Sometimes the internet is a cesspool of trolls and negativity, and other times it can be a magical place, especially when it comes to viral moments and memes. Something as simple as a photo of a celebrity at an awards show can quickly become an iconic meme that lives on for years (we're looking at you, Chrissy Teigen).
Since the advent of social media platforms such as Twitter, Instagram, and now TikTok, these funny pop culture moments have been able to spread quickly and become immortalized in our minds forever. Some things we say and do are direct results of these memes, with many of the iconic quotes becoming part of our everyday vocabulary.
And though new memes get cooked up online every day (every minute, really), these 17 hilarious celebrity memes have stood the test of time and are still widely used years later â for good reason.
Chrissy Teigen's Grimace
When John Legend won an award at the 2015 Golden Globes, the camera panned to his wife, Chrissy Teigen, for a reaction â and she had this hilarious expression. It quickly became a meme, with Chrissy later tweeting that it was a result of her not practicing her "cry face." She's had some fun with the meme over the years, like when her oldest child, Luna, once made a similar face. Like mother, like daughter.
John Legend Looks Like Arthur
John has a meme of his own. At some point, people began comparing the singer to the children's TV character Arthur, saying that the two looked a lot alike. We can kind of see it, and so can Chrissy Teigen, who has poked fun at the situation on Instagram. "Luna and daddy," she captioned a photo of her daughter holding an Arthur doll.
Kim Kardashian Crying
As Kim Kardashian's relationship with Kris Humphries crumbled, she broke down in tears on Keeping Up With the Kardashians. The end result? A crying meme for the ages. While Kim has gone viral for many, many moments in her career, the crying meme is everlasting. Kim even made merch with her tearful face on it.
'You're Doing Amazing, Sweetie'
Another Kardashian meme for the ages is the infamous Kris Jenner quote, "You're doing amazing, sweetie." The moment happened in one of the early KUWTK episodes when Kris took pictures of her daughter at a Playboy magazine photo shoot. It was the quintessential momager scene, and the moment is so iconic now that Ariana Grande asked Kris to re-create it in her "Thank U, Next" music video.
Crying James Van Der Beek
Celebrity cry faces are just so funny sometimes, and this image of James Van Der Beek crying on Dawson's Creek is one of the best. The actor evidently agrees, once telling Entertainment Weekly, "I love it. It's my favorite thing about the whole show. It's hilarious to me that you can work for six years on a show, and it gets boiled down to three seconds. It's a perfect way-of-the-internet."
'Imma Let You Finish'
In 2009, Taylor Swift won the Best Female Video award at the MTV Video Music Awards, but Kanye West didn't agree with the accolade. He hopped on stage, stole the mic, and announced: "Yo, Taylor. I'm really happy for you. Imma let you finish, but Beyoncé had one of the best videos of all time." The unexpected moment became known as the "Kanye Interrupts" meme.
Unflattering Beyoncé
Speaking of Beyoncé, she went viral with a meme of her own after performing at the Super Bowl. Her publicist had asked BuzzFeed to take down some "unflattering" photos of the singer performing, but instead BuzzFeed published the PR rep's request. And if you tell the internet what photos not to look at, of course they're gonna become their own meme. Beyoncé is so good at everything, it's nice to see her look like a normal human for a sec.
'It's Gonna Be May'
Every April 30, like clockwork, the Justin Timberlake May memes come out. The meme pokes fun at how NSYNC sung the line, "It's gonna be me," in the song of the same name. The way they pronounced "me" sounded like "May," and now people use the meme every year to ring in the month of May. It's amazing. NSYNC even changed the title of the video on YouTube to reflect the viral meme, calling it, "NSYNC – It's Gonna Be Me (It's Gonna Be May – Official Video)."
Sad Keanu Reeves
In 2010, Keanu Reeves went viral for eating a sandwich by himself on a bench. People joked that he looked super sad and started Photoshopping him into scenes from movies and pop culture events. Keanu said he had no problem with the memes. "It sounds like harmless, good clean fun," he told Time magazine. And he's right! The good clean fun has lasted a decade, with this meme remaining one of the internet's most popular.
'I Was Rooting for You'
When one of Tyra Banks' fave models disappointed her on America's Next Top Model, Tyra let her know it. She shouted at Tiffany Richardson that she had been rooting for her.
"Be quiet, Tiffany!" Tyra yelled. "Be quiet! What is wrong with you? STOP IT! I have never in my life yelled at a girl like this. When my mother yells like this it's because she loves me. I was rooting for you, we were all rooting for you! How dare you!"
Scared Ariana Grande
The singer performed at the 2014 Victoria's Secret Fashion Show and had a close call with one of the models â resulting in this hilarious terrified expression. "A Victoria's Secret angel accidentally smacked me in the face with her wings, and it was awesome," Ariana later joked about the moment.
Happy Leonardo DiCaprio
Also known as the "Strutting Leo" meme, this image came from a behind-the-scenes moment while Leo was filming Inception. He looked so jolly that people had a lot of fun Photoshopping the photo into all kinds of movie scenes and images. For example, one meme featured the Lord of the Rings quote, "One does not simply walk into Mordor," featuring Leo doing just that with a smile on his face.
Oprah Winfrey's Giveaways
When Oprah Winfrey had her talk show, she was known for gifting the audience with things. On one notable episode, she gave everyone in the audience cars by shouting, "You get a car, you get a car, you get a car! Everybody gets a car!" It's one of the most iconic memes still to this day. People love to use it when they're buying things for themselves or others.
Taylor Armstrong Screaming at a Cat
This meme is a mash-up of two images. One is Taylor Armstrong from the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills shouting at her costars, and another is an annoyed cat sitting at a dinner table. Taylor of course wasn't really yelling at a cat on RHOBH, but that's how the internet will remember her forever.
'Hotline Bling'
Drake's dance moves in his "Hotline Bling" music video went viral, including two in particular. One showed him looking disgusted, and in another he pointed approvingly. People often use the two pictures together to show something they don't like versus something they do like. However, Drake isn't necessarily a fan. E! News reported that he addressed the memes saying, "If I'm being real, it hurts. It seems like this keeps happening to me."
Meryl Streep Shouting
An image of Meryl Streep cheering on Patricia Arquette went viral after the 2018 Oscars. Since the picture looked like Meryl was yelling, people started using it alongside any text that they wanted shouted. One popular meme variation was typing song lyrics and then having Shouting Meryl finish the line. For instance, the Killers' "Mr. Brightside" tune: "It started out with a kiss, how did it end up like this? [insert Meryl pic] Me: IT WAS ONLY A KISS, IT WAS ONLY A KISS."
'Sorry to This Man'
For a Vanity Fair video, Keke Palmer was asked various questions to see if she could pass a lie detector test. One of the questions was to identify a photo of former Vice President Dick Cheney, and Keke responded with the now-iconic line, "I hate to say it, I hope I don't sound ridiculous, I don't know who this man is. I mean, he could be walking down the street, and I wouldn't know a thing. Sorry to this man."
"Sorry to this man" quickly became a viral quote.
