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Grumpy Cat is the internet nickname for Tardar Sauce, a mixed-breed cat from Arizona whose permanently scowling face made her one of the most famous animals on the internet. First posted to Reddit in September 2012, her photos spawned thousands of image macros with cynical, deadpan captions and built a merchandising empire worth hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing deals. Tardar Sauce died in May 2019 at age seven, but her grumpy face is still one of the most recognizable meme images ever created.

"All Star" is a 1999 rock song by Smash Mouth that became one of the internet's most enduring memes after its prominent use in the 2001 animated film *Shrek*. The song's iconic opening line, "Somebody once told me," launched thousands of remixes, mashups, covers, and parodies across YouTube, Reddit, and beyond. Written as an anthem for outcasts by guitarist Greg Camp, the track found a second life online in the 2010s through creators like Neil Cicierega and Jon Sudano, and the band themselves leaned into the joke.

"It's a Trap!" is a catchphrase and reaction image based on Admiral Ackbar's famous line from the 1983 Star Wars film *Return of the Jedi*. The image macro version first appeared on Something Awful in the early 2000s and quickly spread to FARK, YTMND, 4chan, and YouTube, making it one of the most recognizable and long-lived memes from the early internet era. The phrase is used as a humorous warning about anything deceptive, misleading, or suspicious.

"Wait, That's Illegal" is a reaction image meme taken from the Rooster Teeth web series *Red vs. Blue*, featuring the character Church delivering the line. The source material dates back to 2004, but the screenshot didn't take off as a meme format until January 2019, when it blew up on Reddit's r/MemeEconomy and r/dankmemes. It's used to react to anything that seems like it shouldn't be allowed, whether genuinely rule-breaking or just absurd.

Confused Nick Young is a reaction image of NBA player Nick Young (aka Swaggy P) looking bewildered with question marks floating around his head. The image comes from a 2014 YouTube web series and went viral in 2015 on Black Twitter, becoming one of the internet's most-used visual shorthand for confusion and disbelief.

Surprised Pikachu is a reaction image pulled from a 1997 episode of the Pokémon anime, showing Pikachu with wide eyes and an open mouth in a look of shock. First used as a meme on Tumblr in September 2018 by user popokko (Angela), it became the most-used meme of that year by pairing the image with scenarios where someone is "surprised" by a completely predictable outcome. A WIRED investigation into its viral trajectory raised questions about whether its November 2018 popularity spike was connected to the Detective Pikachu film marketing, though no definitive link was established.

Ugandan Knuckles is a VRChat meme built around a distorted 3D model of Knuckles the Echidna from the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise. Players swarmed virtual lobbies using the avatar while repeating "Do you know de wey?" in a mock African accent, creating one of the most viral and controversial gaming memes of early 2018. The meme sparked a major debate about racial stereotyping in online spaces and drew comparisons to Pepe the Frog's trajectory from harmless joke to co-opted symbol.

Keyboard Cat is a viral video meme featuring an orange tabby cat named Fatso, filmed in 1984 by performance artist Charlie Schmidt, appearing to play an electronic keyboard while wearing a blue shirt. The clip sat dormant for over two decades before being uploaded to YouTube in 2007 and exploding into one of the internet's most recognizable memes in 2009, when Brad O'Farrell created the "Play Him Off, Keyboard Cat" mashup format that paired the footage with fail videos as a comedic send-off.