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'Steamboat Willie' Enters The Public Domain, And This Week's Other Best Memes, Ranked

Darcy Jimenez
Darcy Jimenez
'Steamboat Willie' Enters The Public Domain, And This Week's Other Best Memes, Ranked
This weird little version of Mickey Mouse is everyone's now.
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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 and instead just bounce around the weird corners of Twitter or Reddit. Enter our recurring feature, Memes, Ranked.

This week, we've got Brits reacting to a landmark not being on fire, memes sparked by a great Jim Downey joke and people making the most of "Steamboat Willie" losing copyright protection.


3. The Blackpool Tower 'fire'

The Meme

Last week, in the UK town of Blackpool, news spread that the beloved landmark Blackpool Tower was on fire. It later transpired, though, that what appeared to be flames in the video footage captured was, in fact, some orange netting flapping in the wind.

That fire crews attended, and the "news" was published across national media outlets before the lack of fire was established, is really quite something โ€” and Brits across the country had fun cracking jokes about it.

Examples


Darcy Jimenez



2. Jim Downey on Epstein

The Meme

Back in September 2023, legendary comedy writer Jim Downey joined Conan O'Brien on his podcast "Conan Needs A Friend." They opened the episode with a gut-busting joke where Downey seemingly hadn't heard about news of Jeffrey Epstein's crimes โ€” it's a spontaneous, clever bit that resulted in a semi-viral tweet of the video.

Ultimately, the entire gag boils down to one line โ€” "Jeffrey Epstein, the financier?" โ€” which implies that Epstein is better known for his investments than his conviction as a sex offender. The sentence spawned memes in which a person asks, "this evil person, and their day job?". It's rare to see a genuinely original joke itself become a meme, as it's just a sentence and a photo of the man who said it. Good stuff.

Examples


Jared Russo


1. 'Steamboat Willie'

The Meme

The very first Mickey Mouse cartoon, "Steamboat Willie," came into the public domain in the United States on January 1, 2024. As soon as the clock struck midnight, the internet was ready to create the most deranged and disgusting memes involving old-timey Mickey Mouse.

While this kind of silly parody was arguably already legal before Disney lost the copyright to the original cartoon, nobody wants to miss an opportunity to rub it in their face, since they've spent so much money and time wrecking our copyright system.

Examples


Grant Brunner



And if you're hungry for more memes, here's the last edition of "The Week's Best Memes,", which featured a Threads-based joke, movie characters getting Santa-fied and people reacting to a Paul Mescal rumor.

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