20 moments that went viral and dominated the internet this year
The internet had several major stories this year, and among them were the memes.
We got some viral celebrity moments, like Bella Hadid talking about sneakers, Lorde confirming she ran a secret Instagram account that rated onion rings. And we also got some strange internet disasters, like the Keaton Jones controversy and Jake Paul breaking into the mainstream.
Here are the 20 biggest web culture and meme stories of the year.
The Fyre Festival descended into disaster.
April's Fyre Festival was an unmitigated disaster.
It was supposed to be an upscale Coachella on a Caribbean island. Instead, it was compared to "Lord of the Flies."
As news and photos of the festival were uploaded online — with what looked like sad sandwiches instead of gourmet meals and floppy tents instead of luxurious cabins — Twitter had a field day mocking people who spent thousands of dollars on tickets and calling out the celebrities who endorsed the event.
Later, leaked emails showed that the festival's organizers, which somehow included Ja Rule, apparently knew the event was doomed to begin with. "Let's just do it and be legends, man," as one organizer reportedly said, was a slogan of their hubris.
Now, they're facing several lawsuits for more than $100 million and an FBI investigation.
The Fyre Festival is set to happen again next year. But right now, its legacy is being the pinnacle of bad festivals. A New York City pizza festival that went wrong in September, for example, was called "The Fyre Festival of NYC food events."
BBC Dad showed how to play off an interview gaffe smoothly.
There are a lot of interviews gone terribly wrong that go viral. But it's always nice when that happens in a good way.
Robert Kelly's interview with BBC in March, where he talked about the relationship between North and South Korea, went south when his two kids waltzed into the room. It was all handled relatively gracefully — Kelly's wife, Kim Jung-a, rushed in and pulled them out — but the clip went viral and the two kids became icons, especially after they appeared at a press conference later that month.
An Australian millionaire complained that young people aren't buying houses because they spend too much on avocado toast
Young people aren't buying houses, because they're spending their money on superfluous things like traveling and avocado toast. At least that's according to Australian real estate millionaire Tim Gurner, who is worth $460 million and started his career with tens of thousands of dollars in loans from his parents and boss.
"When I was trying to buy my first home, I wasn’t buying smashed avocado for $19 and four coffees at $4 each," Tim Gurner told "60 Minutes" in May. "We’re at a point now where the expectations of younger people are very, very high... They want to eat out every day, they want travel to Europe every year."
Gurner was roundly mocked online. Avocado toast, in fact, costs less than a house. Housing affordability and student loan debt are the main reasons young people don't buy homes.
His comment was upheld as the new flagship example of out-of-touch wealthy people blaming other people for their problems. It turned into a meme.
The Distracted Boyfriend meme was a metaphor for everything.
One of the main things that allows a meme to go viral is its flexibility. You can adapt a certain image or video to multiple situations.
Nothing matched the flexibility of the "Distracted Boyfriend" meme, which fit into every situation you could think of.
"I didn't even know what a meme is until recently, when the models started to tell me about the memes that people were doing with our work," the photographer, Antonio Guillem, told INSIDER in a statement in August, shortly after the stock image went viral.
"Everyone once in their lives has been the girl in the red dress, maybe without being looked at with such brazenness," said "Laura," the stage name for the girlfriend of "Mario" in the image.
Keaton Jones exemplified the internet's worst instincts: How an inspirational story descends into a spiral of racism and opportunistic fundraising.
It isn't the happiest stories of the year, but it is one of the biggest. In December, an 11-year-old boy named Keaton Jones went viral for a video where he tearfully described being bullied by his schoolmates and explained why it was wrong. A-list actors applauded him for his bravery, and Chris Evans, who plays Captain America in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, invited him to the premiere of the next "Avengers" movie.
Hours later, it was discovered that family members posed with the Confederate flag, seen by many as a symbol of slavery. (Members of the family denied they were racist.) Making matters worse, impostors cropped up to raise money over the video.
It was an example of how a beautiful moment can turn into a cesspool online. You can read our full explainer of the Keaton Jones controversy here.
Bella Hadid came through with a catchphrase.
Celebrities say weird stuff all the time. The year's best phrase came from Bella Hadid in an interview with Complex earlier this year where she talked about sneaker style.
"If homeboy is coming through with these, it's quiet," she said, pointing to a shoe. "Yeah, no, it's quiet for him. But if he comes through in, like, these — you got some Air Maxes out here, you got some Jordans — homeboy is going to, like... get it."
