Gallery: The 10 Best Memes of 2013
01Doge
In the great history of the internet, 2013 will be known as the Year of the Doge. The cute Shiba Inu that misspelled his internal monologue in Comic Sans captured everyone's heart for at least a few seconds these last few months (hey, that's all the time it takes on the internet). And that is why Doge – "dog" in his own special lexicon – is also the best meme of 2013. He beat out some stiff competition, topping internet crack like Harlem Shake, \[Intensifies\], You Had One Job, Twerking (seriously, he beat twerking!), *Attack on Titan* Opening Parodies, Raise Your Dongers, Moon Moon, "The Fox (What Does the Fox Say?)," and Actual Advice Mallard for the top honors, according to the [results of a poll](http://knowyourmeme.com/blog/meme-review/vote-now-your-favorite-meme-of-2013) released today by the web wizards at Know Your Meme. Well, that's not entirely true. Technically Brent Rambo, a child from a 1990s Apple commercial won Know Your Meme's [Favorite Memes of 2013 poll](http://knowyourmeme.com/blog/meme-review/vote-now-your-favorite-meme-of-2013), but he didn't win fairly. Thanks to scripts enlisted by 4chan's image board /b/ the results were rigged in Rambo's favor, so Know Your Meme had to do a recount. After tabulating the real votes, Doge was top dog. He was [also No. 1](http://knowyourmeme.com/blog/meme-review/best-memes-of-2013-editorial-choices) according to Know Your Meme's editorial staff. "It has been an exciting year defined by not one but many motifs, some familiar and some new," said Know Your Meme editor Brad Kim. "And the big surprise of the year? A new king has been crowned in the animal meme-dom ... and it's not a cat!" Click through our gallery above to find out what made 2013's best memes so darn cool. Above: Doge, The Dog That Changed the Way We LoL'd -------------------------------------------------- In 2013, this was the little doggie that could. Although the little Shiba Inus ("shibes" in the oft-misspelled vernacular of the meme) with Comic Sans captions had been popping up in subreddits and on Tumblr for a while, this year they exploded. And for good reason. "Doge" had everything that makes the internet tick: a weird new language for writing interior monologue captions, an easily adaptable format that meant you could make a Doge for pretty much anything, and – of course – a cute animal. Doge images are simple enough to make: just add super-short grammatically-questionable bits of text to a picture of a Shiba Inu illustrating what the dog/doge is thinking. Basically, Doge was [this year's LOLcat](http://io9.com/we-who-spoke-lolcat-now-speak-doge-1481243678), becoming so popular online that it started to seep into how we actually talked to each other (at least in some social circles.) It even got cited by Gawker as "[funny as shit](http://gawker.com/doge-is-an-actually-good-internet-meme-wow-1460448782)." Good boy, Doge. *Image via Know Your Meme*
02[Intensifies]
Things Get Real Thanks to \[Intensifies\] ----------------------------------------- \[Intensifies\] is one of those memes that is 1,000 times better thanks to the power of the GIF. The idea is to show an image – usually a close-up on a face or small group – and then caption it with some action that is, yes, intensifying in the image. Thanks to GIFs, those images can also move and shake, making the action more, you know, intense. The meme started in late 2012 after someone put \[Rustling Intensifies\] behind an image of a gorilla – a take on the "[That Really Rustled My Jimmies](http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/that-really-rustled-my-jimmies)" meme. From there it got a Paul Rudd version, a *My Little Pony Friendship is Magic* version, and even a Doge interpretation – firmly establishing that \[Intensifies\] had been intensified to the fullest. *Image via Know Your Meme*
03Harlem Shake
Everybody Did the Harlem Shake ------------------------------ Earlier this year the Harlem Shake freaking took over the web. The video meme was simple enough: Film people dancing rather simply (usually doing a kind of hip-thrust) while Baauer's track "Harlem Shake" plays. Then, when the beat of the song drops, cut to a shot of everyone – often with a lot more friends added – dancing like they're on speed. Everyone made a their own version of the "Harlem Shake": [indie band Matt & Kim](http://stag-komodo.wired.com/underwire/2013/02/matt-kim-harlem-shake-meme/), sports teams, BuzzFeed, random kids in dorms. Although many, including Harlem denizens who know the real dance, noted "[that ain't the Harlem Shake](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGH2HEgWppc) it caught on anyway, creating a meme that diverged from the Shake's hip-hop dance origins. The trend has since died down, but at one point in February YouTube estimated some [4,000 new Harlem Shakes](http://stag-komodo.wired.com/underwire/2013/02/matt-kim-harlem-shake-meme/) were going up each day. The internet's dance card was never fuller.
