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Nyan Cat is an 8-bit animated GIF of a cat with a cherry Pop-Tart body flying through space, trailing a rainbow, set to the endlessly looping Japanese Vocaloid song "Nyanyanyanyanyanyanya!" by daniwellP. Artist Christopher Torres created the animation during a Red Cross charity livestream on April 2, 2011; three days later YouTuber saraj00n paired it with the song, and the combination quickly became one of the biggest viral memes of the early 2010s. The original video pulled in over 205 million YouTube views and sparked games, merchandise, a Webby Award, and a landmark NFT sale worth nearly $600,000.

"Ah Shit, Here We Go Again" is a catchphrase and reaction meme from the 2004 video game *Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas*, spoken by protagonist Carl "CJ" Johnson at the start of the game. The line sat dormant for over a decade before exploding online in 2019 after a green screen edit made it endlessly remixable. It's now one of the internet's go-to expressions for weary frustration at repeating an unwanted experience.

Surprised Pikachu is a reaction image pulled from a 1997 episode of the Pokémon anime, showing Pikachu with wide eyes and an open mouth in a look of shock. First used as a meme on Tumblr in September 2018 by user popokko (Angela), it became the most-used meme of that year by pairing the image with scenarios where someone is "surprised" by a completely predictable outcome. A WIRED investigation into its viral trajectory raised questions about whether its November 2018 popularity spike was connected to the Detective Pikachu film marketing, though no definitive link was established.

Distracted Boyfriend is a stock photo turned object labeling meme showing a man checking out another woman while his girlfriend looks on in disapproval. Taken by Barcelona photographer Antonio Guillem in mid-2015, the image first appeared as a meme in a Turkish Facebook group in January 2017 before going massively viral across Twitter, Reddit, and Instagram in August 2017. It won Meme of the Year at the 10th annual Shorty Awards and helped popularize the object labeling format that dominated meme culture in the late 2010s.

"Wait, That's Illegal" is a reaction image meme taken from the Rooster Teeth web series *Red vs. Blue*, featuring the character Church delivering the line. The source material dates back to 2004, but the screenshot didn't take off as a meme format until January 2019, when it blew up on Reddit's r/MemeEconomy and r/dankmemes. It's used to react to anything that seems like it shouldn't be allowed, whether genuinely rule-breaking or just absurd.

Caturday is the internet tradition of posting cat images and LOLcat memes every Saturday. The practice started on 4chan's /b/ board around 2005, spread through communities like LiveJournal and I Can Has Cheezburger, and turned into a weekly internet ritual still observed across social media. The hashtag #Caturday trends on Twitter most weekends, with users sharing photos and memes of their cats[1].

"All Star" is a 1999 rock song by Smash Mouth that became one of the internet's most enduring memes after its prominent use in the 2001 animated film *Shrek*. The song's iconic opening line, "Somebody once told me," launched thousands of remixes, mashups, covers, and parodies across YouTube, Reddit, and beyond. Written as an anthem for outcasts by guitarist Greg Camp, the track found a second life online in the 2010s through creators like Neil Cicierega and Jon Sudano, and the band themselves leaned into the joke.

Grumpy Cat is the internet nickname for Tardar Sauce, a mixed-breed cat from Arizona whose permanently scowling face made her one of the most famous animals on the internet. First posted to Reddit in September 2012, her photos spawned thousands of image macros with cynical, deadpan captions and built a merchandising empire worth hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing deals. Tardar Sauce died in May 2019 at age seven, but her grumpy face is still one of the most recognizable meme images ever created.