Distracted Boyfriend, Deepfakes and More

Today is November 2, and for “This Day in Meme History,” we’ve got quite the lineup of historic memes celebrating their anniversaries. First up is “Distracted Boyfriend,” one of the most well-known images on the internet of the last four years, followed by the god-like being and meme known as “Shaggy's Power,” the face-swapping tech “Deepfakes” and last but not least, the humorous blunder “Dedotated Wam.”

Distracted Boyfriend: Or Were You Looking at the Woman in the Red Dress?

Lots of stock photos wind up being used for memes at some point, but few ever become as universally known as Distracted Boyfriend, also known as Man Looking at Other Woman. This object-labeling meme format, where a man looks at a woman walking by while his partner looks on disapprovingly, has been referenced in numerous media since emerging online in early 2017. Read more.

Shaggy's Power: Unlimited POWERRRR

While initially stemming from the Ultra Instinct Shaggy parody, Shaggy's Power transformed into a full-blown meme trend with images joking about the character using only a small portion of his power to perform incredible feats by early 2019. The series of image macros and photoshops depicting Shaggy Rogers from “Scooby-Doo” as a god-like being with immense power have remained relevant in internet culture up to this day. Read more.

Deepfakes: The Future Is Nic Cage Everything

The controversial technology of Deepfakes first emerged on Reddit back in late 2017 but has only continued to grow in prominence over the past few years. Essentially videos where the subject is face-swapped using machine-learning algorithms, the practice was originally created by Redditor u/Deepfakes (which coined the term) after launching a dedicated subreddit to share the videos. Now, deepfakes appear all over the web and have even been used in Hollywood. Read more.

Dedotated Wam: A MineCon Blunder For The Ages

During a panel at the MineCon 2013 “Minecraft” conference, a young boy (later identified as Superkai64) asked a panel what the "dedotated wam" is required for his “Minecraft” server, obviously mispronouncing "dedicated RAM." In a few short weeks after being shared on the web that year, the video clip of the mispronunciation went viral and inspired many remixes on YouTube. Read more.

Know Your TikTok: Stickman IRL

For more information, check out the Stickman IRL TikTok Trend entry on Know Your Meme! #knowyourmeme #stickman #stickmanirl #stickfigure #stickfigures [...]