"Now we sit through William Shakespeare in order to recognize the quotations."
Just as Tropes Are Not Bad, neither are memes per se. True, they get old by the 9001st time they're played, but there's a reason they get played a thousand times and more. Who hasn't ever had some lulz with them?
There's the fanbase that has been ever since the beginning of the show, and there's the second wave that watches the show/plays the game/reads the book after exposure to the meme. It's not (most of the times) Viral Marketing since it's fans rather than marketroids behind them. Think What's uuuup! vs All Your Base Are Belong to Us.
This is right before people endlessly repeating them makes it annoying and, ironically, may make you want to avoid it as much as possible. Related to I Read It for the Articles, Just Here for Godzilla, Come for the X, Stay for the Y. Spoiler marks are used in order to keep you from unneeded exposure. May inadvertently result in Beam Me Up, Scotty!
Compare Bile Fascination, where people watch / play / listen to it for the crap quality.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- Watching Tekkaman Blade to hear the voice that broke microphones.
- Or the dub of the original Tekkaman for the SPACE LANCE!
- Watching Bleach or getting a Vocaloid for the Leek Spin; also looking for more music by Loituma. Misao's dialogues set to Ievan Polkka have surely added to the fanbase of Lucky Star. Too bad there's not so much of Misao in the anime.
- Regarding Lucky Star, most people watch it for Konata (after hearing her Gourmet Race) or her Haruhi impressions, or the other Gourmet Races.
- School Days: A lot of people watched it only after hearing that they went for the bad ending. Also, Nice Boat.
- Watching Rozen Maiden for the desu of it. Especially funny since a lot of other characters, and in fact real people speak that way, but not to the level Suiseiseki does it.
- There are people that watch Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann for the Cool Shades, drills, Kamina's manliness, and the Lensman Arms Race which leads to mecha that use galaxies as shurikens.
- Azumanga Daioh has piles of image macros and references which keep drawing new fans in. Two very well known are Bananaphone and Chiyo dressed as a penguin.
- People searched for clips of the original Naruto Japanese broadcast episodes they've already seen on Cartoon Network or DVD, for the "Sasuke can see you!" or "Good, Naruto, you look kind of cool" animation glitches.
- JoJo's Bizarre Adventure's bizarre art style (full of Macho Camp) and parodies are enough to reel in fans, especially the Japanese. In the west, several people also started watching the anime due to the To Be Continued with "Roundabout" by Yes playing in the background, which quickly became a meme. Each part may qualify as well due to the sheer abundance of memes, such as "It was me, Dio!" in Phantom Blood, the Pillar Men Theme from Battle Tendency, the "Oh, you're approaching me?" from Stardust Crusaders, "What a beautiful Duwang" from Diamond is Unbreakable and Giorno's piano theme from Vento Aureo, to name a few.
- Many people read/watch Fist of the North Star just to see Kenshiro tell people that they are already dead before they explode.
- Watching F-Zero: GP Legend for the FALCON PUNCH!
- If your attention span is long enough you're likely watching Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex for the Laughing Man meme. The meme that became an actual meme, just to further the show's Mind Screw.
- A lot of people started watching Higurashi: When They Cry because of its many memes, usually they're related to Rika's Nipah or Rena's omochikaeri... or USO DA. The infamous gore and laughter scenes are also a big seller.
- The infamous Fullmetal Alchemist episode/chapter where Shou Tucker makes a horrifying chimera out of his own daughter and their pet dog is a big draw.
- Watching Kill la Kill because of that book cover!
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- Macross:
- Macross Frontier for Ranka Lee, either for her "Nyan nyan, Nyan nyan, ni hao nyan!" dance or her signature Kira pose. I watched it because I'm not an adult, I'm a man!
- Macross Delta for the song Rune ga Pikatto Hikattara, especially since said song nearly sounds like "September" by Earth, Wind & Fire.
- Macross Frontier for Ranka Lee, either for her "Nyan nyan, Nyan nyan, ni hao nyan!"
- Sketchbook for SOU NAN DESS KARR?
- Kuso Miso Technique simply for "yaranaika?"
- There are some who watch Dragon Ball Z just to see if they are, in fact, still on Namek. Others watch it for the "It's over 9000!" scene.
- The preschool anime Shima Shima Tora no Shimajirō is best known in the West for the bizarre potty training episodes.
- Boku no Pico for the certain review being overdramatic.
- Many watch The Irregular at Magic High School only because of rumors about how comically invincible the main characters are and the Incest Subtext which doesn't stay that way in the series. Or to calculate how many times Miyuki says "Onii-sama!" in the series.
- Dragon Pilot: Hisone and Masotan for the unique strangeness of "piloting" a dragon from inside its stomach (and, of course, the ejection-by-vomiting). Oddly enough, this wasn't part of the original concept, it was thrown in because the creators couldn't decide how to design an external cockpit.
- Watching The Brave Fighter of Sun Fighbird not because it's part of the Brave Series ( which anime like GaoGaiGar were part of), but more due to the protagonist's line towards a butterfly: "Is this a pigeon?"
- Tokyo Tribe 2 for GOOSH GOOSH.
- A Certain Scientific Railgun is apparently most well-known for Mikoto's habit of kicking an uncooperative vending machine. The third season got a promotional campaign involving a mobile minigame where you play as her doing this, and a real vending machine with a kickable cushion.
- Gundam Build Divers Re:RISE and the scene of the usually-stoic May screaming "TAXI~!" while being five inches tall, wearing a gothic lolita maid dress, flailing her arms and legs to get someone's attention then pouting adorably. This goes double for the English dub.
- Love Live! School Idol Project for Nico Yazawa's "Nico nico nii!".
- Initial D is most well-known for two things: The protagonist being a ridiculously Badass Driver, and Eurobeat music, particularly Running In The 90s, Deja Vu, and Gas Gas Gas.
- Carnival Phantasm for Lancer's repeated deaths and the ensuing reaction ("LANCER GA SHINDA! KONO HITO DE NASHI!")
- Carole & Tuesday for the Cluster F-Bomb-filled song that is "Galactic Mermaid".
