How to Create Memes

This article provides a step-by-step guide to creating basic memes online. Memes are often humorous images paired with captions that reflect trending events, viral videos, or internet jokes circulating in popular culture.

What is a Meme? A meme is typically humorous or satirical content (such as images or videos) shared widely across the internet. Memes are often made by pairing an otherwise ordinary image with a funny caption, combining a nonsensical image with a witty comment, or adding new context to existing content.

• The term 'meme' is short for 'memetics,' which refers to the study of ideas, cultural principles, or popular content.
• Meme content can vary widely, making it difficult to categorize them neatly.

Get to know different types of memes. While there are countless subtypes of memes, here are a few of the main types you might come across:

• The traditional (or 'regular') meme is typically an image or screenshot from a popular movie, video, or magazine. These images usually have captions that align with the overall spirit of the source.
• The old-school meme tends to rely on absurd humor or lack of context. Additionally, old-school memes often aim to revive memes that have fallen out of favor by reusing them constantly.

Understand the types of humor that memes rely on. Since memes are often funny images based on current events, the humor within them can be dry or socially inappropriate. Memes can also be absurd or nonsensical, with the idea being that the inherent absurdity of the meme makes it entertaining.

• An example of a meme with dry humor would be the meme surrounding the gorilla Harambe after it was shot by Cincinnati Zoo staff.
• An example of an absurd meme would be the trend of using music with no bass or distorted sound to emphasize a moment in a video.

Look into currently popular memes. To understand what counts as a meme, try searching for memes from the current year. You can even narrow your search by month.

• For instance, searching memes January 2018 in a search engine will show memes related to the "Ugandan Knuckles" virtual reality chat phenomenon, funny Tide memes, and memes about the U.S. government shutdown.
• You can also explore trending videos and images if you want to try predicting what the next big meme will be.

Reference other viral memes or videos in your meme. When creating a meme, you can mention events, books, movies, video games, and much more to increase the comedic value.

• For example, memes featuring accident videos (like bike crashes) might remind viewers of the "kill enemy through the screen" moment in Call of Duty.

Combine two contrasting elements. Pairing a normal image with an unusual caption (or vice versa) can make the meme quirky and nonsensical, but that’s often the essence of viral memes.

• For instance, combining a still image of Winnie the Pooh with a slightly crude humorous quote is a great way to achieve absurd humor.

Open ImgFlip. Visit https://imgflip.com/ using your computer’s browser. ImgFlip is one of the most comprehensive meme databases, allowing you to upload your own images to create memes.

Select Create. This button is located at the top left of the page. Hovering over it will reveal a dropdown menu.

Click on Caption a Meme or Image. This option appears in the dropdown menu. It opens the page where you can access meme templates.

Choose an Image. Scroll through the popular meme templates in the top right corner until you find the one you want to use, then click on it.

• You can also upload your own image by clicking on Upload your own image in the top right corner, selecting Upload image from your device, choosing the image, clicking Open, and then selecting Upload.
• If you're looking for a specific meme, click the "Search all memes" text box on the right side of the page, type the meme name (e.g., "Harambe"), click the yellow View All Meme Templates button when it appears, and then choose your favorite image.

Enter a caption for the image. In one or more text boxes on the right side of the page, type the caption you want to use for the image. Since captions often shift position, you might need to rearrange the words in your caption if they don't align with the image.

• Example: Traditional meme captions usually appear horizontally at the top and bottom of the meme image.
• Some memes, like those with buttons, may include a caption box in the button itself.

Click on Generate Meme. This blue button is located on the right side of the page. Clicking it will create the meme using the selected image and caption.

Save the image. Once the meme appears in the popup window, right-click on it and select the Save image option from the dropdown menu. This step allows you to save the meme to your computer.

Understand the core principles behind ancient memes. A meme is considered 'ancient' when it introduces absurd, inappropriate, nonsensical, and/or contradictory concepts (for example: an ancient meme might try to make you laugh about a tragic event).

• Ancient memes also often reference old or forgotten memes and/or inappropriate viral content (such as a meme from 2018 mentioning the death of gorilla Harambe).

Search for an appropriate image to base your meme on. This could be a screenshot from a conversation, an image from popular culture (such as a movie or TV show), or anything else you wish to use as the foundation.

• Try to find an image that is relevant (such as a picture of Queen Elizabeth) or one that has no connection to current events (like a sunset photo).

Open the image using an editing program. Microsoft Paint is a widely used tool for creating ancient memes on Windows computers—indeed, Microsoft Paint itself could be considered an ancient meme—but Mac users often prefer online services like Pixlr for editing images.

Add text to the image. Unlike traditional memes, ancient memes often place text in unusual, non-standard locations on the image.

• For example, you might place text near someone's mouth if it's something they might say.
• Many ancient memes take a different approach by using text to label an object. A popular ancient meme trend involves taking an image of someone throwing something that could affect someone's health at an object, then labeling the person as 'me', the object as 'doctor', and the item as 'an apple a day' (or something similar).
• Most photo editing programs allow you to add text by clicking the 'Text' button in the toolbar (usually represented by an A icon), then clicking or clicking and dragging the cursor onto the image.

Add other content to the image. For instance, some ancient memes take famous movie scenes and replace the character's face with that of a public figure (or someone who is trending online).

• Ancient memes aren't very strictly categorized, so as long as the image is absurd or funny, it can be considered an ancient meme.

Save the image. Once you've saved the image to your computer, you can freely upload it to social media or your favorite meme site.

• You may need to add your username or signature to the image to claim ownership of it.

• A meme can simply be created by using an image with no context, then posting it with the caption 'When [context]' (for example: posting an image of a skeleton with the caption 'When you eat too much on Thanksgiving Day').

• Meme humor can be quite harsh, and the meme community is often not much different. If you plan to contribute to the meme community, be prepared to encounter uncomfortable, inappropriate, and/or offensive content fairly often.