Most Popular Memes Trending on Social Right Now (Updated January)

While it’s important to share product releases, sale reminders and more, memes are an incredibly effective way to gain engagement on platforms like Instagram, TikTok and Twitter. 

Not only do they provide fun and fast entertainment for your audience, but they also help develop your brand’s voice, identity and infuse personality into your social profiles. Memes can be an impactful way to engage your community — when done right.  

In this blog, we discuss:

• November and January 2025 trending memes. 
• Monthly trending memes.
• What are memes?
• How to find trending memes. 
• Should brands share memes? 

Aside from a trenchcoat buttoned to the TOP and ‘my shayla!’, this meme is making user’s laugh across social media this month. 

Muppet Storytime

If you’ve been sitting on a particularly memorable story, this is the perfect meme for you. Simply share a carousel post (as long or short as you want, but this meme is often used with multiple images) with this fairly distressed-looking image of the muppet Pepe the King Prawn, whose expression lends itself well to an especially wild story. Be sure to add the ‘Like a Prayer’ sound from the Deadpool movie.

Curious which memes everyone is laughing at this November? Here are memes to use or laugh at this month.

Fly Away 

This trend involves using a CapCut filter of a cat flying on a broomstick. Use this associated trending sound and use text to describe a situation you’d like to ‘fly away from’. 

I Like My Sootcase 

This meme comes courtesy of a 2010 video of Barron Trump speaking in a Slovenian accent — this meme is a great opportunity to show off your favorite bag or suitcase, or show your favorite pet lounging in your suitcase. Bonus points for lipsynching to the trending audio from the Daily Mail.

Holding Space for Defying Gravity

Have you been holding space for the lyrics of Defying Gravity? Some people are. This meme originates from a recent interview Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo did during the press tour for ‘Wicked’, where the interviewer told the actresses about people in the LGBTQIA+ community were holding space for the lyrics to ‘Defying Gravity’, prompting netizens both in and out of the LGBTQIA+ community to question what ‘holding space’ means and poking fun at the emotional interview. 

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As we settle into spooky season, here are the memes making the rounds on social media.

Mama, a girl behind YOU 

This meme has taken on a life of its own on the internet. Originating from a clip of a child taking their mom’s photo, a bitmoji appears in frame, causing the child to say, ‘Mama, a girl behind you!’ 

Creators are using this meme in TikTok videos, captions and more, whether they’re putting their own spin on it or simply using the meme for any content involving a surprise, or of course, someone standing behind you.

All Things Moo Deng 

Moo Deng is the pygmy hippo taking the world by storm. Whether it’s an SNL parody (HOSE!), cute videos of the pygmy biting her trainer’s leg or funny memes professing their love for the pint-sized animal, Moo Deng content presents many opportunities to engage your audience for a laugh. 

Which memes are trending this month? Brands can expect to lean into Gen Z and Alpha slang as we hold onto Summer and say hello to Fall. 

Define Aura

This trend is primarily popular among Gen Z and Gen Alpha, and involves sharing an image or video of a celebrity, character or even a product with lots of ‘aura’ — a term which essentially means your ‘vibe’ or a specific quality you feel someone strongly demonstrates. This is a great chance for brands aiming to target a younger audience to creatively draw attention to their brand and its strongest qualities.

With Summer ending and the Olympics in full swing, the Paris 2024 games are providing audiences with a variety of funny memes, whether you work in sports or not.

Silver-Medal Olympic Sharp Shooters

The contrast between South Korea’s Kim Yeji and Turkey’s Yusuf Dikeç took the internet by storm, with creators and meme accounts everywhere posting the silver medalists side-by-side and poking jokes at the juxtaposition between their styles. While Turkey’s Dikeç took a laid-back approach to his Olympic event, Kim’s style leaned futuristic, providing great material for ‘comparison’ memes, like the example below. 

The Muffin Man

Henrik Christiansen might not have won a medal, but he did win over audiences on TikTok with his Olympic food reviews, particularly for the chocolate muffin. This positive reception has spawned memes from Christiansen himself, others in the Olympic Village and more.

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So, what are memes, exactly? Memes are often funny copy, images, videos or other online content that usually spread rapidly and are reproduced by other users in the form of jokes or incorporating the original joke or visual in online content.

Why Are They Called Memes, and What Makes a Meme?

Memes earned their name from Richard Dawkins, who used the term in his book 'The Selfish Gene'. The word ‘meme’ is derived from the Greek word ‘mimema’, which means ‘imitated’ — this name fits memes perfectly, as they transcend a joke when they become duplicated, edited and widely shared.

If a meme is something used and widely spread, is a GIF a meme? Not necessarily — GIFs could be derived from a popular meme, but since users can’t edit GIFs for reproduction in the same way they can text and video, GIFs aren’t the exact same as memes. 

Luckily for social marketers, there are many ways to find trending memes — sharing outdated memes (even by 1-2 months) can make your brand or social team appear out of touch or out of the loop. To prevent this, your social media marketing strategy should leave room for agility so your team doesn’t rely on pre-scheduled memes that could become irrelevant quickly. 

To find trending memes, social marketers should:

• Follow a variety of meme accounts. Popular accounts include @daquan and @epicfunnypage. Some of the most popular aggregate meme accounts contain profane names, so take a peek around Instagram and follow a few accounts that share a variety of funny content. 
• Bookmark blogs like this that are regularly updated with round-ups of the latest memes. 
• Utilize Reddit for marketing — Reddit is a trove of funny, humorous content and trending memes that are often shared there before anywhere else. 

Should Brands Share Memes?

Overall, depending on your industry and audience, entertaining content can help drive conversions and engagement — but this isn’t always the case. One way to discover if memes would resonate with your audience include creating buyer personas. Buyer personas involve diving into existing and target audience demographics, researching their likes, dislikes, online habits and more to help inform your content marketing strategy. For example, if you plan to target Gen Z, including memes is likely beneficial for your content mix. Insider Intelligence reports Gen Z is more likely to stay on platforms that embrace memes, illustrated by just 2.4% of Gen Z planning to leave Twitter (or X), compared to 9% of users from other generations.

Why are memes so popular?

Memes are so popular because they’re a form of social entertainment that’s quick and easy to read and digest. Entertaining audiences is paramount to attracting them and engaging on social media, and memes are one of the most common ways to do this, that also let social marketers express their brand’s humor and personality. 

How to make a meme popular?

It can be challenging to make an original meme popular, as the nature of memes are quite organic. 

However, there are some tips you can use to increase your chances of creating popular content: 

• Dive into competitive insights and use custom reporting to discover what memes competitors share and set benchmarks for your own meme performance. 
• Revisit your buyer personas biannually or annually in case the content your target demographic engages with has changed.
• Take time weekly to explore what memes are taking over TikTok and Instagram — even if you don’t incorporate these into your content schedule, it’s helpful to know what type of humor and jokes resonate with a wide range of users. 

What is the most popular meme ever? 

When it comes to determining the most popular meme, this is a little tricky as the platforms and type of memes commonly shared have changed over time.

Some of the most popular memes of all time include: 

• Keep calm. 
• Woman yelling at a cat during dinner. ‍
• Troll-face meme.