- Zombieland Saga for either the rap battle or the very early memetic appearance of Truck-kun killing the protagonist.
- Blend-S just for the intro.
- Before it even began, Kagurabachi was ironically lauded as the best manga of all time, similarly to the Morbius (2022) example below. Unlike Morbius, it actually got readership from it—at one point, it was even the second most read manga on Manga Plus, right behind One Piece.
- Much of Persona -trinity soul-'s relevancy among those who haven't watched it/know little about it is attributed to "Burning Men's Soul," a song from the soundtrack that uses a sample pack for its bizarre lyrics. Despite the song's popularity, only the instrumental shows up in the series proper.
- You're Under Arrest! for "Ah, eto...bleh!"
Comic Books
- All-Star Batman & Robin, the Boy Wonder: Most people read this for the origin of “I’m the Goddamn Batman,” and to a lesser extent “Out of my way, sperm bank” and “Damn you and your lemonade!”
- The New Guardians is an otherwise-failed attempt to produce a "topical" comic book series, but remains in the public consciousness thanks to beloved one-shot antagonist Snowflame, an Addiction-Powered and charismatic cult leader who literally worships cocaine.
Fan Works
- The only reason to ever read My Immortal is to see just what situations could have prompted some of the more over-the-top memes. Don't be tempted.
- Those Nights at Fredbear's: The 2015 Remake: The game was initially fairly obscure and unknown, but the memes and clips of Fredbear running and the scared reactions led to a lot of eyes on the game, a lot of them who looked at the game just to see where the meme comes from.
Film — Animation
- The main reason why The Emoji Movie was a mild success at the box office was that it has been so widely memed that people went to see it out of Bile Fascination.
- A lot of people saw Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted for the Afro Circus scene.
- Strawinsky and the Mysterious House is a 2013 Christian animated film that would have forever faded into obscurity if it weren't for a character called the Globglogabgalab, who sings a song about how he loves books whose lyrics mostly consist of gibberish, suddenly undergoing Memetic Mutation in March of 2018.
- Bee Movie ended up being obscure after 2007 when it was first released. It gained a new surge of popularity almost ten years later due to a Fountain of Memes about the movie, prompting many people to watch and purchase DVDs who otherwise wouldn't have.
- Megamind is well-known both as a movie that was overlooked when it first came out and a movie that manages to crawl back into the meme scene every few years in some fashion.
- The Road to El Dorado became a Fountain of Memes over a decade it came out in theaters and many people just watch it just to see where the quotes came from.
- The Emperor's New Groove also became a Fountain of Memes and thousands of memers just watch it for hearing quotes such as "Pull the lever, Kronk!" and "Oh yeah, it's all coming together."
- Teen Titans Go! To the Movies for the "My Superhero Movie" song's infamous line about Robin shaking his booty in 3D.
- No one makes memes like Gaston!
- Watching The Simpsons Movie for Spider Pig.
- Robin Hood (1973) attracts a lot of its latter-day audience because it originated the Hamsterdance tune.note
- Scooby-Doo! Legend of the Phantosaur isn't inherently more successful or well-known than the rest of the Scooby-Doo Direct-to-Video Film Series, but it is the one that inspired Ultra Instinct Shaggy.
Film — Live-Action
- Scanners is primarily remembered, and watched to this day, for the exploding head scene.
- Many, many people watched There Will Be Blood because of the milkshake meme (it's right at the end, so the poor schlubs had to sit through the first 99% of this stunningly excellent film to get round to it, the poor bastards). And Jonny Greenwood fans.
- Snakes on a Plane: "I have had it with these muthafucking snakes on this muthafucking plane!" It's been on ever before the movie comes out. Hell, it was floating around the internet before it was even in the script. Which is how it got in the script. Just proves that not all blatant fanservice need be sexual.
- The title was the only reason Samuel L. Jackson, and everyone else for that matter, was interested in the part at all.
- In many ways the film is itself the film version of the meme rather than the other way around. Upon release actually watching the film itself was unnecessary and probably best avoided.
- "I'm the Juggernaut, Bitch!" from X-Men: The Last Stand, which was added to the script after it became a youtube meme.
- Five Easy Pieces seems to be remembered nowadays almost exclusively for the diner sequence, namely "I want you to hold it between your knees." Ditto Nicholson in The Last Detail. Most people that have seen this movie seem to remember the "I am the motherfucking shore patrol, motherfucker. I am the motherfucking shore patrol!" line more than anything else.
- Watching Balls of Fury to find out what "Have your grandma pull the car around" could possibly mean.
- "GARBAGE DAY!" is the only reason most people watch Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2.
- Suburban Commando for "I was frozen today!"
- Street Fighter (1994) for Raúl Juliá hamming it up to the max as M. Bison.
- But for me... it was Tuesday.
- OF COURSE!
- For I beheld Satan, as he FELL FROM HEAVEN...LIKE LIGHTNING!!!
- Or Zangief. "QUICK! CHANGE ZE CHANNEL!"
- Pulp Fiction for either Samuel L. Jackson's speech, John Travolta dancing or someone getting his brains blown out by accident.
- Titanic (1997) for the "I’m the king of the world", "I'm flying" or "I’ll never let go, Jack" bits.
- Recent comic book movies like Iron Man (2008) (IN A CAVE! WITH A BOX OF SCRAPS!), Avengers: Infinity War (I don't feel so good.), Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (Martha! Why did you say that name?) Fantastic Four (2005) (I DON'T WANT TO UNDERSTAND IT!), Superman Returns (WRONG!), and The Dark Knight (Why...so... serious?). Even the old ones: KNEEL. BEFORE. ZOD. and Where does he get those wonderful toys?
- "I'm Batman" and "Ever dance with the Devil in the pale moonlight?" are the only lines most people seem to remember from the 1989 film. The latter reinforced by its inclusion in the first of Batman (Sunsoft) before you begin battling leaping goblins in sewers that didn't happen in the film.
- Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back for Jay's rap. "Morris Day and the Time!, that shit is the mad notes"
- The Lord of the Rings Film Trilogy for "MY PRECIIIOOOOOUUUUSSSSS...." and "YOU! SHALL NOT! PASS!"
- They're taking the hobbits to Isengard.
- One does not simply ______ into Mordor.
- Shaaare the Looooad...
- Pirates of the Caribbean for Captain Jack Sparrow. Savvy?
- I got a jar of dirt~!
- Why is the rum gone?
- The Lone Ranger (2013) for Tonto. Make trade?
- Most viewers no longer watch Point Break (1991) past the midway point where Keanu Reeves fires his gun into the air and goes "Ah-agh!"
- Soylent Green is people!
- Labyrinth for any number of reasons:
"You remind me of the babe." "What babe?" "The babe with the power." "What power?" "The power of Hoodoo." "Hoodoo?" "You do." "Do what?" "Remind me of the babe." "What babe?" And so on...
- No, I said "'allo", but that's close enough."
- Hey, lady! Where you goin' with a head like that!
- And, of course, David Bowie's crotch.
- The first The Twilight Saga movie just to see Edward sparkle.
- History of the World Part I for the Spanish Inquisition. Also, it's good to be the king.
- The Wicker Man (2006): Nicolas Cage getting stung by bees.
- No, not the bees!
- Bear punch!
- How'd it get burned? (how'd it get burned? how'd it get burned?)
- No, not the bees!
- Some people only watched the ending of Gone with the Wind because frankly my dear, they don't give a damn. If you watch a four-hour movie just for the last line, that's dedication. There's also "As God is my witness, I'll never go hungry again!"
- Finding Forrester for the famous, website-inspiring line You're The Man Now, Dog!
- Hitler is furious that people have watched Downfall (2004) because of the Gag Subs of his ranting Villainous Breakdown!
- Duane is the only reason people will watch highly obscure promotional Barbie Dance Club VHS.
- Inglourious Basterds: "We're gonna be doin' ONE THANG and ONE THANG ONLY! Killin' Natzies."
- "NEIN, NEIN, NEIN, NEIN, NEIN, NEIN, NEIN!!!!!!!!"
- "Oh yes, yes, yes, yes, yes!"
- "That's a BINGO!"
- "Gorlami."
- The Bear Jew, and to a lesser degree, Hugo Stiglitz.
- Army of Darkness: "This Is My Boomstick!"
- "Hail to the King, baby!"
- "Klaatu! Barada! ... Nitko!"
- Friday the 13th (1980): Arrow through the throat. The Final Chapter has the Incredible Crispin Glover Dance.
- Tropic Thunder: "You never go full retard".
- "I know who I am! I'm a dude playing the dude disguised as another dude!"
- "What do you mean 'you people'?" "What do you mean 'you people'?"
- "I'm a lead farmer, motherfucker!"
- Con Air was Vindicated by History to a certain extent over fascination with matters of putting bunnies back in boxes and questioning how to live without you.
- The Family Man and "I WANT THAT CAKE!"
- A Cry In The Dark (AKA Evil Angels): Four words: "DINGOES ATE MY BABY!"
- Fight Club: The first rule about Fight Club is you do not talk about Fight Club! The second rule of Fight Club is you do not talk about Fight Club!
- American Psycho: For the "Oh my God, it even has a watermark." And also for the Huey Lewis and the News. "This is 'Sussudio'; great, great song–personal favorite!"
- Network "I'M / WE'RE MAD AS HELL, AND I'M / WE'RE NOT GONNA TAKE THIS ANYMORE!"
- The Usual Suspects "And like that... puff he's gone."
- Poltergeist: "They're Heeere!"
- Strozek: the dancing chicken.
- The 2010 Clash of the Titans: "RELEASE THE KRAKEN!"
- Basically the only reason people watch Vampire's Kiss is for Nicolas Cage running down the street shouting that he's a vampire, as well as his ridiculous facial expressions. That, or his reciting the alphabet in a way that only Nicolas Cage could.
- Lars von Trier's Antichrist: CHAOS....REIGNS!
- Warriors...Come Out and Plaa-ay!!! and "CAAAANNN YOOOOUUUU DIG ITTTTT?"
- Most people, even people who aren't fans, know the popcorn/exploding house scene from Real Genius.
- Dirty Dancing: Nobody puts Baby in a corner!
- The Military Policeman and the Dismembered Beauty: Giygas' lines supposedly came from a character that was being raped. However, this character was engaging in consensual sex, and she said nothing except making a squawking sound when her killer strangled her.
- The Dark Knight Rises: Many people on 4chan would argue you should turn off the movie after the opening five minutes.
- Watching Spaceballs: The Movie because you knew it, you're surrounded by assholes. (Keep firing, Assholes!)
- Why is it such a big deal that they're still In Bruges? * and "Harry, it's an inanimate fucking object!" "YOU'RE an inanimate fucking object!"
- Taken: "I don't know who you are, but I will find you and I will kill you!"
- Deliverance is often watched for either "Dueling Banjos" or the "Squeal like a pig" scene. Especially after South Park parodied the latter.
- The Ballad of Buster Scruggs: First time?
- Revenge of the Sith: Quite a few people watch for the tragedy of Darth Plagueis the Wise. Others watch for the high ground. Some watch it to see the depiction of "UNLIMITED POWERRRRRRRR~!!!" Still others watch for "Do it."
- 300: Best known for "This. Is. SPARTAAA!" and "Tonight. We dine. In HELL!"
- Some people watch Risky Business for the iconic scene of Joel dancing in his living room in his underwear. However, these people expect for the movie's tone to be consistent with that scene, when it's a rather mature and cynical take on the teen sex comedy genre (said scene itself takes place in the first ten minutes).
- Morbius was a complete flop and was slammed on hard by the Internet when it was released. The first week was spent showing pictures of empty theatres and its dismal review scores. The sheer level of bad reception it received ended up creating a wave of ironic memes and shitposts where people pretend it's actually an extremely successful cinematic masterpiece and quote fake lines from it like "It's Morbin' Time". Morbius memes then rampaged around the Internet afterwards, and the memes were powerful enough to cause at least a few people to actually go watch the movie ironically, though it hardly saved the movie. Sony actually ended up losing more money trying to capitalize on the meme.
