Internet meme database and digital culture reference website

Know Your Meme

Know Your Meme is a popular website for documenting memes, viral media, online events, web subcultures, and the context behind internet culture.

Core use

Know Your Meme helps readers look up meme origins, spread, context, examples, and related online culture.

Research model

The site combines staff work with community submissions and crowdsourced documentation as memes develop.

Started

Know Your Meme began in 2007 as a Rocketboom video segment before growing into a database-style website.

Know Your Meme documents memes, viral media, and internet culture through database-style entries.View image on original site

What Know Your Meme is

Know Your Meme is an internet culture reference website focused on memes, viral media, online events, people, platforms, and subcultures. On Know Your Meme, readers can search entries, trace meme origins, compare examples, follow trending topics, and read documentation about how online jokes and formats spread.

Meme entries and timelines

A typical entry explains what a meme is, where it appears to have started, how it spread, and why it became recognizable. Many entries include timelines, images, videos, examples, tags, search interest notes, and external references so readers can understand both the format and its context.

Researching internet culture

The site treats memes as cultural artifacts rather than disposable jokes. Entries may cover catchphrases, reaction images, viral videos, platform trends, fandom jokes, online controversies, slang, characters, and recurring formats that move across social networks and communities.

Community submissions

Know Your Meme depends partly on users submitting new entries, images, videos, examples, and updates. That crowdsourced model helps the site notice fast-moving trends, but it also means entries can vary in completeness while editors and contributors refine the record.

Confirmed and developing pages

Not every meme page has the same status. Some topics are well documented and widely recognized, while others are newer, niche, disputed, or still developing. Readers should treat early entries as research in progress rather than finished historical accounts.

Why it matters

Know Your Meme matters because internet culture changes quickly and often loses context. A searchable meme database can help explain where a joke came from, what a format means, how it moved between communities, and why a piece of online media became visible beyond its original audience.

Limits and cautions

A Know Your Meme page is a useful starting point, not a final authority. Meme origins can be uncertain, examples may be incomplete, communities may dispute credit, and fast-moving trends can change meaning as they spread. For serious research, follow cited sources and compare multiple records.

WHOIS domain data

Data pulled: May 20, 2026View current WHOIS record

Domain: knowyourmeme.com
IP address: 104.20.39.42
Registrar: GoDaddy.com, LLC
WHOIS server: whois.godaddy.com
Referral URL: http://www.godaddy.com
Created: November 25, 2007
Updated: October 6, 2021
Expires: November 25, 2026
Nameservers: ns11.constellix.com (96.45.80.1); ns21.constellix.com (46.31.236.1); ns31.constellix.com (43.247.170.1); ns41.constellix.net (96.45.81.1); ns51.constellix.net (46.31.237.1); ns61.constellix.net (43.247.171.1)
Domain status: clientDeleteProhibited; clientRenewProhibited; clientTransferProhibited; clientUpdateProhibited
Contact privacy: Registrant and technical contacts are listed as Registration Private through Domains By Proxy, LLC in Tempe, Arizona, US.

Key concepts

MemeA cultural idea, joke, format, image, phrase, or behavior that is copied, remixed, and spread between people or communities.
Viral mediaImages, videos, posts, phrases, or events that spread rapidly across online platforms.
Origin researchThe work of tracing where a meme appeared, how it changed, who helped spread it, and what earlier examples may exist.

Website features

Entry pagesRead summaries, histories, examples, tags, references, images, and videos connected to a meme or online phenomenon.
Trending coverageFollow current internet culture stories, newly visible formats, platform jokes, and fast-moving events.
Community contributionUsers can help submit entries, media, examples, and updates that expand the database over time.

Common misconceptions

Not every origin is certainA meme can have multiple precursors, lost posts, reposts, or disputed first appearances.
Documentation is not endorsementCovering a meme does not mean the site approves of every joke, image, community, or use attached to it.
Memes change meaningA format can start in one community and later become ironic, political, commercial, offensive, or mainstream in another.

Open questions

AttributionHow should meme databases credit creators when origins are buried in old forums, deleted posts, or remix chains?
Context collapseHow can entries explain harmful, ironic, or community-specific material without spreading it uncritically?
PreservationHow should internet culture archives preserve evidence from platforms that delete, hide, or algorithmically bury older posts?