Numerous memes have spread through the site, some original and others finding their way from... that one site. Important to note about Tumblr and memes though - because of the sites' self-awareness, memes become old quickly and anyone using them after they've gotten "old" will be trashedviolently.
Rule #1 of Tumblr: always reblog the creator.
Alternatively, Rule #1: Do not speak of Tumblr outside of Tumblr.
One of the more popular posts is a gif from the show The Walking Dead, where one of the characters undergoes a brain scan as they became infected. Someone incorrectly stated that the gif was an MRI scan of a person's brain releasing endorphins as they die, calling it "tragically beautiful".
There's similar games done with things like horse dildos, claiming that it's a photo of an African-American burn victim (it's hard to see and looks like a pale arm with splashes of pigment on it). ...Yeah.
MapCrunch. Users would use it to be "teleported" anywhere in the world and would then chronicle their adventures in finding the nearest airport.
Jason Derulo
Façade, an artificial-intelligence and type-based game, became popular with users after discovering its bad graphics, ridiculous dialogue/story, and absurd actions.
Upon discovering that typing the word "melons" resulted in a game over, melon jokes became very popular.
"Listen here, cum-slut", after a user posted an extremely angry reaction to a set of .gifs from the movie Jack and Jill, showing a CGI cockatoo getting drenched in a chocolate fountain. The user had no idea this was fake, and got hysterical about animal abuse and how the bird 'probably died, and was opening its mouth to scream', ect.
Once upon a time, someone coined the term YOLOnote you only live once. Not long afterwards, Tumblr grabbed the ball and never stopped running.
"MAGIC ANON!" In the site's roleplaying community, people will occasionally post anonymously in characters' ask boxes to declare that "Magic Anon" has caused some random effect to occur. Could be anything from a minor event to possibly even full-blown transformation. Roleplayers usually humor magic anons by playing along but have the power to deny them if they wish. The length of a magic anon's effect depends either on the anon or the roleplayer.
A picture of "lettuce" written in a cipher or another language, with an inspirational caption about how it says "never give up".
"I give you a hamburger..."/Cuil Theory. From an infamous Mind Screw audio post that was a measurement of how bizarre and detached something was from reality.
"Go home _____, you are drunk".
"SO MANY FEELS"
i cant
UNABLE TO CAN
I HAVE LOST THE ABILITY TO CAN
RIGHT IN THE FEELS, usually accompanied by a gif someone getting hit brutally.
A gold star with "you tried" written inside it in Comic Sans, and its many variations, to be used as reaction images.
"It was a social experiment." Originated when Cole Sprouse wrote this in his final post before deleting his Tumblr, though it was popular on LiveJournal as a troll justification, as well. Usually used to denote - you guessed it - trolling.
This is also the most popular example used of the Deader Than Disco trope on the website. If one finds a post talking about Discredited Memes, expect this one to be mentioned at least once.
Night Bloggers. If you've ever seen gibberish or other surreal posts pop up on your Dashboard, it's either a night blogger, or someone emulating them.
"Night bloggers or just the Australians?"
"Night bloggers, or Night Vale bloggers?" (Due to the podcast's own surreal humour.)
A popular response is to reblog with a picture from Boku No Pico (Particularly the box art, which features Pico in a speedo and goggles), accompanied by the line "Did someone say Swimming Anime?"
Gifs of certain scene, with text over their eyes to represent a fandom reaction.
A picture with text next to it that says "People who (insert what they dislike people doing/saying)." Followed by reblogs that slowly remove words while keeping the same picture and eventually ends up as just "People".
Then finally a reblog describing the action taking place in the picture, accompanied by the same picture as preceding.
Obsession with the word "Butt" and butts in general.
Later gained a spiritual successor in the form of the less widespread Thwompocalypse, wherein users started mass-posting audio and picture posts relating to Thwomps. Cue people waking up in the morning to find their dashboard clogged with angry blue cubes.
Ah, the scalene triangle.
The Tumblr Code: Calling out "I like your shoelaces!" in person as a covert way of identifying fellow Tumblr users. There's a response, of course.
Similarly, there was "Can you give me directions to an Olive Garden?", used in the same manner due to the example quotes in the Quotes page.