- Team America: World Police: AMERICA! FUCK YEAH! COMING AGAIN TO SAVE THE MOTHERFUCKING DAY YEAH!
- Some people watch Naked Gun 33⅓: The Final Insult only for the mass facepalm scene at the climax.
- People who otherwise know nothing about Star Trek have been known to watch the second movie just because they were curious about who Khan was and what he did to make Captain Kirk so angry at him.
- One either watched A Better Tomorrow for either the solid action and storyline...or they watched it because of the famous "Chinese Beaver / Bear" animation.
- The low-budget Nollywood drama Pretty Liars 1 & 2 is best known for being the source of the "Why are you running?!" meme, which is more-or-less the only reason anyone outside Nigeria has heard of it.
- The Room (2003):
- "I did naht hit her, it's naht true! It's boolsheet! I did naht hit her! I DID NAAAAAAHT. Oh hai, Mark."
- "YOU ARE TEARING ME APART, LISA!!!"
- "Anyway, how is your sex life?"
- "Everybody betray me! I'm fed up with this wooorl!"
Food
- Some people buy and eat Gorilla Munch just for the infamous gorilla on the box, associated with the phrase "That rustled my jimmies". However the box has been since changed and now features a baby gorilla, rather than the meme's art.
- Arguably Doritos and/or Mountain Dew. Because of Montage Parodies.
- Who hasn't seen a plate of cookies and wanted to fly into a gluttonous frenzy of "ME WANT COOOOOOKIES! OM-NOM-NOM-NOM-NOM!"
Literature
- The first thing most people learn about The Disabled Tyrant's Beloved Pet Fish is that it has a human fall in love with his pet fish and get him pregnant. It's not quite as scandalous a premise as it sounds at first — the pet fish is actually a transmigrated human who only has sex with his owner when he's in his human form — but it's still a bizarre and unusual enough premise for people to read it out of sheer curiosity about the human/pet fish romance and/or the fish mpreg.
- Most people knowing about The Golden Demon without being a Bungo Stray Dogs fan would have heard about the Signature Scene in chapter 8 where the hero kicks the heroine to the ground, not to mention started reading the novel for that scene in the first place.
Live-Action TV
- Only watching CSI: Miami... *puts on sunglasses* for Horatio's awesome one-liners. YEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAH!
- If you want to cross off the most memes on your list for a single source, Monty Python's Flying Circus is probably your best bet. The show will give you "spam, spam, spam, spam," "this is an ex-parrot," "nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition," "nudge-nudge, wink-wink, say no more," "I'm a lumberjack and I'm okay," "My Hovercraft Is Full of Eels," "Burma!" and possibly some others you've been struggling with. Of the films, Monty Python's Life of Brian will give you "the People's Front of Judea," "what have the Romans ever done for us," "he's not the messiah, he's a very naughty boy!" and "I'm Brian and so's my wife!" And don't forget to always look on the bright siiiide of life! Doodoo doodoo doodoodoodoo! Holy Grail will give you swallows and coconuts, "Not Quite Dead," "I Got Better," "help, help I'm being repressed!", "your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!", the killer rabbit, and "Ni!" Meaning of Life, oddly, probably won't give you anything, unless you've encountered "every sperm is sacred." Even so, you ought to be satisfied.
- Many people get into Doctor Who to discover its memes. Including why there's so many WMG.Time Lord theories. Or what a Dalek is. Some fans of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic became fans of Doctor Who because they wanted to know why the fan-favorite character "Doctor Whooves" is so popular.
- Watching The A-Team just so you can understand the Mr. T vs. meme.
- Chappelle's Show is a perfect example of a show people watch so they can quote it with their friends.
- LazyTown is a show about teaching kids to eat healthy by using dancing and puppets. Although it's aimed at preschoolers, it has spawned countless memes, mostly thanks to its musical numbers. So far, the biggest four songs are "You Are a Pirate", "Cooking by the Book", "We Are Number One", and "The Mine Song". The latter two gaining popularity a few years after the show ended, yet were popular enough to sustain a genuine Periphery Demographic who watched (and memed) the entire show. (Robbie Rotten and Stingy, the singers of the aforementioned two songs, tend to get the most attention from this part of the fandom.)
- Thanks to Tumblr, the only reason anyone bothers to watch the '80s British kids show Emu's All Live Pink Windmill Show is for the scene in the first episode where the kids all enthusiastically introduce themselvesnote . It got so popular that nine of the original ten cast members who did that scene did a re-enactment for Red Nose Day 2017.
- Watching Game of Thrones to find out what's the big deal about Winter is Coming, Where are my dragons?!? or Hodor.
- Checking out Schitt's Creek to discover the context of Eww, David or You're my Mariah Carey or any of the seemingly infinite gifs of the characters reacting to something.
- A number of people had their interest in Supernatural piqued by the explosion of Destielputinelection memes.
- Deciding to watch The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power for the whole "Sauron is Eminem" meme.
- The obscure local children's show Kids Corner from Bismarck, North Dakota fell into this status when people watched the episode "Jasper's Hospital Experience" because it was the origin of the "We're Not Candy" Public Service Announcement that became a meme in the spring of 2023.
- Watching The Good Doctor to learn the context behind Shaun's infamous "I AM A SURGEON!!!" meltdown.
- Your Friends and Neighbors gained a massive boost in popularity after a clip of Coop dancing in a nightclub set to a remix of Kato's "Turn the Lights Off" became an unexpected viral meme in late 2025, leading to many people discovering the show and watching it due to that.
Music
- Listening to "Dragostea din tei" just to see a fat guy dance
- Listening to Nightwish's Ghost Love Score because of the Epic Maneuver meme.
If you spell "subtly", like this!
- Getting into Nightwish by way of the Lord Of The Rings (abridged) video.
