This Week's Best Memes, Ranked
Here at Digg, we try our best to cover the most important and confounding memes that come across the timeline. But the web is littered with tons of great memes that never quite hit the mainstream, instead bouncing around the weird corners of Twitter or Reddit.
Enter: our recurring feature, Memes, Ranked, where we not only rank the funniest memes each week, we also keep a running top 10 of the best memes of 2019. Skip to that here.
For the week of May 20, we have a handful of contenders: A Brilliant Shot, Brienne Writing, The Gay Rat Wedding and Bowling Alley Memes.
4. A Brilliant Shot That Should Be Shown In Any Film Class
The meme: A "Game of Thrones" fan tweeted a GIF from the show's finale with the caption "This shot is brilliant and should be shown in any film study class."
The tweet went very viral. At the same time, film and TV buffs all over Twitter started parodying it by parroting the same line with silly or weird shots from more obscure works.
The examples:
Verdict: This might be me throwing a wet blanket on the whole joke, but man, the whole premise here is a lot less funny when you start to realize a lot of these folks memeing the original tweet are actually trying to dunk on this guy for enjoying a popular TV show. Nowhere is that mindset better illustrated than this tweet from popular account and media personality Ira Madison III, who straight up just insults the intelligence of the original post's author.
By the way, after going viral, the original poster wrote up a second tweet saying: "β¦you could also call it: "When you're just a random person on Twitter that didn't think using hyperbole on the internet to describe something they really enjoyed would get the reaction it did." That's definitely my bad and lesson learned. Have a good day."
As of now, both tweets have been deleted.
3. Brienne Writing
The meme: Another "Game of Thrones"-finale-inspired meme. This time, the shot being meme'd is of a character named Brienne writing in what is canonically known as the White Book. It contains the records and deeds of every person who has ever served as a member of the Kingsguard. You can read more about that here.
Online, folks pretended that Brienne was writing literally anything else on that page, which made for some funny juxtapositions.
The examples:
Verdict: These are a little more fun and a lot less mean-spirited/snobby than the other "Game of Thrones" memes from this week. They're even funny to a non-Thrones watcher like me, which I think is an accomplishment. Third place!
2. Bowling Alley Memes
The meme: A simple conceit: those little monitors found in hip bowling alleys in the late '90s and early 2000s had some really weird animations, and their aesthetic is oddly recognizable even 20 years later. Take a look:
The examples:
Verdict: An excellent and goofy meme invoking a very weird and enjoyable era of North American post modern artwork. In many weeks, this would take first place. Butβ¦
1. The Gay Rat Wedding
The meme: Speaking of the late '90s and early 2000s, beloved children's cartoon "Arthur" made the news this week because a new episode1 featuring a wedding between two gay characters has been banned from public TV in the state of Alabama by Alabama Public Television.
The ban stirred up interest in the episode, which specifically focuses on longtime character Mr. Ratburn, the titular character's school teacher. Mr. Ratburn's wedding has become known online as the "gay rat wedding," a phrase that the internet has had a lot of fun with this week.
The examples:
Verdict: My only explanation for why the phrase "Gay Rat Wedding" has rattled around so many brains and internet spaces this week is that it is an inherently good, fun and evocative set of words. I believe it has what poets call goatfoot, which is to say it possesses a rhythm that is pleasing to hear and think about. It also conjures enjoyable images of love, matrimony, rebellion and rodents. An excellent phrase and meme. The best of the week.
The Official Joscoβ’ 2019 Meme Power Ranking
Click each entry on the ranking to see when it debuted.
- What If We Kissed
- The Snapchat Filter
- "I Think You Should Leave" Memes
- Let Me In!
- The Gay Rat Wedding
- Jonathan Frakes Saying "It's Fiction"
- Bowling Alley Memes
- The Sex Strike
- Brienne Writing
- A Brilliant Shot That Should Be Sown In Any Film Class
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Yep, "Arthur" is still in production! It's aired 22 seasons, and has been greenlit for 3 more.