15 Memes From When People Thought The World Would End In 2012

It was ten years ago, at a time that in many ways felt a lot less apocalyptic than 2022. There was no pandemic, no massive forest fires, no menace of looming war on the horizon. But a large number of people thought the apocalypse might happen on December 21, 2012 because of an ancient Mayan stone calendar that ended on that date. Memes about the 2012 apocalypse circulated all around Facebook, and people worldwide prepared themselves on the night of December 20th for the flood or hellfire that would surely come the next day. But then the apocalypse didn’t come. And not only did all of us survive, but so did the memes about 2012. Here are fifteen of the most distinguished survivors from that era, a time of bolder text, cornier jokes, and a non-bearded Keanu Reeves meme format.

Remember Gangnam Style? Yes, that was in 2012 also. And Psy may have been a harbinger.

Remember when this was enough to make a good meme? Just a grumpy cat? The good old days.

This photo was uploaded to KYM’s database 12 years ago. Barack and Hillary are masked… did they predict the future?

This screenshot shows the user interface of the kind of iPhone or iTouch most of us haven’t seen since the Obama administration — a blast from the past.

This could very well be what happened. Perhaps what you are looking at now is not a list of memes about 2012, but evidence of how a committed group of very-online people saved our world ten years ago. Inspirational.