What is Lol, Internet?

It's a mid-2000s catchphrase used to mock people who take internet drama too seriously, and also the name of a YTMND GIF series built around a Ronald McDonald driving loop[1][3].

Where did Lol, Internet come from?

The phrase emerged from 4chan's 100,000 GET on April 19, 2004, and the visual meme started on YTMND on April 7, 2005 with Dunkinbean's 'Steam, Steam' post[1].

What does Lol, Internet mean?

It's a dismissive reply to someone treating an online argument as high-stakes, essentially 'relax, it's just the internet'[3].

How do you use Lol, Internet?

Either as a two-word text reply to overheated posts, or as a template GIF captioned 'LOL, [X]' over a character driving a vehicle, usually set to 'Running in the 90s'[1].

Is Lol, Internet still popular?

Active use faded with YTMND itself, but the original 'Steam, Steam' page kept its Hall of Fame spot and passed 1.1 million views, and Archive Team preserved much of the surrounding YTMND corpus[1][2].

Lol, Internet

2004catchphraseclassic

Published September 5, 2026

Lol, Internet is a mid-2000s catchphrase used to mock people for taking online arguments too seriously, born from 4chan's 100,000 GET on April 19, 2004. It later fueled a long-running YTMND series of looping GIFs starring Ronald McDonald in a convertible, set to Max Coveri's 'Running in the 90s,' that became one of YTMND's defining formats.

ytmnd memes catchphrase memes 4chan memes mid 2000s memes dismissal memes

Overview

Lol, Internet works on two levels. First, it's a dismissive one-liner thrown at anyone treating a message board fight like a matter of life or death, sitting alongside 'The Internet Is Serious Business' in the same family of deflating retorts3. Second, it's a visual template built around a looping GIF of a cartoon character driving a convertible against a motion-blurred background, with the phrase 'LOL, [X]' floating above them1.

The format is endlessly swappable. Swap Ronald McDonald for Captain Picard, swap the caption for 'LOL, ENTERPRISE,' swap the song, and you have a new YTMND1. The tone is deliberately silly, the animation is crude on purpose, and the joke lives in the mismatch between the frantic Italo disco soundtrack and the deadpan two-word punchline7.

Origin & Background

Platform

4chan (catchphrase) / YTMND (viral GIF format)

Creator

Dunkinbean

Date

2004

The phrase itself traces back to 4chan's 100,000 GET on April 19, 2004, when users typing 'LOL INTERNET' in the milestone thread turned it into shorthand for mocking overinvested posters1. Urban Dictionary entries from the mid-2000s defined it as 'the best response to someone taking the internet way too seriously'3.

The visual meme came almost a year later. On April 7, 2005, YTMND user Dunkinbean uploaded 'Steam, Steam,' pairing a still of Ronald McDonald pointing skyward from a moving convertible with Max Coveri's 'Running in the 90s'1. That single page racked up more than 1.1 million views on YTMND and later landed in the site's Hall of Fame1.

How It Spread

Copycat YTMNDs followed within weeks of Dunkinbean's original, including 'LOL Internet Tiger Handheld,' 'Keep on with the Trucking,' 'LOL Internet 8-Bit' and 'Lawl Internet,' though none broke out on their own1. The format's second wind came in early November 2005, when user LordSlack posted 'Captain Picard's New Ship,' swapping Ronald for a Star Trek remix that pulled close to 500,000 views1.

From there the template kept branching. Popular entries included 'lol dialup' (450,000+ views), 'lol titanic' (275,000+ views), 'lol, pilot: Special Edition' (250,000+ views), 'LOL, INTERNETWAR!!!' (200,000+ views) and 'lol myspace' (153,000+ views)1. The soundtrack became its own artifact: 'Running in the 90s' was included on Volume 4 of the YTMND soundtrack, and Max Coveri's 'Golden Age' plus a piano cover of 'Running in the 90s' by TheEvilTwin made Volume 101.

By the end of the decade the phrase had drifted out of active use as YTMND itself faded, but the Dunkinbean original still gets pointed to as a foundational YTMND artifact, with Archive Team preserving many of the domains after the platform's decline2.

How to Use This Meme

The template typically starts with a looping image of a character in some kind of vehicle, motion-blurred background behind them, and a caption reading 'LOL, [SUBJECT]' where the subject is whatever you're gently mocking. A high-energy song, often 'Running in the 90s' or another Italo disco track, plays underneath1. As a text-only reply, 'lol internet' still works the way it did in 2004: a shrug aimed at someone taking an online argument too seriously3.

Frequently Asked Questions

References (7)