Alternatively now, "chrome-orb 2.jpg"
"Nobody's perf-", followed by an image of someone as an exception to the rule of nobody being perfect.
Posts being accurate; meaning posts the user strongly agrees with. Often seen as "ACCURATE", "accurate post is accurate", "never before have I seen a post this accurate", etc.
The traditional expressions of admiration and/or love and/or lust for characters/celebrities:
"Do you love the color of the sky?" *scroll for infinity, then something interesting at the very end*
This was a particularly interesting example of Deader Than Disco and Forced Meme. The original post itself was only popular for a short time before a majority of people thought it was annoying and clogged up their dashes. Many parodies were made, but the derivatives and complaints were more seen than anything else, many people hadn't even seen the original until it fell out of favor.
Posting pictures of meat in hopes of finding people who comments on it with disgust. If such an event occurs, you've "found the vegan."
Any variant on "In [language] we don't say "I love you", we say [obscure arrangement of letters], which roughly translates to [cute phrase]."
Followed by someone "plugging" phrase into Google Translate & churning out a sexually-charged or disturbing phrase.
Originally used actual foreign languages and later warped into stereotypical words used in various English speaking countries, as well as fandoms and the like
Created by the Homestuck fandom during one of its many pauses, where they had moirail feels with the Axis Powers Hetalia fandom, which later expanded to encompass most of Tumblr.
"& in that moment..." or any other arrangement of picture on a space background.
"If you ever feel like/think you're [insert negative thing about you or something you're bad at] just remember that [insert someone being worse with said negative thing or being worse at the thing you're bad at]."
Turning Benedict Cumberbatch's into the silliest phrases possible while still being able to tell who they're talking about. For example:
Baldersnap Cummerbund
Snozzlebert Mugglewump
Rinkydink Curdlesnoot
Britishguy Sillyname
Bombadill Wafflesmack
Boodlydoop Floofernoodle
Blueberry Pumpkinpatch
Bindelboop Cucumber
Benedong Cumberhanger
Butawhiteboy Cantbekhan
tumblr-user brolininthetardis: "sometimes this site makes me forget what bendywick candlebatch’s real name even is and then i remember that you don’t need to know butterburger custardsnack’s real name for people to know you’re talking about bennyjet crumplebunch"
A similar meme applies to Danganronpa, aka Dangit Grandpa, Ding Dang Ron Paul, etc.
Taking a cutesy romantic picture+phrase post and adding a humorous response from pop culture underneath. Example, "when boys give you a cute nickname", followed by a picture of Ron Burgandy and his phrase "Tits McGee".
"Bitch i might be" to answer basically any question.
Comic Sans in general; find a humorous image a Tumblr user created, preferably a spoof of something, and it's highly likely that any text added will be in Comic Sans.
Shock over the Yahoo! acquisition, including joking about other purchasers (such as Monobear and Doug Dimmadome), and calling Marissa Mayer their new "mommy"
Collages of nightblogger posts with the caption "this is what yahoo paid $1.1 billion for"
The Sink Fandom. "SNK" Is a common abbreviation that people use to tag Attack on Titan (with the Japanese name of the series being Shingeki No Kyojin), resulting in a post that basically said (paraphrased) "You people with your SNK fandom, I've got something better: the SINK fandom!". Thus, "Sink Fandom" is a tag full of pretty or interesting sinks.
A related meme is for people to reply to questions about one "SNK" by answering with things about the other, far olderSNK (born mainly out of people growing disgruntled with Titan fans who simply can't abbreviate the series to AOT.)
People are sad because they can't go to San Diego Comic Con.
"What a time to be alive."
The game Cookie clicker became extremely popular on the website for no reason whatsoever.
Twisting life hacks, which used to be interesting methods of MacGyvering with common items in order to make daily tasks simpler, into either obvious, immoral, or surreal actions to make life "easier".
Tumblr users have a habit of creating couples, and sometimes entire fandoms, from inanimate objects or random concepts. The most popular is Creamsicle, listed above, and it in itself has spawned several Spinoffs. The second most popular was arguably "Jupitearth", a fandom originally spawned when news hit that Jupiter "saved" Earth from a collision in 2012. It originally started with humanizations of Earth and Jupiter but warped into using all the planets.
