KYM Review: People of 2015

Editor’s Note: This article is part of Know Your Meme’s annual Top Ten Review series looking back at some of the most memorable and popular memes, events and people that defined the Internet culture in 2015 as we know it.

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n June 2014, a jihadist extremist group calling themselves The Islamic State began drawing the attention of the Western hemisphere with the proclamation of a worldwide caliphate, accompanied by a series of gruesome beheadings and other acts of terror against innocent civilians and foreign hostages, many of which were filmed and uploaded to social media for the world to see. One year and a half later, ISIS has further advanced itself as the world's public enemy number one through relentless waves of deadly and sinister attacks in the war-torn regions of Syria, and now, in Europe.

• In politics at home, the Republican candidates' race to the White House dominated the online discussions in the social media, almost entirely thanks to Donald Trump who quickly singled himself out as this year's most generous donor of soundbites for internet memes, while Bernie Sander emerged as the social media dark horse candidate in the Democratic presidential primaries. Overseas, Russian president Vladimir Putin made the trending charts on Twitter during his mysterious ten-day absence from the public in March; In Europe, British prime minister David Cameron found himself under the heat of a bizarre scandal after an unauthorized biography's claim of him allegedly partaking in an unsavory secret society ritual during his early years as a student at Oxford University (hint: he put his penis into a dead pig's mouth); In Canada, Justin Trudeau, the son of the revered former prime minister Pierre Trudeau, became the first social media-certified leader of the country; Meanwhile, Down Under, Australians saluted the departure of Tony Abbott from the office by re-enacting his favorite public pastime of eating raw onions on Vine.

• In news and entertainment, the phenomenon of minor character fandom really began seeping into reality with regular memeification of everyday people in the backdrop of TV screens, from The Left Shark and Sad Virginia Fan at live sporting events to the Hot Debate Guy spotted at the GOP primary debate, while red carpet fashion at award ceremonies proved to be the perfect fodder for instant photoshop memes. And like every year, 2015 saw the induction of relatively new and up-and-coming faces into the hall of Internet stardom, such as Chris Pratt, Anna Kendrick, Hannibal Buress, Major Lazer and Fetty Wap, while some power players like Adele, Taylor Swift and Kanye West enjoyed their staying power in a seemingly effortless manner and others like Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart made departure from their comfort zones for something new. But the biggest shocking news from Hollywood came rather late in November with Charlie Sheen publicly speaking out about his HIV-positive life for the first time on television.

• In sports, more professional athletes shone under the spotlight of internet fame in 2015 than ever before. New England Patriots' star quarterback Tom Brady stood on social media trial for his alleged involvement in the so-called DeflateGate; Manny Pacquiao suffered a defeat in the highly publicized showdown against Floyd Mayweather; Golden State Warriors' point guard Stephen Curry's daughter Riley became a sensation after stealing her dad's show during post-game interviews. Oh, and all Shaq O'Neal had to do was fall down on a set floor to become a meme.

• In the tech world, the ripple effects of #GamerGate and the gender war continued to resonate throughout this year, if not intensified; Reddit struggled with internal strife on several occasions as the company's then newly-appointed CEO Ellen Pao drew intense backlash from the community for what many perceived as hasty attempts at combating online harassment; Moot, the founder of the long-running imageboard site 4chan, handed over the keys to Hiroyuki Nishimura, Japanese Internet entrepreneur who founded 2channel. In the gaming industry, Nintendo mourned the loss of one of its brightest visionaries and the CEO Satoru Itawa, and Konami parted ways with Hideo Kojima who went on to start his own studio.

And now, check out the ten most notable people who found themselves at the center of the Internet spotlight in 2015.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg

• Type: Judge

• Profile: Lauded by liberals as the beacon of progressivism in the U.S. Supreme Court, Justice Ginsburg now officially has the support of the Internet on her side. In January, Ginsburg's name began popping up on the social media radar after the aptly named fan blog Notorious RBG went viral on Tumblr and the Internet's obsession with the badass justice only continued to grow from there. In February, the 81-year-old justice was spotted dozing off at the State of the Union address (and who could really blame her?). In April, she scored her biggest lot of points from the liberal camp after her sharp-witted argument against the opponents of same-sex marriage circulated the online news circuit, decisively swaying the public opinion of the undecided and those of her peer sitting next to her towards the landmark ruling in June.

