Stank Memes

2015catchphraseclassic

Published September 29, 2026

Stank Memes is internet slang for low-quality or bad memes, positioned as the opposite of dank memes. The term surfaced in October 2015 through a Facebook DuckTales parody and a Reddit thread, then hit peak visibility in 2019 when Elon Musk bought the domain stankmemes.com.

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Overview

Stank Memes is a slang label for bad or low-effort memes, deliberately set up as the inverse of the dank memes category1. Where a dank meme is prized for being weird, layered or fresh, a stank meme is the tossed-off, stale, or crudely made version, and the word gets used both as an insult and as self-deprecating tag for junk posts2.

The term rarely names one visual format. It attaches to whatever the poster wants to mock, from lazy image macros to overloaded MLG-style edits1. A running gag is to build a meme that is obviously bad on purpose, then label it stank, which flips the diss into the joke itself.

Urban Dictionary entries stretched the phrase further, listing traits like clout-chasing animation-meme fandoms and cliche comeback lines as stank behavior, showing how the word drifted from meme quality into general online cringe shorthand2.

Origin & Background

Platform
Facebook / Reddit (viral spread)
Date
2015

On October 1st, 2015, the Barnie Sandlers Facebook page posted a DuckTales theme parody containing the line "always making good and never stank memes," which is the earliest documented appearance of the term1. Later that month, on October 25th, 2015, Redditor TheLatestTrend asked /r/dankmemes "What's the opposite of a dank meme?" and a commenter answered "Dank memes are dank (Good) / Stank memes are stank (Bad)," locking in the definition the community would run with3.

How It Spread

After the /r/dankmemes exchange in late October 2015, the phrase circulated within meme subreddits as a ready-made insult for bad posts3. On July 23rd, 2016, YouTuber MLG Stalin uploaded an MLG montage parody titled "totally accurate stank memes," applying the term to the deliberately obnoxious airhorn-and-Snoop-Dogg edit style1. Two months later, on September 23rd, 2016, Redditor MediocreGimp posted a Bill and Phil image macro sorting meme types on /r/BillAndPhil, with stank memes included as a classification4.

The term hit its widest audience on February 1st, 2019, when Elon Musk tweeted "Just bought stankmemes.com oh yeah," a screenshot of which was documented by KYM1. Within 72 hours the tweet racked up more than 140,000 likes and 22,000 retweets1. The domain itself loaded a nearly blank page reading "cause dankmemes was takne," a joke about the dank version already being claimed5.

Mashable covered the purchase the next day under the headline "Stankmemes.com owner runs Tesla, Space X," noting the WHOIS record confirmed the domain was registered that same day5. The article treated the buy as classic Musk Friday-afternoon posting, which pushed the term in front of a mainstream tech audience that had never touched /r/dankmemes.

How to Use This Meme

People typically use "stank memes" as a put-down for weak, stale, or try-hard content, or ironically to label a meme they made bad on purpose. It also works as a category tag, the negative counterpart to calling something a dank meme.

Frequently Asked Questions