- Getting into Nightwish by way of the Lord Of The Rings (abridged)
- Watching the video for "Never Gonna Give You Up" just because people keep trying to make you.
- Going to a Dragonforce concert because of the one song of theirs in Guitar Hero. These days this seems to be a considerable portion of their listeners, or at least people who talk about them publicly. Even earlier than that, as a snippet of one of their songs makes watching Chairman Kaga bite into a bell pepper even more incredibly awesome.
- Listening to Imogen Heap's "Hide and Seek" for "mmm whatcha say". Made mainstream by by its use in The O.C. episode "The Dearly Beloved", the SNL parody "Dear Sister/The Shooting" thereof, and the recursive parodies of that SNL sketch on video sharing sites. Then made old meme by Jason Derulo's "Whatcha Say" that samples mainly the memetastic bits.
- Benny Hill chasing (or being chased by) women to the tune of "Yakety Sax" in The Benny Hill Show.
- Listening to the song Chased Through the Woods by Waking the Cadaver for the "SHREDDED WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAT!"
- Watching the music video for Stick Stickly by Attack Attack! to see the guitarist's "Crabcore" stance.
- Getting Erasure's greatest hits because you played Robot Unicorn Attack and— Always I wanna be with you and make believe with you and live in harmony harmony OH LOVE~◊
- Listening to Lost Horizon's "Highlander" to belt that "Face Melter".
- Listening to "In The Air Tonight" for the drum part. So you can turn the volume way up seconds before.
- Listening to "Won't Get Fooled Again" so you can turn the volume way up just before YYYEEEEEAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!
- Listening to any song used in a "Dew Army" page on YTMND.
- Buying Peter Gabriel's "In Your Eyes" in case you ever need to channel John Cusack in Say Anything....
- Watching the Eurovision Song Contest 2010 for Moldova's Epic Sax Guy.
- "Weird Al" Yankovic's "A Complicated Song", y'know, in the bathroom.
- Insane Clown Posse wonders how fuckin magnets work.
- "JFK, blown away - what else do I have to say?!" If you can remember any part of "We Didn't Start the Fire" other than that, you have earned the right to call yourself a true admirer of that song.
- "Roundabout" received a new surge in popularity after being featured as the ending theme in the first season of the JoJo's Bizarre Adventure anime.
- Smash Mouth wrote a song called 'All Star'. And some other stuff, but you're listening to it for All-Star.
- Tally Hall was moderately popular in the mid-2000s, but 15 years after they disbanded, memes using their songs (mostly "Ruler of Everything") made them much more well-known.
- Big Enough is a gloriously cheesy song about two cowboys (Alex Cameron & Kirin J. Callinan) wondering whether or not this town is big enough for the two of them, eventually deciding that it's not just big enough for the two of them, but for every country on Earth. However, most people only know the chorus, sung by Jimmy Barnes. To give you an idea why, the following is the official transcription of the first chorus:Chorus
Professional Wrestling
- The Kayfabe breaking Montreal Screwjob at WWE Survivor Series 1997. "Ring the fucking bell!" There were six other matches that night, and nobody ever talks about them.
Roleplay
- Even much of the Journal Roleplay community doesn't realize that the "steals the bike and runs/at least ride it, you asshole" meme came from Drama Drama Duck, but the meme has brought people into the hobby itself to see and participate in similar silly antics.
Theater
- Avenue Q is popular because of "The Internet Is for Porn" song, as well as "If You Were Gay" and "Everyone's A Little Bit Racist," both of which are frequent sources of quotes and YouTube parodies.
- Hamilton has a Shout-Out to the 1969 musical 1776, where Hamilton briefly sings the chorus of the opening number "Sit Down, John!" and follows it up with a bleeped expletive. (The same expletive is uncensored elsewhere in the show, but in this instance, the bleeping is funnier than the expletive.) If YouTube comments are anything to judge by, a lot of young Hamilton fans only looked up "Sit Down, John!" to add in the expletive.
Video Games
- A lot of otherwise crappy and forgotten NES games gained notoriety and even fans thanks to the The Angry Video Game Nerd and his trademark flip-outs. He even references this himself in his Jekyll and Hyde revisit.
The Nerd: I made it perfectly clear. Do not play this game. But from what I understand, people played it!
- Playing NES Pro Wrestling for "A Winner Is You"
- Playing NES Tag Team Wrestling for the Strong Bads
- Playing Portal even when you know that the cake was a lie, to find out what all the fuss about the Companion Cube is about and for the ending song.
- Playing Team Fortress 2 after hearing too much about the need for dispensers or songs completely composed of the word "Bonk!" or 10 hours of "Pootis." Or because you heard it was the world's #1 war-themed hat simulator.
- Half-Life 2 for putting the can in the trash or Father Grigori.
- Garry's Mod using Half-Life 2 maps for putting the Combine in the trash, in can form (use of mods is, of course, required).
- Zero Wing, thanks to the "All Your Base Are Belong to Us" meme, is one of the most downloaded games on emulation sites, despite being a rather average (but still serviceable) shmup. Others may have been introduced to it because of the meme, but enjoyed its actual style (especially the music) once they got into it.
- Playing Total Distortion just to get yourself killed to a hilarious song mocking you for doing so.
- Playing Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare just for press "F" to pay respects.note
- The World Ends with You: Why is everyone saying "zetta"?
- Playing World of Warcraft, stemming entirely from exposure to Leeroy Jenkins! Or, failing that, because your friends haven't been seen in public for weeks. Or because of the memetic South Park episode "Make Love, Not Warcraft," or The Guild.
- Playing Disgaea just to see the Memetic Badass CAPTAIN GORDON, DEFENDER OF EARTH!! and how he came to be. Oh, and Prinnies, dood!
- Playing Super Robot Wars (either Alpha or OG) to see why Real Men Ride Each Other. Or to listen to Elzam's Leitmo-TROMBE OVERRIDE!
- Dark Souls: YOU DIED
- Playing Dawn Of War: Soulstorm to:
- See General Vance Stubs lose 100 Baneblades;
- Hear Lord Firraveus Carron rage at METAL BAWKSES; and/or
- Listen to Commander Indrick Boreale's SPESS MEHREENS speech.
