Remember “Bean Dad”? How about Armie Hammer being outed as an alleged cannibal? A ship becoming a meme after getting stuck in the Suez Canal? If you did, congratulations! You can recall some of the biggest Twitter memes from 2021, which has felt like a decade tbh.
You’d be forgiven for forgetting, and if you didn’t I think it’s probably best you logged off for your own sanity.
Twitter user llama in a tux (@LlamaInaTux) kept a note of every major event that sent the website into tizzy over 2021. This is admirable for two reasons: they had the foresight to keep up a Twitter diary which allowed them to go viral at the end of the year, and they were also willing to expose themselves to Twitter just about every day so we all could get a silly little Twitter wrapped.
Throughout 2021 I’ve been keeping a note on my phone when one event, conversation or format absolutely DOMINATED my Twitter feed.
Not meme formats on ig. Not news stories on reddit. Twitter.
Here’s what took over twitter in 2021:
— llama in a tux (@LlamaInaTux) December 26, 2021
Bean Dad was of course the super weird dude who refused to feed his hungry daughter for six hours until she taught herself to use a can opener and was rightly flamed for it. That was a real early-year treat for us Twitter sickos.
A dramatic reading of the Bean Dad thread pic.twitter.com/L4hNGO0iPL
— Matt Awad (@MattJAwad) January 3, 2021
The Armie Hammer thing was pretty self explanatory, but for the uninitiated it turned out he had this weird fetish for eating people and was also accused of sexual assault. Which is pretty fucked up, if you ask me.
This list made me realise I’d completely forgotten about it, though. Turns out it was revealed he checked out of a “treatment facility” two weeks ago.
And who could forget the Ever Given? One of the largest container ships in the world, which held up much of the world’s trade for days in March by blocking the Suez. Those memes were some of the best this year.
— Tanushree Rao (@tanushrao) March 25, 2021
My ambitious plan to free the boat is to push a huge cotton swab up the canal pic.twitter.com/ZnY4ehu8fx
— Karl Sharro (@KarlreMarks) March 25, 2021
The Twitter thread also kept track of the biggest meme formats on the site, such as: “My fall plans/The Delta variant, the Anakin and Padme exploitable and that completely cooked video of Mick Jagger dancing.
my grandma got the vaccine and now shes having side effects :/ pic.twitter.com/lgurQuflPd
— Patrick (@lunch_enjoyer) September 27, 2021
If you want to read the whole thread it’s here.
Meanwhile, I’ll be trying to come to terms with the fact that the picture of Bernie Sanders looking annoyed in the mittens was taken in January. I could have sworn it was two years ago.
i need this picture to become the new “i would prefer not to” stand in pic.twitter.com/IsUATStFz8
— rachel syme (@rachsyme) January 20, 2021