Another popular one is pairing the Notebook and Clock from the "Don't Hug Me I'm Scared" videos
Miley Cyrus' performance at the VMAs quickly spread throughout the site.
Adding a swear word to a random noun to make a strange insult.
Listen here, fucktruck...
How do spiders go to sleep? By having hot choclety milk.
hey r u the moreos guy Explanation Tumblr user perchu posted a lengthy rant on how the new 'Moreos' would "destroy the cookie market". He now seriously regrets this.
[X INTENSIFIES]
Frequently paired with a related gif quaking/shaking/vibrating
Using Michael Scott's reaction to the fire drill as a reaction gifset, usually in response to exciting news. The [x] fandom right now: "Oh my God, okay, this is happening. Everybody stay calm, everybody stay calm. Stay fucking calm! Everyone just fucking calm down!"
Posting a suitably paranoid response to the notification that another user has started following you.
"Spoopy" and "creppy" (meaning simultaneously spooky and goofy/silly/funny) based on misspelled Halloween signs.
Everyone changing their URL to halloweened versions, so you can't remember who's who.
Skeletons as a whole are a meme on Tumblr. Which means that there is a meme inside of you at all times.
The joke that Dads make. (ie: "Dad I'm hungry." "Hi Hungry, I'm Dad.")
Writing "And we'll never be royals (royals)" from Lorde's song Royals on a picture of characters who, well, will never be royals but want to be.
wow so doge/shibe
much trope
such meme
so format
wow
It became so popular that, eventually, the government tried their hand at it, with disastrous results. Which also became memetic.
"You havin' a giggle at me mate? I'll bash ye fookin' head in I swear on me mum."
"God is dead and we killed him", often used in response to creations perceived as idiotic or otherwise bizarre.
Using porn gifs as reaction images.
This eventually lend to an example where an example where a perfectly SFW gif was used to describe a quite NSFW situation.
"The best part of waking up is incest in your cup!" Explanation A reference to the incest subtext in this Folgers commercial that crops up every holiday season.
Coming up with increasingly long lists of things that took ages to happen or have yet to actually occur, and then suggesting that they still managed to occur before season 3 of Sherlock was transmitted.
Expand Dong: Taking various video game or anime or film cover arts or character images and putting sexual captions under them whilst making said captions out of bits of the cover's man title graphics newspape ransom note style.
Recreating image posts with infamous captions/replies (the "Listen here cum-slut" and the Walking Dead brain-scan post being among them) and changing the image to something completely different and nonsensical.
Posting lyrics from Bring Me To Life when there's a bizarre image post with someone with a traumatized look on their face or a Thousand-Yard Stare.
Jokes about the color blood orange. "It's fucking red."
Posts that begin with "sext:" followed by some sort of deep, romantic, and completely non-sexual thought.
Or a completely mundane thought.
After kada-bura (formerly Aishaneko) posted her drawing of a humanized Notepad and Clock from Don't Hug Me I'm Scared, they were, like most other things on the website, quickly shipped.
"I can't believe I ship a notebook and a clock!"
"The X is strong", a way commenting on a particular quality. Ex. "The nerd is strong with this post".
Bringing back old memes has become a meme.note It started with bringing back Rick-rolling and spiraled from there.
The FBI virus is one of the most destructive viruses as of January 2014. Despite that, some people decided to make it a meme as well.
"None pizza with left beef" Explanation Someone made a post on another web site about testing the Domino's online purchase form by purchasing what he referred to as, "a 6-inch individual "NONE" pizza with BEEF (on the left)." He marked everything—including cheese and sauce—as none except for the beef, which he requested on the left side, and got a baked crust with with pieces of beef sprinkled on the left side. Naturally, when Tumblr caught word, they ate it up.
Taking the lyrics from a well-known song and replacing a couple words with something nonsensical, by way of screenshots of Google's suggestions for misspellings. Like so.
Making joke chip flavors for the Lays' "Do Us a Flavor" promotion, such as "Canadian genocide" and "Disappointment".
Since JK Rowling's interview about how "she regrets putting Ron with Hermione" numerous posts have sprung up about authors regretting who they put their main characters with, including but not limited to Shakespeare, Suzanne Collins, and Victor Hugo.