- Restarting Castlevania: Symphony of the Night just to learn once more about the true nature of humanity.
"WHAT IS A MAN?! [glass shatters] A miserable little pile of secrets!"
- GAME OVER -- PRESS R TO TRY AGAIN
- Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin: Jonathan! Charlotte! Jonathan! Charlotte! Jonathan! Charlotte! Jonathan! Charlotte! Jonathan! Charlotte! Jonathan! Charlotte!
- Castlevania II: Simon's Quest: WHAT A HORRIBLE NIGHT TO HAVE A CURSE.
- Eversion, for the increasingly horrible universe the game is set in. Relatedly, DeceasedCrab's Let's Play of the game for the phrase "Stop your cheery lies!"
- You probably wouldn't expect Kingdom Hearts to have something like this, but it does. Got it memorized? No, the second game is for TOTALLY OWNING YOU LAMERS.
- "DAYTONAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!" (USA)
- Final Fantasy:
- Final Fantasy IV - "You Spoony Bard!" Thankfully, that quotation is early in the game.
- Final Fantasy I has "I, Garland, will knock you all down!". And of course, picking a party of Fighter, Black Mage, Thief, and Red Mage.
- How many gamers have played Final Fantasy VI just to watch Kefka prance around like a madman? Or just for his laugh? A lot. Or to have Sabin Suplex the Ghost Train?
- Sengoku Basara. Not only did many people watch the anime solely for Date Masamune's Gratuitous English and Motorhorse, many people went on to play the games simply so they could hear more.
- Street Fighter, just for the very first thing Guile's theme went with.
- The Touhou Project is so memetic it got its own page, and has an exponentially increasing number of fans coming for the precious thing, Tsurupettan or Nine-ball; which then make more memes, draw new fans in and so on. Many such fans are not even fans of Bullet Hell at all and never bother to play any of the games, participating in the community only for the memes, the fan works and the cast of colorful characters. And sometimes the fighting game spinoffs.
- U. N. Owen Was Her? and its horrible mutilation the McRoll should be added to the list.
- And Bad Apple!!, One of the few memes to actually survive (being massacred on) the news.
- U. N. Owen Was Her?
- "You're Winner!" Really, the meme is the one of the reasons to even touch Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing.
- Left 4 Dead: "roses are red, violets are blue, you suck"; "I hate memes."; "PILLS HERE!"
- Left 4 Dead 2: "Cool story, bro"; "I ever tell you about the time when me and Keith..."
- Hotel Mario contains many YouTube Poop memes: "If you need instructions on how to get through the hotels, check out the enclosed instruction book."
- "Nice of the princess to invite us over for a picnic, (g)ay Luigi? I hope she made LOTSA SPAGHETTI!
- You know what they say; all toastas toast TOAST!note
- "BITCHES AND WHORES" led many to discover Persona 4.
- Some people played Mass Effect 2 because of Har-ASSUMING DIRECT CONTROL, or because "SIR ISAAC NEWTON IS THE DEADLIEST SON OF A BITCH IN SPACE!" Among others...
- Some claim the main point of Dragon Age: Origins is Alistair's dialogue.
- Swooping is bad.
- I like big boats. I cannot lie.
- Downloading Yume Nikki, just to see UboaaaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA.
- Sinistar is old, difficult and annoying to play, but returned to for the "RUN, COWARD" and the "BEWARE: I LIVE."
- Zork: Would any contemporary gamer even consider trying some antiquated, text-only interactive adventure game, if not for the chance to be Eaten By A Grue?
- Playing Guilty Gear only for either Bridget or Faust.
- In this era, there are exactly two reasons for playing The Legend of Zelda CD-i Games. One is Bile Fascination. The other is seeing where all those YouTube Poop jokes came from.
- "Mah boi, this peace is what all true warriors strive for!"
- "Mmmmmm...richer"
- "...or else you will DIE!" "You must DIE!"
- "Squadala!"
- NOOOOOOOO! NOT INTO THE PIT! IT BURRRRRRRRRRRRRNNNNSSSSSSSS!"
- Mario & Luigi: 'I HAVE FURY!!'
- Mortal Kombat: "Fatality!", "Get over here!"/"Come here!", "Finish Him!!", "Flawless Victory!", "Toastyyyyyy!", etc.
- Playing Metroid: Other M to see the Mysterious Black Dude ("Remember me?") and find out who he is and why we should remember him. There's also playing it to see if it's really as bad as so many people say.
- Playing Moonbase Alpha to abuse its text to speech feature. "UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!"
- The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim: FUS RO DAH!
- I'd play more, but I took an arrow to the knee.
- Did you see those warriors from Hammerfell? I pickpocketed them and got some curved swords. Curved. SWORDS.
- Playing Bad Dudes to see if you're a bad enough dude to rescue the president, who's been kidnapped by ninjas.
- Action 52, for the Cheetahmen music.
- Playing Star Fox 64 to Do a Barrel Roll!
- Most people only play The Great Giana Sisters, and the remake, these days because it's infamous for being a Super Mario Bros. 1 clone.
- Conker's Bad Fur Day: "I am the Great Mighty Poo, and I'm going to throw my shit at you..."
- Playing Shadow the Hedgehog for the DAMN fourth Chaos Emerald and to FIND THE COMPUTER ROOM!
- Playing Sonic the Hedgehog (2006) for its legendary horrible quality.
- Playing Raiden for the "sniper tanks".
- Playing Skate because of the video editing feature and the glitchy physics engine.
- "No, Resident Evil 4. You're smalltime."
- Genji 2 got most of its attention due to an infamous E3 presentation. Many probably only picked it up to battle a Giant Enemy Crab and Attack Its Weak Point for massive damage after using Real-Time Weapon Change.
- Many people ended up playing HuniePop so that Audrey could hurt their whore feelings.
- Most people play S.T.A.L.K.E.R. so they can CHEEKI BREEKI I V DAMKE with the Bandits and GET OUT OF HERE STALKER.
