Memes are one of the most common things to encounter on social media. According to Marketing LTB, “75% of people aged 13-16 share memes.”
Memes can vary greatly in content, from political memes to nonsensical, “brainrot” memes. While the quantity of memes is always increasing, the lifespan of memes is on a decline.
As of 2023, “the average meme lifespan… [was estimated to be] 4 months,” while the lifespan was “[estimated to be] 23.6 months in 2008.” This decrease in longevity may be a result of the ever-changing state of the world, the speed of which increases as time goes on and technological advances become more quick and extreme.
Memes often fall into two categories: memes about current events and memes that are created after something funny happened. One such example of a spontaneous, random meme is the 67 meme, which became popular due to a series of events (a song by Skrilla called “Doot Doot,” which features the number 67, being used in basketball edits of NBA player LaMelo Ball, leading to another basketball player, Taylen Kinney (TK) to continuously use the number in interviews and livestreams, paired with the notorious hand motion that now accompanies it, which quickly became popular among Gen Alpha and Gen Z individuals), culminating in worldwide amusement. A Reddit thread shows redditors from around the world chiming in, claiming that they’ve spotted the youth in their country making 67 jokes.)
Current Event Memes
Current event memes likely have a short lifespan due to how often things in both the political and casual world occur. For example, Obama’s 2014 tan suit controversy; while the drama was widespread, it was also short-lived. The tan suit ‘scandal’ was a trivial matter, compared to former presidential controversies. It was made fun of for a while, but people moved on pretty quickly.
A more recent current event, COVID-19, resulted in a slew of memes being created and shared as Internet users stuck at home empathized with one another.
While current event memes only last while the subject is relevant (you don’t see new COVID-19 memes being created and shared now that it’s not as relevant of a topic anymore), reaction memes can keep their relevancy for much longer.
GIF/Reaction Memes
On the other hand, GIF comments last longer than memes that are featured in posts. While new gifs are always being created and shared, some GIFs stick around for a long time. Comments on Instagram, TikTok and even Reddit are filled with reaction GIFs.
For example, the Guy Pointing At Himself meme has been in the mainstream’s eye since June 2025 and is still commonly seen today, long past a meme’s typical four month life expectancy. This stock image photo has been posted in countless comment sections in response to the poster insinuating that the viewer is/does a certain thing. (Basically a “Who, me?” reaction.)
Reaction GIFs are more likely to stick around, as shocking or funny things happen all the time. These reactions don’t have to be in reference to a specific event, compared to memes featured in posts, which are often about a particular occurrence.
In the same vein, though less commonly known, are wojaks, a variant of reaction memes. These images are commonly found in Reddit and X (formerly known as Twitter) posts and comment sections, and can also be used in a variety of situations. Wojaks have been around since the late 2000s at minimum, and have gone through many different renditions.
For example, the “I Wish I Was At Home Playing Video Games” comic, the first known iteration of a popular meme template, was first published on Dec. 16, 2009, and has since taken on many different forms.
Fandom-Exclusive Memes
Memes that come from a certain community of fans but are just vague enough to not automatically be recognized as being from that group about that can either stay niche (not very well known) or can end up “breaking containment,” which is becoming popular in other places besides the fandom or space in which the meme originated.
For example, the fandom for British YouTubers, Dan and Phil, known as “phan(nie)s” apart of the “phandom” (in reference to Dan and Phil’s ship name, Phan), will often make jokes on X (formerly known as Twitter), assuming that they will only circulate within the fandom.
However, sometimes a joke will become famous enough to breach containment, either purposefully or incidentally. A famed example of this is the “Don’t Cry, Craft” meme that took the Internet by storm in the 2010s, a widely circulated phrase that confused many that came across it.
This meme stemmed from the first video on Dan and Phil’s April Fool’s channel, DanAndPhilCRAFTS, during which they made a one off comment that phans found so humorous that they decided to spam the phrase in random comments sections with no context.
There are plenty of different types of memes, but one thing remains constant among all of them: memes are becoming relevant for shorter amounts of time. As the world quickly evolves, memes have to evolve (or devolve, in the case of brainrot) with it.