Flappy Bird.
"Anyway, here's Wonderwall"note about the ubiquitous "douche with a guitar" at parties
Twitch Plays Pokémon has taken the internet by storm, and Tumblr is no exception. "PRAISE HELIX", RIP notices to "Jay Leno" and "Abby", tons of fanart, ask blogs, and a religion popped up overnight.
IT'S BACK note Used when an older post starts making the rounds again.
"As a [made up scientific field], I can confirm this is true."
"talk dirty to me"note from the song "Talk Dirty" by Jason Derulo
*saxophone riff*
"Someone who's never seen X explain what's happening in this screenshot" note Tumblr users find the most It Makes Sense in Context heavy screenshot and have people hasn't seen the series to explain it. Hilarity Ensues.
2014 April Fools' Day introduced "Tumblr Pro", which would give the user a hat on its icon. Even though it was around for only a day, it quickly became memetic.
On May 7, 2014, Hoenn was confirmed. Tumblr — no, the entire Internet — exploded.
Asking "the science side of Tumblr" to explain things. Usually reblogged with some overly simplified or nonsensical response.
thank you science side of tumblr
"If tumblr is so accepting then why is it that I, [unpopular group/person]..."
kup teraz
Hi, I'm X and you're watching Disney Channel *character draws logo and then does something in-character, mostly comedic effect*
Referring to something that is nearly uncountable with a ridiculously small number. Normally worded as "like X whole [whatever the item is]"
Some version of the following where either a gif is added to the end or some other part is edited to an ironic or bizarre level:
Girl: Come over
Me: Not tonight bae
Girl: My parents are out
Me: I'll be right over
Referring to Macklemore ironically as the head of the LGBTQIA movement.
Giving credit for a quote to a famous, often historical, person for something they obviously did not say. Normally worded as "[famous person], probably"
"Spiders Georg" the apparent outlier in the statistic that every person eats an average of three spiders a year. He is said to eat over 10,000 each day.
"Tag your porn!", usually in response to an image of especially tasty-looking food or other very desirable items.
Some would find a meme based on passive-aggressive commentary of things using a screencap of Kermit the Frog drinking tea in a Lipton commercial to be rather annoying, but that's none of my business◊.
Using a comic of a dog sitting in a burning building (thisGunshow comic), saying "this is fine" as a reaction image for situations that are not fine.
"I'm gonna fuck the thing."
"DO NOT FUCK THE THING."
Skull Trumpet
Saying 'I came here to have a good time and honestly I am feeling so attacked right now' in response to something negative being said to them.
Most definitely came from the movie 22 Jump Street.
The best part about this may be the fact that many people don't even know where this came from, with responses ranging from supposedly being said by Nick Jonas to drag queen Laganja Estranja of Ru Pauls Drag Race.note Although what Laganja really said was "I FEEL VERY ATTACKED!"
Often inverted as "I came here to attack people and honestly I am having such a good time right now" and applied to antagonist characters
Apathetic and/or confused reactions from the non-fandom/nerdy/SJW side of Tumblr (usually photography, car, or "I actually use this as a blog" tumblrs) towards the 2014 raids.
"THAT IS NOT THE INTENDED USE, SIR" Explanation The preferred response anytime someone reblogs a post showcasing a neat device and expresses desire to use it in some perverse manner.
DashCon 2014.Explanation A Tumblr convention originally intended to be a meetup for fandoms, feminists, and Tumblr cultures in general ended up being horrendously organized and poorly executed. Notably, many attendees were conned out of their money after the organizer of the event claimed to need a donation of $17,000 to pay the hotel.
The Ball Pit.
"we are giving you guys an extra hour with the ball pit" Explanation Said in this post, as a consolation for reserved users to a panel featuring the creators of the popular online podcast Welcome to Night Vale, which was cancelled due to not having the money to cover WTNV’s transportation and performance fees.
Posting a picture of the half-deflated ball pit in the empty convention hall as a response to posts about suggested tumblr projects or fantasies such as Tumblr Island or Tumblr University.
Chat posts in which a baby begins stuttering a word, to which a parent asks if they're trying to say some simple word (such as "father" or "mother"), only for the baby to say some famous, often lengthy, quote that begins with the same letter.