- Playing Undertale just to have a bad time (figuratively speaking), get dunked on, or be filled with determination.
- Playing EarthBound just for the sake of the infamously scary, trippy final boss battle against Gyigas.
- BlazBlue: Which of the characters is the one that does REAL SOVIET DAMAGE? Yuuki Terumi is the world's greatest troll. Don't believe us?
- Playing Altered Beast (1988) for one of the most famous soundbites in gaming (certainly the early games industry): 'Wise Fwom Your Gwave!'
- New players coming for Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas? Ah shit, here we go again...
- A lot of the people curious about Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne got into it after discovering the "Featuring Dante from the Devil May Cry™ Series" meme to see what game he was even being featured in. While the meme itself eventually eclipsed the game in the 2010s, renewed attention to Nocturne in 2020 after its updated HD remaster was announced had Atlus West itself embracing the meme, letting people know well and clear where the meme came from and that they could have Dante the demon slayer by their side.
- Playing BoxxyQuest: The Gathering Storm for… well, Boxxy, who was a meme long before she voiced herself in a video game.
- Only the Brave Can Rescue the Kidnapped Princess' main claim to fame is the scene where the King sings "I Love My Food," which briefly became a popular YouTube Poop source in 2010.
- The 1995 version of JumpStart 1st Grade saw a surge of interest around 2020 when the "Please give me a whole tray of peas" meme from the Serving Up Fractions mini-game inspired people to look up the source and context of the odd scene.
- The Like a Dragon series gets this treatment in general. What's the story behind "Kiryu-chan" and how did he become "Dame Da Ne guy"? Why does he dance on Friday nights or meet a chicken? What was on the computer that made him slam his desk? The only reason Yakuza: Dead Souls really gets any mention is regarding Majima's segment, particularly his batshit insanity while singing karaoke.
- Playing Friday the 13th so that an NES game released in the United States in 1989 can inform you that "You and your friends are dead"; at the time, Nintendo of America's censorship policies made it taboo to refer to a character as dead, so for this game to bluntly tell the player they're dead, not merely "fainted", "fainted", or "done for" was a pretty big deal.
- Taken to its literal extreme with a Final Fantasy XIV meme that is literally just a copypasta advertising the game and its free trial. And it worked.
- HighFleet: Discovered due to many following the 2022 Russian Invasion of Ukraine hearing the song Tanc a Lelek from its soundtrack in video memes that represent Poland as wojak with a Slasher Smile hoping for the chance to get revenge on Russia by pressing the NATO Article 5 Big Red Button. The song being obviously eastern-european and associated with nuclear exchanges only adds to the meme's fittingness.
- Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, with its explosive soundtrack with lyrics that go hard, philosophical conversations about memes, and one of the most insane villain and final sequences ever in a video game, all packaged with a solid stylish action game on a franchise already known for its memes, made its place solidly as a Fountain of Memes that still manages to find its place in meme culture even nearly a decade since its release. Notably, a spontaneous resurgance of MGR-related memes in 2022 caused it to have a sudden Newbie Boom, with reports of the number of concurrent players jumping up to 10 times the average.
- Playing Genshin Impact just to listen to Paimon's "What do you mean, 'hehe'?" which sounds cuter when dubbed in Japanese as "'Ehe' tte nandayo?". Or, if you are feeling hungry and would like to dig into a certain emergency food...note
- Playing Treasure Master to see the box art behind the "Nothing in life matters!" meme.
- Playing Waltz of the Wizard solely and entirely to abuse Skully; usually by throwing him out the window to hear him scream all the way down.
- Mario Teaches Typing 2 is mainly known for the Mario head on the menu that jokes around and says funny things, many of which have become iconic YTP memes.
Mario head: I know you're going to be a great typist one day!
Visual Novels
- Playing Ace Attorney just to hear OBJECTION!, HOLD IT!, TAKE THAT! Accompanied with epic finger pointing. Or to discover who's the guy in the "You're not a clown" meme.
- CROSS†CHANNEL: NANACA†CRASH!!, a Flash fangame full of references to the novel, drew in a lot of readers.
- Doki Doki Literature Club! has spawned a huge amount of memetic phrases, jokes about telling Sayori to "hang in there" and similar, image macros, songs and videos that make no sense until you play it, and got the novel its viral fanbase.
Web Animation
- Watching Parkour Civilization for the "one block jump for the chicken, one block vertical jump for the beef" spiel, or to watch Evbo read a book written in parkour.
- The vast majority of Ratboy Genius's fanbase came to if from the "Potato Knish" meme.
- Any common YouTube Poop material (such as the CD-i games and Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog) after watching YouTube Poop. Also, sometimes it draws attention to the material even when viewers of said YTP may have seen the material elsewhere. For example, some might have seen ads involving Billy Mays without particularly paying much attention to them, and started paying closer attention to such ads after they're being parodied in YTP.
Webcomics
- A good many people on Tumblr found the comic Cirque Royale through a side comic (also on the domain) about Autism Acceptance month. The comic has Quinn's parents learning she has autism and being advised on ABA therapy to make her downplay her traits, then a young Quinn struggling through it unhappily. This is followed by Kingston and Quinn hearing the same about their oldest daughter Claudette and deciding that they wouldn't force her into the same therapy, letting Quinn accept her own traits as an adult.
Web Original
- TV Tropes:
- This very wiki has its memes, making noobs get deeper in.
- Becoming a Troper just so you can edit this website and add your examples.
Web Videos
- Atop the Fourth Wall:
- In Linkara's review of All-Star Batman & Robin, the Boy Wonder, he introduces the part involving the line "I'm the Goddamn Batman" by saying: "And here it is. The moment of truth. The moment everyone remembers this comic for." After he reads the line, he says, "Ladies and gentlemen... we have... an Internet meme!!"
- He later posted a video saying that he would not review any more non-terrible comics merely so people could hear him recite a meme. Although, it should be noted that he did recite the two most commonly requested memetastic lines from the requested stories: "Sandra Brown, you have to get out of here! Your vagina is haunted!" and The Joker's Silver Age "Boner" Caper. ("Boner. Boner boner. Boner boning of boner. Bonerboner. Erect Penis.")
