JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — 2019 was a great year for memes. From the Woman Yelling at Cat meme to Baby Yoda to Storming Area 51, there was a meme for every mood, situation and pop-culture obsession.
With so many great moments in meme history, it would be nearly impossible to recount it all, so here's a look back at five of the best memes of 2019.
1. Baby Yoda
Baby Yoda didn't become a meme until late November, after the premiere of "The Mandalorian" on Disney +, but it didn't take long for the big-eyed alien to become the internet's sweetheart. With every new episode, viewers were served a brand new dose of cuteness.
We were given Baby Yoda drinking soup (or sipping tea, depending on how you look at it) ...
... Baby Yoda wanting to lend a hand ...
...Baby Yoda just wanting to listen to his tunes ...
...and Baby Yoda just being purely relatable.
Fun fact: Baby Yoda isn't actually the iconic Yoda as an infant, he's just the same species as Yoda and was named "Baby Yoda" by fans of the show. In fact, within the show, he is only known as "The Child." He's also much older than any human baby and is about 50 years old -- his species aging much slower than humans.
2. Woman Yelling at Cat
Before it was dethroned by Baby Yoda, the Woman Yelling at Cat meme was inescapable. The meme started as two separate memes and was spliced together on Twitter, creating one of the most iconic memes of 2019.
It features an image of "The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills" star Taylor Armstrong appearing to angrily yell at an unbothered, snarky cat named Smudge. It soon went on to become the perfect meme to shut down any argument.
Before long, fans of the meme wanted it on their shoes and T-shirts.
It became an ugly sweater for Christmas ...
... and even a mug on Society6.
The meme is still around on the internet but not in the same way it was before Baby Yoda popped onto the scene, and it's since become a trend to feature some new characters in Armstrong and Smudge's place.
3. Me Explaining ...
The Me Explaining meme became the go-to meme for illustrating the difficulty that comes with explaining the most irrational scenarios. Similar to the Woman Yelling at Cat meme, it features two unrelated images spliced together to create one of the most relatable memes in 2019.
According to Buzzfeed, social media personality Quen Blackwell posted an old photo of herself back in May 2019 to showcase how much her mental health had improved over time.
Twitter users soon began using the photo together with an image of Ms. Juicy Baby from the reality show "Little Women: Atlanta."
Thus, the Me Explaining meme was born and helped display everyone's relatable obsessions, fears and dilemmas.
4. Storm Area 51
Storm Area 51 was a hilarious moment that also sparked some controversy. The meme started off as a Facebook event page that seemed to encourage attendees to band together to infiltrate the highly classified United States Air Force testing facility. Facebook temporarily shut down the event page, saying it violated the website's community guidelines -- likely because it encouraged trespassing and possible chaos. However, the page was actually meant to direct people to a music festival that was happening Sept. 20 in a non-classified, public space in Nevada.
By the time the rest of the internet caught on to the joke, Storm Area 51 became the meme of the summer.
5. SpongeBob's "Ight Imma Head Out" meme
Of course, no meme list is complete without the official King of Memes himself -- SpongeBob SquarePants. If memes are essentially bite-sized moments taken from pop-culture, then SpongeBob SquarePants will never experience any shortage of meme material.
The cartoon has run on Nickelodeon for more than 20 years and has always managed to churn out at least one viral meme each year since the rise of social media. 2019 was no different, producing the popular "Ight Imma Head Out" meme, perfect for when you just want to get out of an awkward or uncomfortable situation.
So what will be the next big meme of 2020?
Pop-culture can be hard to predict, but it's safe to say that Baby Yoda will likely go a similar route to SpongeBob SquarePants and will continue to produce more adorable memes as the show continues.
And of course, we can always look to SpongeBob for the next big meme, as well. Maybe 2020 will include a battle between the two big-eyed characters for the title of King of Memes.
Erica Santiago is a digital journalist for First Coast News and your certified Meme Expert. She is also the woman behind First Coast YOU, a series that spotlights unique people and their stories across the First Coast. Have a story? Email her at esantiago@firstcoastnews.com or follow her on Twitter @erica_news.
