How We Rank and Explain Memes

We rank the memes we track by attention in the United States over the past 24 hours. The leader scores 100; the other heat scores are relative to it. The arrow shows the change from the previous 24 hours. Heat below 1 appears as <1.

The update time appears at the top of each board. Past boards stay available by date, so you can follow how the rankings change.

The five stages are Early, Rising, Peak, Past peak and Over. A meme can skip a stage or return in another wave. Entries with very little activity show Low signal instead of a stage.

The stage reflects the past week; the arrow shows the last 24 hours. We compare the latest seven-day average with the previous week and the highest seven-day average across up to 90 complete days.

First seen means the earliest documented source or precursor covered by the page; the timeline separates that source from later rewrites and revivals. Each page begins with a credited original post or reference and a sound link when available, followed by the short answer and explanation. References and remixes are identified as such, with the date we checked the link.

We use official players or available source previews to help readers recognise the meme. An illustration or title card cannot replace the real source. If a preview is unavailable, the direct source link remains available. Dates in the backstory come from the linked sources.

When a meme is about a real person, we explain it and never generate it with their face.

Some trends are built for your own photo. Their pages carry a Make button that names what you get. Generators open only after a real test render passes review.

Template demos are playable AI-generated outputs, labelled Made with AI and kept separate from source posts. Crediting a creator or embedding a post does not grant a licence to download, repost or remix their work.