The Memes of 2005
Video arrives, and the first clips go around the world
The Dial-up Years, 2000–2005
YouTube’s first video, “Me at the zoo”, was uploaded on 23 April 2005, and Reddit launched in June. Both would reshape how jokes travelled, but in 2005 the loudest memes still came from home-made clips and online games.
A teenager lip-syncing to a Romanian pop song and a guild of World of Warcraft players charging into a dungeon were seen by millions, and the people who made them became known to strangers overnight.
Top memes of 2005
2 memes in the archive peaked this year, and 2 first went viral.
1Numa Numa
6/1000%Classic2004Peaked in 2005
2Leeroy Jenkins
11/100+1%Classic2005Peaked in 2005
2005, month by month
The leading memes of the year on one scale, 0 to 100. The yellow dot marks each one’s highest month.
Numa Numa
Numa Numa: Jan 22, Feb 52, Mar 65, Apr 65, May 56, Jun 54, Jul 44, Aug 40, Sep 37, Oct 33, Nov 32, Dec 29 Leeroy Jenkins
Leeroy Jenkins: May 18, Jun 62, Jul 61, Aug 55, Sep 54, Oct 48, Nov 45, Dec 43
Attention index, 0 to 100 on one scale for the whole archive. Estimated from each meme’s key dates, not measured.
Timeline
Dated moments from the memes above, in order.
Email chains. The clip spreads by email and message boards, shared for the sheer unselfconsciousness of it.
Mainstream attention. Newspapers and television pick up the story as one of the first viral videos to reach a wide audience.
Everyone has seen it. Parodies and imitations multiply, many of them recorded in front of webcams of their own.
Caturday. The caturday.com domain is registered; cat pictures with captions become a weekend ritual on 4chan.
Forum thread. The clip spreads through World of Warcraft forums and a gaming magazine’s coverage.
Posted to Warcraftmovies. A guild’s meticulously planned raid is interrupted by a player running in with no plan at all.
Boy’s Club. Matt Furie introduces Pepe in his self-published comic.
The catchphrase escapes. The yell leaves the game: people shout the name when they do something rash.
Game show clue. Jeopardy! includes a clue about it, a sign that the joke is now common knowledge.
What kind of memes
Categories across the memes active in 2005.