- Obscurus Lupa specialises in this trope, reviewing both Gymkata and Shark Attack 3: Megalodon, among others.
- Chuggaaconroy:
- Many people watch his Let's Play of Pikmin solely to find out who this Steve guy everyone is talking about is.
- Chugga later discusses with his fellow Runaway Guys how this happened with LazyTown, specifically with the "you are a pirate" song, stating that a lot fewer people would be interested in the program if it weren't for that song.
- For a given value of web video, the "Tall person pinning a short person against a wall" meme originated from a porn scene. The meme◊ is worksafe, but it probably made the original video far more widely known than it would be otherwise.
- The Steve Moustache Show got most of its views from people who want to hear what a WTF Boom would sound like without the boom.
- Watching the Game Grumps' Let's Play of Sonic '06 because of this particular freakout Arin has in part 20.
- Many people come into the various series of Legends of Avantris by coming across the short form comedic clips on sites such as YouTube and TikTok and then continue on to the podcasts to see where the jokes came from.
- Watching Steven He to hear him shout "EMOTIONAL DAMAGE!"
Western Animation
- Watching Arcane for its memed theme song, "Enemy" by Imagine Dragons.
- South Park:
- "Oh my God! They killed Kenny!."
- Step 1: Watch the episode "Gnomes" to understand this meme. Step 2: ? Step 3: Profit.
- The 1967 Spider-Man cartoon has seen a surge in popularity after it was realized that its bizarre, exaggerated animation made for great reaction images.
- The Super Mario World cartoon. Six words and a sound: "That's Mama Luigi to you, Mario! *Wheeze*"
- Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog:
- "SnooPING AS usual, I see!"
- "Kids, there's nothing more cool than being hugged by someone you like. But if someone tries to touch you in a place or in a way that makes you feel uncomfortable, that's NO GOOD."
- People started to watch Filly Funtasia because of the Memetic Mutation status of the show within the brony fandom, along with Bile Fascination some had, when the show finally premiered, some fans would actually watch it simply because they thought it'd be So Bad, It's Good. For most that actually watched it, stayed because they actually liked it.
- Futurama:
- Memes do not work that way! Good night! (There are many ways they do work, though.)
- The Hypnotoad is so well-known as a meme that there are many not-yet-fans who begin to watch the show and expect that the Hypnotoad will be an important character rather than a recurring minor joke.
- Learning about Candlejack from Freakazoid!. There's just never enough rope for you pe
- Gravity Falls:
- Magic Illuminati dorito.
- Yandere sentient Dating Sim.
- Or maybe you just want to find out why everyone's aim is getting better for some reason. Or what's the big deal with Taco Bells.
- Many people start watching My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic for the memes, but end up as genuine fans.
- For a specific example, a disturbing amount of fans admit the thing that introduced them to the show was the notorious Cupcakes (Sergeant Sprinkles) fan-fiction.
- The phrase "I watch it for the plot" ended up referring to the shots of pony posteriors, which became known in Bronyspeak as "dat plot" or "dat flank".note
- Watching the show to understand just how the hell a little pony dismantles a giant robot.
- Since the brony community contains a lot of musically inclined members, the fan music is something that also draws in a lot of new fans.
- Looney Tunes:
- The Dover Boys, a classic cartoon I never heard of! I'll watch it! NO ONE WILL EVER KNOW! (It even led to a meme for the above! Confound those ponies, they drive me to drink!)
- Many people only watch Wabbit Twouble for the Signature Scene of Bugs Bunny doing an impression of fat Elmer (a.k.a. Big Chungus).
- Many Tumblr users were introduced to Sym-Bionic Titan through a video of the notorious "Booty-Quake" scene that has circulated heavily there. Its influence on the Furry Fandom is hard to discount, as well.
- Street Fighter (1995): Yes! Yes!
- Tons of people got into Steven Universe through the season finale, Jailbreak - specifically, the Reveal that Garnet is a fusion and her subsequent awesome song/fight with Jasper. There's also those who stay for Peridot, the other dorito currently in Western animation.
- Many people who first saw Pound Puppies (2010) came to it for the line "Secret But(t) fun!"
- Watch any given Super Why! video on YouTube and count how many people are here to make Protegent jokes.
- The "Think! Mark! Think!" meme got a lot of people interested in watching Invincible.
- "If you're not watching The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!, you're gonna turn into a Goomba!"
- A huge reason why the Thomas & Friends episode "Thomas Comes to Breakfast" is such a fan favorite is the stationmaster's wife's complaint to Thomas after he breaks into her house: "You miserable engine! Just look what you've done to our breakfast! Now I shall have to cook some more!" It's even funnier when it's narrated by Ringo Starr.
- It’s the Nutshack! It’s the Nutshack! It’s the Nutshack! It’s the Nutshack!
- SpongeBob SquarePants is easily one of, if not the, most memetic shows in existence, so really, this is bound to happen to a few people. Even episodes from the Audience-Alienating Era have spawned notable memes, leading to most people only watching certain episodes like "I Heart Dancing" and "Little Yellow Book" because of the memes that originated in them. The series even did this to the film Nosferatu by referencing it at the end of "Graveyard Shift".
- A few episodes of The Simpsons have had people watching them just for the memes, like "22 Short Films About Springfield" for the "Steamed Hams" segment or "E-I-E-I-(Annoyed Grunt)" for the "Sneed's Feed and Seednote " joke.
- Quite a few people only learned about Molly of Denali due to the infamous "Clark Newman" meme, and watched "Visit Qyah" just for that moment.
- Originally one of the many obscure animated shorts of the 1920s to 1940s, Terrytoons's The Three Bears quickly gained popularity in late 2017 after its scene of Papa Bear yelling "SOMEBODY TOUCHA MY SPAGHET!" was posted on Twitter.
- Of all the Noog Network pilots, the one that gets the most attention is Uncle Duck!, thanks to a high amount of meme edits it spawned in 2025.