Know Your Meme: trace references beyond the template

Know Your Meme documents memes and viral phenomena through editorial work and community contributions. It is useful for discovering names, variants, references and interviews around a format that may be difficult to search from an image alone. The project's own description explains its contribution and review process. Begin with the relevant entry, then follow its citations to original posts, creator interviews or archived examples. Record which evidence establishes a date and which material merely shows later popularity. Compare several variants so your account does not mistake one famous example for the entire practice. Keep a note of the entry's status and the date you consulted it. A documentation page is a research aid, not proof that every origin claim is settled. Public examples can disappear, community descriptions can change and coverage can favor visible English-language platforms. Avoid copying an entry's narrative wholesale. Build your own concise account from traceable evidence and retain uncertainty where the surviving record cannot establish a first use.

Editorial review: 2026-09-23. New evidence may change this account.

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