Hadid's deliberate-sounding tone — she used the words "dope," "fresh," and "homeboy" too many times — exuded inauthenticity and the internet caught on to the line. (You can watch the relevant clip from the interview here.) It also launched a meme where people juxtaposed the quote with strange footwear choices. Bella Hadid got it.
#MeToo started a movement that's still changing the shape of our culture.
Social media's #MeToo movement, where women shared their sexual assault, harassment, and rape experiences, began in October and is still changing the world. It sprung up following a string of sexual assault accusations against Harvey Weinstein followed by other stars that's still shaking the media industries.
Now, a wave of accusations is forcing alleged abusers out of the industry, though with painful conversations for female victims. Time magazine gave the movement its "Person of the Year" honor.
A really big chicken went viral.
In March, a video of a Brahma chicken — which apparently originated from a post by a guy named Fitim Sejfijaj in the Facebook group Shpeztaria Dekorative, about really big chickens — went viral and freaked everyone out.
"Covfefe."
Hardly a day goes by without President Donald Trump tweeting. Sometimes it's to lash out at his political opponents, sometimes it's to attempt to ban transgender people from the military, and sometimes it's incomprehensible verbal mush.
One entry in the latter category is the time Trump tweeted, "Despite the constant negative press covfefe" shortly after midnight EST on May 31.
People on Twitter argued about its meaning through the night, then Trump deleted the tweet in the morning.
"Who can figure out the true meaning of 'covfefe ??? Enjoy!" he then tweeted.
It was one of the most baffling, if benign, moments on Twitter.
Memes about Trump go viral on Twitter daily. Some other highlights are the time he enjoyed a very big truck in March, the time he touched a glowing orb in Saudi Arabia as if he was a dark wizard, the "nothing but respect for my president" meme that emerged after someone cleaned his Hollywood Walk of Fame star, and when his account was taken down for 11 minutes.
Nusret Gökçe, a Turkish chef, became "salt bae."
It's hard to imagine how sprinkling salt can make you a sex icon, but Gökçe achieved it after a video of him performing the act (sprinkling salt, not sex) blew up in January.
It's also now a common reaction GIF for something like "attitude," and Gökçe has maneuvered his fame to improve his career. A few weeks later, he treated Leonardo DiCaprio to some salted meat, inspiring a spin-off meme.
"Moonlight" won an Oscar.
Though viewership for the Oscars was down this year, moments from the live event had an outsized role in this year's memes. The famous flub for the best picture winner — Warren Beatty announced that "La La Land" won when, in fact, "Moonlight" had — turned into a meme after "La La Land" producer Jordan Horowitz held up a card announcing the correct winner. People photoshopped the card to imagine other winners.
There's also that picture of Ryan Gosling cracking up during the affair, which made people suspect he was Team "Moonlight" even though he starred in "La La Land," everyone else's reactions to the mistake, Nicole Kidman's bizarre, large-handed clap (Kidman went viral a lot this year), and Brie Larson shunning Casey Affleck onstage presumably because of the sexual harassment allegations against him.
Snapchat made a dancing hot dog filter that was everywhere.
Snapchat's dancing hot dog filter took the web by storm in the weeks leading up to July 4. Its ability to change its size and happily dance pretty much anywhere — whether in a shopping cart or in your own home — made it endlessly adaptable. It was so popular that it became an $80 costume, and Snapchat used it as a model for potential new revenue streams.
Snapchat had a good year in web culture, generally speaking. A couple at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, even met through Snapchat stories.
Amid this year's devastating hurricanes, we had some heroes.
2017 was considered the worst hurricane year since 2005, and cities like Houston, hit from Hurricane Harvey, and places like Puerto Rico, hit by Irma, still have a long way to go before they're back to pre-Hurricane conditions.
But stories about ordinary people helping out however they could went viral. They showed the power of communication in the internet age: If there's a call for help, people will see it and may come to the rescue.
"Rick and Morty" fans were furious when McDonald's ran out of Szechuan sauce.
Earlier this year, McDonald's announced it would temporarily bring back szechuan sauce with its chicken nuggets, which was referenced on an episode of the Adult Swim show "Rick and Morty." That's a pretty cool thing if you like the sauce and happen to be a "Rick and Morty" fan.
Turns out, that was a lot more people than McDonald's anticipated.
