Memes are few and far between in 2025, but there are still some good ones.
Why are memes so rare? Simply put: TikTok. The heart of digital culture has migrated to TikTok, which is a short-form video platform. So there remain memes of a sort — they’re mostly called TikTok trends — but the text-and-image-based memes of years past? Those are harder to come by.
Another reason for that? Twitter (RIP). When Elon Musk bought the app and then reimagined it as X, well, that fractured the central text-based social platform. Previously, a meme was born on Twitter, then worked its way to Reddit, then Instagram, then, weeks later, Facebook. With X becoming increasingly difficult to use and less popular, that lifecycle has mostly disappeared.
But memes, to some extent, persist. On TikTok, Bluesky, Instagram, and, yes, even X. We’ve tracked them closely and collected seven of the best memes of 2025, so far.
1. Trump take egg
Just before President Donald Trump’s extreme tariffs sent the U.S. economy into a tailspin, the internet had jokes…jokes about egg. It was a bit of classic internet absurdism, poking fun at people who voted for Trump for lower egg prices…as egg prices skyrocketed.
Mashable Trend Report
2. The Duke-White Lotus debacle
It was the (missed) shot heard round the world: Duke crashed out of 2025’s March Madness in a stunning chokejob. It was kismet: In this year’s season of HBO’s The White Lotus, Timothy Ratliff (Jason Isaacs) spirals out of control, often in a Duke t-shirt. The memes practically made themselves.
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3. Get me to God’s country
Morgan Wallen inspired one of the best memes of 2025 after he stormed off the stage at Saturday Night Live as the credits rolled. He later, hilariously, posted an image of a private jet to his Instagram stories, captioning it, “Get me to God’s country.”
It was assumed that country star Wallen, who had a previous SNL appearance cancelled for violating COVID protocols and, soon after, faced major ire when footage of him saying the N-word surfaced, was signaling to his fans he was ready to leave the liberal big city. People mostly poked fun at the idea, since, you know, the super-rich guy was leaving NYC in a private jet.
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4. The little French fish
There was a period of time in 2025 when FYPs everywhere were dominated by a little French fish. It was just a little orange fish named Steve. That was really it. But it ruled.
5. The conclave memes
There were few bigger internet moments in 2025 than the conclave to decide the new pope. That seems odd, and it was. But the memes and jokes about the conclave were hilarious and constant. We got Brat edits, fancams, and breathless coverage online. It was great and quite strange.
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6. Holy airball
To keep things on the holy side, TikTok had lots of memes about holy f-ing airballs in 2025. In essence, posters would use the phrase to subvert people’s expectations — often in a braggy way.
7. 100 men vs. 1 gorilla
And, finally, we have perhaps the biggest meme of 2025: 100 men vs. one gorilla. The internet has long loved to imagine silly, man vs. animal fights. And in 2025, we really focused on 100 dudes taking on a gorilla. Real scientists even weighed in, which is fantastic. (In general, if the guys stay organized and selfless, they’d win.) It became a meme for days.
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The whole gorilla debate was unserious and funny, just how memes should be. So while there are fewer memes these days, we can certainly look forward to a few more good ones before the year is over.
