in its own definitions. The record's entry for the argument as a weather system, and an admission.

▸ 2015peak 2021still up

● Alivephr.✎ 2

Everyone Disliked That

A video game's notification that your companions disapproved of your choice — 'everyone disliked that' — as the caption for any decision that lands badly in a room. The record's entry for the disapproval as a system message.

▸ 2015peak 2020still up

☠ Deadn.

Left Shark

A backing dancer in a shark costume who had forgotten the choreography. Katy Perry's lawyers sent a takedown to a man selling 3D-printed figures of it, and that was the funeral.

▸ 2015peak 2015†2015

☠ Deadn.✎ 1

Llama Drama

Two llamas loose in a retirement community, chased live on television. The biggest thing on the internet for about four hours, until a photograph of a dress arrived that evening.

▸ 2015peak 2015†2015

↺ Undeadn.✎ 3

Rare Pepe

A Pepe drawn in a style nobody had seen before, watermarked and traded as if it were a collectible — the rare Pepe — from a 2015 joke about scarcity into an actual market, and the record's entry for the frog as a commodity. The joke was that they were worthless; the joke stopped being a joke.

▸ 2015peak 2016†2019