KYM Review: Trump Memes of 2017

Editor’s Note: This article is part of Know Your Meme’s annual review series looking back at some of the most memorable and popular memes, events and people that defined internet culture in 2017 as we know it.

---

t should come as no surprise that electing a reality TV gameshow host president would have a massive impact on the culture at large. And the Presidency of Donald J. Trump has made life on this chaotic blue marble all the more turbulent. Things haven't been much different online since the great uniter came to power. People hang on his every word, and, boy, do those words create a lot of memes. No figure in our culture has been at the center of more memes than United States President Donald Trump, and with good reason, the guy does a lot of weird stuff that lends itself to easy parody. So, because of his impact on the site, we decided it best to give him his own special list, which I'm sure he would demand if he had ever heard of our site. Here they are: the 10 Trump memes of 2016 in chronological order.

#Pissgate

Any dreams you had of having a normal four years pretty much flew out the window on January 10th, 2017, when BuzzFeed published a secret dossier that had everyone and their mother saying "Pee Tape." BuzzFeed's controversial publication of the Steele Dossier remains hotly contested, but the immediate reaction remains one of the most surreal moments of they year. Suddenly, the job of reporting on the president shifted from discussions of trade disputes and foreign policy to whether Trump had a pair of prostitutes urinate on the bed the Obamas slept in at the Ritz Carlton in Moscow. Throughout the year, elements of the dossier would be confirmed drip by drip, as the words "the piss tape is real" continued to surface pop up on timelines across social media. We may never get to see the tape (if it exists at all), but hey, there's still time for a Christmas miracle.

"You Are Fake News"

Thanks to Pissgate, the year started with a bizarre baseline. How on Earth was this guy going to top that, we thought. Has there ever been a stranger press conference for a president elect than one where they have to explain a piss tape? Up until then, we hadn't really seen a full-on presser with President Trump, and he really turned up the heat. Sending one of his most famous catchphrases in the zeitgeist, Trump took the world by storm with "You are fake news." This was among Trump's first attacks on the free press, and it's one that he's been willing to recycle over and over again. "Fake News" had been circling the culture since the 2016 election hack, but suddenly the most powerful man in the world was pointing at the news media and calling it false. It was a huge deal, to say the least. Since then, Trump's been proud to use the phrase at the drop of a hat--even claiming to have coined the word "fake" later that year. In the Trump era, "fake news" is real news.

He Will Not Divide Us

Every action has an equal but opposite reaction, so the election of Donald Trump was certain to beget even more craziness. Things seemed to be on an unstoppable collision course to Crazytown in January, which seemed to peak at the Inauguration of Donald Trump. Aside from his weird obsession with crowd size and Richard Spencer getting punched in the face, there was Shia LaBeouf doing his part in his artsy sort of way. The online performance art project was intended to run for the entirety of the Trump presidency as a 24/7 livestream event for people to vent their frustration. Of course, it didn't exactly go down like that, as a bunch of Nazis showed up to scream at LaBeouf and drink milk, as is their wont. The actor ended up being arrested, following an altercation with a Nazi and the project was shut down as of February 10th and now resides in France, where it's open to attack by Trump trolls of all sorts.

#AlternativeFacts

From the people that brought you "fake news," comes "Alternative Facts. Former White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer's first press conference has become a thing of legend in only 10 months. Spicer, for his part, spent the better of his time screaming at journalists for claiming that the president's inauguration had lower attendance numbers than President Barack Obama's. Afterwards, people on Twitter called Spicer's easy-to-disprove points "SpicerFacts," which Senior Advisor Kellyanne Conway topped the following day. She referred to them as "Alternative Facts," and we've been dealing with them ever since. The moment became a real key into the Trump administration, in which the world learned how they would deal with reality: They'd create their own. Still, Alternative Facts remains a vital and unfortunate part of our modern world, and it seems like they're not going away anytime soon.

Trump's First Order of Business

Man, January was a busy month for the Internet, and finally, after week's of being gaslit into believing whatever Trump had to say, the Internet actually had a fun Trump meme to play with. Trump's first order of business became an instant classic on January 23rd, when he signed an executive order and held his bone-white paper to the camera. Never hold a blank page to the internet, and this is why. Suddenly, Trump's memorandum to leave the Trans-Pacific Partnership had become a vessel for Dick Butt, and it's been that way ever since. In the Trumplandia, there's not shortage of flash-in-the-pan memes, but Trump's First Order of Business seems like one we'll be using for years to come.

Bowling Green Massacre

If Alternative Facts were going to be the name of the game, Kellyanne Conway was going to play it hard. With the administration only a few days old, Conway was already a mainstay on the morning chat shows, defending whatever policy Trump was pushing upon us. On February 2nd, she pushed it as far as it had gone at the time, referencing the "Bowling Green Massacre," a terrorist attack that never happened. The public ate it up, publishing pictures of fake memorials, commemorating those who died in the massacre. In the months that past, references to Bowling Green have dropped considerably, which is very disrespectful to everyone who died in the tragedy.

Two Scoops

Any profile of Trump is bound to bring about one or two new details of bizarre curiosity. Take for example "Two Scoops," the dessert of the May 2017 new cycle. Apparently, during a special dinner, Trump, in what could only be described as a delicious power play, served his guests one scoop of ice cream while he had two. For those who always assumed that Trump was selfish man, their bias was confirmed. For everyone else, we just got a funny story in a world that could use more funny stories.

Covfefe

"Despite the negative press covfefe." Has there ever been a more iconic tweet?

Just after a midnight on May 31st, 2017, the President of the United States tweeted an incomprehensible piece of angry gibberish that remained up long enough for him to add to it with an even stranger tweet: "Who can figure out the true meaning of 'covfefe' ??? Enjoy!" Of course, the sudden explosion of "covfefe" led to an immediate backlash, calling out the easily distracted opposition to Trump. It has since become a word to describe the laziness of most Trump memes, but several magical hours in the late spring, the world came together to ask, "did the president have a stroke?"

Donald Trump's Tennis Photo

If there's one word to describe the least flattering picture of the President in existence, it would be thicc. Trump's brief brush with the clay courts has left a lasting impression on the world, but for all the wrong reasons. In his white, see-through shorts and red cap, Trump's tennis photo is usually the first Twitter comedians reach for when trying to make fun of the president's appearance, and they do it a lot. So much so that months later, the pictures still makes appearances, either through tweets or photoshops. It's a popular picture that shows no signs of going anywhere.

"Nothing But Respect for My President"

Donald Trump's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame has been a prime location for protests and pranks since the moment he announced his candidacy. This year was no different. However, when a young woman decided that she would clean the swastikas and garbage off the president's star, she probably didn't realize that the world would adopt her tweet, "Nothing but respect for MY president," as their own. Since then, not a day goes by where someone doesn't post a picture of Beyonce with the caption. It's a testament to the meme that it has separated almost entirely from Trump and become something of its own, which very few Trump memes have done before. Get used to the catchphrase because it's probably going to be here for a while.