Fans lined up around the blocks of McDonald's restaurants for hours, and they were quickly sold out.
It's disappointing, but not the end of the world.
But some "Rick and Morty" fans acted like it was, and their wild tantrums went viral.
"Where's my Szechuan sauce?!" one fan screamed while jumping up and down the counter. "I'm Pickle Rick! Wubalubadubdub!"
The reactions were extreme, and were only the start of the ugliness from some of the show's fans. Some sexist comments from fans about the show's later episodes were so extreme that the show's co-creator, Dan Harmon, disavowed them. And then there was another meme, where "Rick and Morty" fans suggested that the show was so advanced, it required a high IQ to understand. One passed-around, likely parodic text to that effect went like this:
"To be fair, you have to have a very high IQ to understand Rick and Morty. The humour is extremely subtle, and without a solid grasp of theoretical physics most of the jokes will go over a typical viewers head. There's also Rick's nihilistic outlook, which is deftly woven into his characterisation- his personal philosophy draws heavily from Narodnaya Volya literature, for instance. The fans understand this stuff; they have the intellectual capacity to truly appreciate the depths of these jokes, to realise that they're not just funny- they say something deep about LIFE. As a consequence people who dislike Rick & Morty truly ARE idiots- of course they wouldn't appreciate, for instance, the humour in Rick's existential catchphrase "Wubba Lubba Dub Dub," which itself is a cryptic reference to Turgenevs Russian epic Fathers and Sons. I'm smirking right now just imagining one of those addlepated simpletons scratching their heads in confusion as Dan Harmon's genius wit unfolds itself on their television screens. What fools.. how I pitythem. 😂
And yes, by the way, i DO have a Rick & Morty tattoo. And no, you cannot see it. It's for the ladies' eyes only- and even then they have to demonstrate that they're within 5 IQ points of my own (preferably lower) beforehand. Nothin personnel kid 😎"
McDonald's said it will bring back more sauce at a later date.
Some teen won a year's supply of chicken nuggets for having the most popular tweet of all time.
In April, a 16-year-old named Carter Wilkerson asked how many retweets he'd need to get a year's worth of free chicken nuggets.
Wendy's Twitter account answered him. 18 million, it said.
Wilkerson didn't get that many. But as of now, he has more than 3.6 million retweets on one of his tweets. Within a month, it had become the most popular tweet of all time, breaking the record set by Ellen DeGeneres's Oscar selfie.
So Wendy's coughed up the nuggets anyway, and donated $100,000 to a charity of his choice as well. He also talked about the experience with DeGeneres.
The Babadook became a queer icon.
A meme that originated on Tumblr, The Babadook — the titular character from the 2014 Australian horror movie "The Babadook" — was "outed" as a queer icon.
The meme has been around for awhile, but it resurfaced in June, for Pride Month.
Why is the Babadook queer? It doesn't really make a lot of sense. He just is. The "B" in "LGBT," according to the meme, stands for "Babadook."
Using SpongeBob to make fun of people became a meme.
SpongeBob might be the most meme-able TV show in history, and the most popular one by far this year is Mocking Spongebob. As Select All explained, the image comes from the 2012 episode titled "Little Yellow Book," at a moment where SpongeBob imitates a chicken.
But taken out of context, and using random capitalizations in a sentence, makes it look like he's mocking someone.
The "Roll Safe" meme was a funny way of giving bad advice.
Like the best memes, "Roll Safe" has a random origin. It started out as a moment on the BBC Three show "#HoodDocumentary," where one character made a sexual innuendo. His gesture — tapping his forehead — is a way of making sure his viewers got the joke.
The image spun out to have a life of its own, as a way to dispense bad advice that sounds brilliant. "You can't get cheated on if you don't get into a relationship," reads one meme. "You can't be broke if you don't check your bank account," reads another.
Jake Paul broke into the national consciousness.
Though he's been a YouTube star for awhile, and a Vine star before that, 2017 was the year Jake Paul and his tween army became famous for everyone.
It wasn't a great start — the 20-year-old made headlines for turning his quiet Los Angeles neighborhood upside-down with his outlandish stunts, got kicked off his Disney Channel show, and made a terrible diss track about his haters. But he later flew to Texas to save Hurricane Harvey victims, so that's pretty cool.
"A knife!"
The best video uploaded to the internet in 2017 is four seconds long, and you should just watch it.
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