Top 10 memes of 2022 – slap from Will Smith, surprised Homelander, smiling Dr. Livesey and more

The modern internet is hard to imagine without memes. Individual events, photos, videos or even sentences taken out of context quickly become popular – they are quoted, parodied and used on every occasion. Some are quickly forgotten, while others become classics in a sense. In this article, we recall the loudest memes of 2022.

Clap Chris Rock by Will Smith

Chris Rock is a famous American comedian who has long performed in the stand-up genre. When he was invited to host the Oscars, it was clear that Chris would be joking. But not everyone appreciated his humor.

Speaking to the guests at the ceremony, he compared Jada Pinkett Smith (Will Smith’s wife) to Private Jane (GI Jane). The main character of the film of the same name, played by Demi Moore, was completely bald. And Jada herself suffers from alopecia, pathological hair loss. In response to this joke, Will Smith came on stage and slapped Chris on the cheek. The host responded to the episode by saying “He beat the shit out of me”, then continued to officiate the ceremony. Interestingly, the ABC television company shut down the broadcast because of this episode, but the video of the incident made its way onto the network. At the time of writing, it has been viewed 104 million times.

Note that Will Smith only apologized to the Academy at the ceremony, and a day later he apologized to Chris himself on social networks. But this did not save the actor from punishment – for 10 years he became persona non grata at all events related to cinema.

Netizens hotly discussed this episode. Some condemned Will Smith, others thought Chris Rock went too far. There were those who felt that what happened was staged. But the slap itself became a meme – they began to attach it to various situations.

The cat and his “stless”

Stress is the shortest and most concise description of all of 2022. Not surprisingly, they soon started joking about it. The symbol of “stless” was a cute cat gnawing its paw. In fact, the fluffy is just doing its own hygiene. But it seems that he is very concerned.

Stunned Homelander from The Boys

This year, the third season of The Boys was released. The audience especially liked the main villain Homelander, who was incredibly emotional in the 7th series. The phrase “This is f**k, f**k!” was screwed on the video with him. Unfortunately, it also typifies the past year perfectly.

Almighty Glycine Pill

And to solve all the problems, users chose a glycine tablet. In fact, she replaced the bored plantain, which is applied to the wound. In reality, glycine is only a mild sedative. But in memes, he can correct any, even the most difficult, situation.

moleworm

Alcoholic drinks are often discussed on the internet. During one of these conversations, the mole came up. According to a user named Perfect Ilushen, this is an alcohol tincture applied to a dead mole. Such an unusual and terrible drink caused a storm of discussion. Some people did not believe in its existence, others claimed that they had tasted the molehill, and still others assured that their acquaintances used it as a remedy for all diseases. It is not possible to find out who is right and who is wrong. But the word molehill soon became the butt of jokes and became popular among meme lovers.

Dr. Livesey’s walk from Treasure Island

This character appeared in the cartoon “Treasure Island”, which was released in 1988. However, it was not until 2021 that Internet users from the CIS paid attention to it. More precisely, not on Dr. Livesey himself, but in his confident, smug gait and a snow-white smile in all 32 teeth.

But if the meme about Livesey went viral in 2021, why did it end up in this article? It’s simple – it was in August 2022 that it became popular all over the world. For example, the video, which features the Doctor stepping into Ghostface Playa’s song Why Not, has been viewed 19 million times (the figure is current at the time of writing these lines).

And in a separate video, the author has collected several variations of this meme.

Incredibly strong Senator Armstrong from Metal Gear Rising

Another character from the past, who became popular in 2022. Senator Armstrong appeared as the final boss Metal Gear Rising (2013), a spin-off of the MGS series where we played as Raiden. His incredible musculature has often been used as a show of strength by netizens, and the catchphrase “Nanomachines, son!” (“Nanomachines, son!”) – as an explanation for success.

Incendiary dance Wednesday

Tim Burton’s Wednesday is a modern version of The Addams Family. And the audience really loved her. The audience was particularly impressed by Wednesday’s dance, which began to be superimposed on a variety of music. The video with Lady Gaga’s song Bloody Mary achieved the greatest popularity.

Another interesting example is Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva who stylized her performance as a Wednesday dance.

Naturally, many girls decided to show their version of the dance. Vivid examples are collected in this video. Especially the movies with The Thing look funny.

Mr Incredible with two faces

Incredible first appeared in The Incredibles in 2004. There he acted as one of the superheroes with incredible strength and stamina. But in memes, it wasn’t his skills that got played out, but his looks. Users created a collage of two photos of Mr. Incredible – color and black and white. The second looks surprisingly gloomy. Signatures, as a rule, play on two sides of one phenomenon, positive and negative, which not everyone sees.

Wise mysterious tree

A tree with a human face was used by Plarium to advertise their browser games – vikings: war of clans, Throne: Kingdom at War and Stormfall: Age of War. We first saw it in 2017. The boom called for starting this or that project if you have a computer or if you are over 25 years old. It is interesting that in the games themselves this tree was not. But even then, users paid attention to it and used it to express emotions.

In 2022, the wise mysterious tree received a new round of popularity. This time, people began to use it not only to express emotions, but also to ridicule such “clickbait” ads that actively call for some action.

***

And which memes of 2022 do you remember? Joke in the comments (no insults or politics)!