The trailer for the Fifty Shades of Grey adaptation, specifically the line "I don't do romance, my interests are very... singular". In the trailer this leads up to Christian showing off his BDSM paraphernalia, in the meme that image gets switched out with ridiculous things such as brony gear, One Direction-merc and... an inflatable spermwhale.
Editing screenshots of popular, often relatable text posts over pictures from a TV series, movie, game, etc. that the text posts apply to.
Aoba cake
"Starting today we will be deleting all blogs without the following image in 24 hours."
This reached it's logical conclusion by thoroughly enraging fandom bloggers who insist Tumblr is a safe space from "stupid jock sports" without accounting for the existence of very active (albeit somewhat isolated) sports fandoms on the site. Nevermind the fact that the majority of people using said giferator are fandom bloggers doing it ironically because of how ridiculous it looks to them.
"Was this [x] even real" for particularly weird moments in movies/television shows.
no its beckynote To an old photo of Taylor Swift a user had jokingly purported to be of a friend who died of drug abuse, somebody responded, "pretty sure that's Taylor Swift". Another replied in jest, "no its becky". Swift actually wore a short with the phrase on it.
tfw no gf guy
"bruh"
"Steal their look" posts featuring a memetic character and extortionately priced items.
"YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAS GAGA!" Explanation An excited Little Monster's reaction to seeing his idol was thoroughly parodied. Now, people say (often long and drawn-out) variations of "yas" whenever they're excited about something.
"Problematic faves" originating from the blog yourfaveisproblematic
"justgirlythings" picture with a pretty decent activity happening in the background but with a caption that is usually concerning, sadistic, makes zero sense, or is just really strange.
Variations of the phrase "My anaconda don't", such as "My anaconda will consider it", "My anaconda doesn't", etc.
Also related to Anaconda are jokes about Drake's section of the video, such as using his pose as a reaction image or making a joke about him still being in the chair weeks/months/centuries later.
It's also become popular to compare a picture of Shinji from Neon Genesis Evangelion sitting in a similar pose.
pathetic egg stunt achieves nothing
Screenshots of two posts on the dashboard accidentally referring to each other
Separate posts that are designed to be reblogged simultaneously to create a single image or story, e.g. Cookie in a milk cup / milk in a cookie cup, "I see you shiver in antici..." "pation".
what is [person] doing? usually replied with "their best"
Nigel Thornberry in every BLARGHARGHAGH
Using "Photograph" by Nickelback (or later, Gloria Estefan's "Conga") as a form of audio post Rickrolling.
Afro Circus.
Rotating gifs of faces set to Sweet Dreams.
my dash did a thing!!!!
Coming from {{4chan}}'s weird obsession with it comes a somewhat ironic fanatic following in Shrek, usually through sexual copypasta, video edits to insert Shrek in other films, or photoshops.
Creating a powerpoint (usually for a particular show/set of characters) with information which the user has gathered purely from tumblr. Usually titled with "what tumblr has taught me about X" or similar.
Unnecessarily making colour palettes out of any image
"I can't believe that (insert something blatantly untrue or which didn't happen)"
"(I want this) because of reasons" is usually a reply to something (a tool, a celebrity, food, etc.) that the user really wants.
okay cool
The Hawkeye Initiative is a response to the portrayal of female characters in comic books in absurd and impossible poses. Artists will post a photo◊ of a female character and then draw the male hero Hawkeye in the same position, often with comedic intent.
Is this a pigeon? is a photo reply to any picture showing a butterfly. The photo in question◊ shows a man from an anime pointing to a butterfly and asking if ti is a pigeon.
Pokefusions were created after a handful of artists were alerted to the presence of a site that can "fuse" two Pokemon sprites together. The result was very◊, very◊ awesome◊.
Ah, TV Tropes. I love that site. The way they just [clenches fist] trope all those frickin TVs Explanation Originally from a tweet about The Catcher in the Rye and applied to a variety of media.
There is a post with over 13 million notes, but the content of said post keeps changing, so much so that no one knows which one was the original (but its typically the "Let's make Dean in gym shorts the most reblogged picture on Tumblr" post.)
