Top 10 Internet Memes

Fans of “Dragon Ball Z” know just how monumental it is when Goku finally arrives on Earth to face off against the evil Saiyan invaders. After training with King Kai to gain the necessary strength to defeat his enemies, Goku powers up in rage after learning of his friend’s demise. This explosive increase in power leads to Vegeta yelling the infamous words in reference to his power level. What started off as an inside joke between friends has now become Internet slang referring to a large amount or remarkable strength.

As part of the Advice Animals categorical meme group, Condescending Wonka portrays the colorful character in a still shot from the movie as he’s explaining to the lucky children his newest candy invention. Starting off as the Creepy Wonka meme using sexual double entendres, it eventually became a little less disturbing and a lot more mean as the character became patronizing and sarcastic. There is no better way to mock someone online than to use Wonka’s condescending face.

Where the Internet’s obsession with cats comes from, we’ll never know, but we’re sure glad our furry feline friends continue to embrace the popularity. Consisting of hilarious photos with captions featuring bad grammar and broken English, LOLcats emerged from the deepest, darkest corner of the web: 4chan. The rising success of this meme led to the creation of the “I Can Haz Cheezburger” weblog, and confused, loveable cats haven’t looked back. Even Grumpy Cat can attribute his success to the LOLcats – although he’ll never admit it. I can haz cheezburger? Yes, LOLcat, you can haz it all.

Sean Bean has seen his share of memes throughout the years, but none is as famous as this line from “The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring.” Boromir is, of course, talking about how difficult the task of destroying the One Ring will be when he utters the famous phrase. But in the real world, this meme has been used to show just how difficult a task can be and how it’s really easy to underestimate something – just like walking into Mordor. One does not simply use this meme without proper precautions!

While we would like to shut up and take your money Fry, we much prefer when you’re confused and unsure of what’s happening before you. The loveable idiot from “Futurama” has been involved in a couple of memes, but in “Not Sure If,” he pauses for a moment of self-reflection, internalizing his thoughts while trying to conclude whether or not something is or isn’t. We’ve all had these moments of internal monologue, not sure if something is X or just Y. Whatever the case, we’ll be squinting our eyes, wondering.

Bad videogame translations have given us some of the funniest moments in gaming history. This is the granddaddy of them all, bringing broken English and bad grammar to a whole new level of hilarity. Taken from the opening cut-scene of the 1989 game “Zero Wing,” this line, delivered by the villainous leader of CATS, was accompanied by other gems such as “Somebody set up us the bomb!” and “What you say!” Most likely due to a rush on the game’s European release, the bad translation has lent to the meme’s online popularity.

If he didn’t have bad luck, he’d have none at all. While we love Scumbag Steve’s douchebag ways and Good Guy Greg’s empathetic behavior, Bad Luck Brian trumps them both, serving as the perfect example of Murphy’s Law: anything that can go wrong, will go wrong. Wearing his ugly plaid sweater vest and beaming his braces, Brian serves up some sad and embarrassing occurrences that can only happen to the unluckiest of people. He’s become so popular that the actual dude in the picture created a popular YouTube channel where he films shorts of a real life Bad Luck Brian. Maybe there’s some good luck for Brian after all.

Who would’ve known that a meme portraying one of the most evil historical figures in history would gain such huge popularity? Well, when you ridicule him and satirize him, the humorous results are obvious. The inspiration for this meme is a scene in the movie “Downfall,” where Hitler loses his marbles when he’s told that Germany’s defeat is imminent, reacting like a stereotypical angry German. The parody-subtitled videos soon followed, mentioning everything from Rebecca Black’s Friday to Kanye West’s infamous interruption. Who knew Hitler was such a drama queen?

People embrace stupidity. So it’s only logical for us to love a meme that supports this illogical, foolish buffoonery of human behavior. Depicting unfortunate outcomes, FAIL has gained relevance beyond the meme world; it’s incorporated into our daily vocabulary and has become a way of life – not always in a good way, but what’re you gonna do? While the Nailed It meme also shows humanity at its least successful, embracing the FAIL in our lives is much more important. After all, it’s the one meme that represents us humans the best: we’re all a bunch of fails.

Before we reveal our number one Internet meme, here’s a look at some of our honorable mentions:

- Skeptical Third World Kid
- Chuck Norris Facts
- Overly Attached Girlfriend
- The Most Interesting Man in the World
- Trollface

Pranks, catchiness, spreading the disease. The one meme that sums up what an Internet meme should be is the Rickroll. Used as a bait-and-switch video that involves misleading a person into clicking a link that leads to this concealed one-hit wonder, the Rickroll stems from 4chan yet again. Users would link to Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up” in guise of the then-unreleased videogame trailer for “Grand Theft Auto IV.” Its popularity soared to incredible heights, used by the likes of Google and even the White House. Even though we’ve all been victims, one thing’s for sure: we’ll never give you up, Rick Astley.

Do you agree with our list? Let us know which Internet memes you would include in your list. For more awesome Top 10s published daily, be sure to subscribe to WatchMojo.com.