Pope Francis

• Type: Cleric

• Profile: Known as the pope of many firsts, Pope Francis truly proved himself to be the humble and down-to-earth leader of the Catholic Church that the Christian communities has long been waiting for. In 2015, the Pope further built upon his already favorable reputation by casually taking selfie with his followers and embarking on a papal visit to Cuba and the United States in September, during which he held meetings with President Obama, other religious leaders, immigrants, the poor, and even a private chat with Kim Davis":/memes/kim-davis-marriage-license-controversy. In late November, just a few days after Pope Francis dropped his first Christian rock album (!), a photograph of the pontiff giving a speech during his visit to Central African Republic inspired a hip-hop lyrical wordplay meme known as #PopeBars.

Ronda Rousey

• Type: Mixed Martial Artist

• Profile: The mixed martial artist and the current UFC Women’s Bantamweight champion known for quickly winning many of her matches within the first round, often defeating opponents using variations of the armbar submission technique. This year, Ronda Rousey was the third most searched person of the year on Google.

Drake

• Type: Musician

• Profile: 2015 proved to be yet another year of success for Drake, as the Canadian actor-turned-rapper continued to grind out hit tracks, headlines in the news and, lest we forget, more memes. Drake's year in memes kicked off with a photoshop meme based on the cover art of his fourth mixtape album _ If You're Reading This It's Too Late; In July, Drake got tangled up in a diss track feud with Meek Mill and came out on top, or at least according to the stats on SoundCloud. In October, Drake wrapped up the year on a high note with the release of the music video for "Hotline Bling", which went on to spawn the hilarious Vine remix meme dubbed #DrakeAlwaysOnBeat.

Bernie Sanders

• Type: Politician

• Profile: Bernie Sanders may be fighting an uphill battle against the Democratic Party's hardly contested presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, but the 74-years-old Senator from Vermont has managed to gain a lot of grounds on the Internet this year, including the informal title of the social media-favorite Democratic candidate and endorsing parodies from the fictitious Facebook account Barney Sandlers, not to mention the hard number of over one million individual donations which makes him the most authentically grassroot presidential candidate in the race altogether.

Shia LaBeouf

• Type: Actor

• Profile: American actor best known for his portrayal of Sam Witwicky in Michael Bay’s Transformers film adaptations went through some rough patches last year in the aftermath of a plagiarism controversy surrounding his director debut film Howard Cantour.com, but the 29-years-old actor pulled off a surprisingly smooth recovery in 2015 with a couple of really awesome stunts that ended up taking the Internet by the storm: the now legendary "Just Do It" faux-motivational speech video and his uber-meta livestreaming project #ALLMYMOVIES.

Ellen Pao

• Type: Businessperson

• Profile: The American corporate lawyer served as the CEO of Reddit for just a little over half a year, but the 44-yers old Sillicone Valley executive garnered a shitstorm of online notoriety for implementing several controversial community policy decisions during her short-lived leadership, most notably the removal of several subreddits in June and the firing of the community's director of talent behind the AMA interviews in early July, which led to a mass exodus of Redditors from the site in protest, ultimately resulting in her resignation from the position by mutual agreement.

Donald Trump

• Type: Businessperson

• Profile: The American celebrity billionaire and businessman who was once best known for the catchphrase "you're fired" from his NBC hit reality TV show The Apparentice flipped the game of American politics this year with slogans like "Make America Great Again" and "Can't Stump The Trump", not to mention a prolific trail of blatantly uninformed and offensive remarks against immigrants he has uttered at campaign rallies and during interviews, which precisely made him the frontrunner of the 2016 Republican Presidential Primaries, and for non-believers, arguably the best unintentional satirist of the year, if not the century.

Satoru Iwata

• Type: Video Game Designer

• Profile: Satoru Iwata was a Japanese video game developer and businessman who served as the fourth CEO and president of Nintendo. Ever since rising to leadership in 2002, Iwata has been widely credited with reinvigorating the company’s stature within the video gaming industry by introducing next-generation hardware consoles, namely the Nintendo DS handheld system and Wii, as well as improving its public relations by personally interacting with the fans through social media. On July 12th, the Internet's gaming community mourned the loss of Iwata, who passed away at the age of 55 due to complications with bile duct tumor.

John Cena

• Type: Professional Wrestler

• Profile: The veteran American professional wrestler reached a new height in his stardom this year by reclaiming the United States Championship title (though not long before he was defeated by Seth Rollins and his double-agent cohort Jon Stewart), taking over the social media with a huge collection of "Unexpected John Cena" mashup videos.