04You Had One Job
The Best New FAIL: You Had One Job ---------------------------------- Taken from Basher's line "You tossers! You had one job to do." (below) in *Ocean's Eleven*, this was the go-to FAIL meme this year. Find an image where something that should've been easily accomplished gets messed up royally, add "You Had One Job" to it and voila! Instant laughs. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QXkTFKrW5U *Image via Know Your Meme*
05Twerking
No One Could Shirk the Twerk ---------------------------- Twerking probably doesn't need explanation here (it's a butt-shaking dance that's been around since the 1990s, somehow this year it became an internet thing) because this was the year it got so popular that it crossed over from dance move to web phenomenon to international craze. Miley Cyrus' MTV VMAs performance might have been peak twerk, but that was just the crescendo; throughout the year twerking became one of those things that was talked about as much as it was done. Maybe that's why it got included in the [online Oxford Dictionaries lexicon](http://stag-komodo.wired.com/underwire/2013/08/oxford-dictionary-twerking/).
06Attack on Titan Parodies
Remixing *Attack on Titan* -------------------------- Unless you spend a lot of time on Japanese video site [Nico Nico Douga](http://www.nicovideo.jp/), you might have missed this one. (We did.) Basically, the meme pairs the super-intense theme music from the anime *Attack on Titan* with scenes and sequences from other TV shows and anime. Easy, but when paired with NND's scrolling-comment function (see above), also crazy fun.
07Raise Your Dongers
Raise Your Dongers ------------------ This catchphrase became a meme thanks to *League of Legends* player Michael Santana, who nicknamed a character in the online arena game "donger." It's hard to explain exactly (check the [Know Your Meme page](http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/raise-your-dongers) for more detail) but basically after Santana coined the phrase – and its emoticon ヽ༼ຈل͜ຈ༽ﾉ – it became a very *very* funny thing to put on images, even if you didn't know its history. *Image via Know Your Meme*
08Moon Moon
Doge Gets a Friend: Moon Moon ------------------------------ Moon Moon is another interior monologue image meme like Doge, except he's a wolf -- and a slightly slow, derpy member of his pack. He's cute. He says dumb things. He's funny. He's like Jacob in *Twilight*. (Zing!) That's pretty much all you need to know. *Image via Know Your Meme*
09The Fox
Everyone Learned What "The Fox" Says ------------------------------------ The video for Ylvis' "The Fox (What Does the Fox Say?)" wasn't so much a meme as it was a [force of nature](http://stag-komodo.wired.com/underwire/2013/09/what-does-the-fox-say-ylvis/). After premiering in September it was inescapable. It got parodied on *Saturday Night Live*. The Norwegian comedy duo behind it found themselves discussing it on talk shows. It got adapted by the Ohio University Marching 110. The clip got 280 million views on YouTube, where it became 2013's top trending video – ahead of a military version of "Harlem Shake." Like we said, it everywhere.
10Actual Advice Mallard
This Helpful Duck That Gave Everyone Advice -------------------------------------------- Animals [giving advice in image macros](http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/advice-animals) have been around for more than a minute, but this year one in particular – Actual Advice Mallard – catapulted in popularity. Unlike other advice animals like Art Student Owl or Hipster Kitty, which serve up cold snarky witticisms, this lovely little duckling (OK, full-grown duck, but that doesn't sound as cute) is actually here to help. Actual Advice Mallard, which emerged from the Advice Animals subreddit in 2011, is known for it legitimately useful life-hacks like hanging your shirt in the bathroom while you shower to remove wrinkles or fixing paper cuts with ChapStick. (Service-y!) A welcome reprieve in an internet full of attitude – and maybe that's why he's so popular. *Image via Know Your Meme*
