This Week In Memes: November 2013

If you were online in 2013, odds are you logged onto a device that would make you laugh if you saw it today: one of those clunky early smartphones or a retro laptop or desktop computer. Hunched over that device browsing the web nine years ago this week, here are some of the memes you might have seen.

Angry Advice Mallard

2013 was the golden age of Advice Animals, meme characters which told us what we needed to hear in clear, authoritative Impact font. Angry Advice Mallard was born on November 9th, 2013 on Reddit's /r/adviceanimals, with the post below.

This panda-colored water bird with a signature blue beak loved to use a fowl four-letter-word that rhymed with "duck." Posters shared this advice animal to criticize those who did stupid things or inconvenienced them. Often, it was directed towards a "you" and dealt with the frequent frustrations of everyday life.

No Context / Out Of Context Accounts

November 12th, 2013 saw the birth of one of Twitter's most beloved accounts: NYT Minus Context, which selectively tweeted phrases from the New York Times on their own. Posts by NYT Minus Context highlighted bizarre turns of phrase which found their way into the nation's most prominent newspaper.

Many have argued that the universal online tendency to take stuff out of context is a bad thing. The web opens all the world up to play, giving everyone the tools to poke fun at the media.

No context and out of context accounts have since become a beloved fixture of Twitter and other platforms, with fans of shows and media taking specific moments and posting them without any of the stuff that usually frames them.

Who Killed Hannibal?

On November 7th, 2013, Eric Andre shot Hannibal Buress on an episode of The Eric Andre Show and then asked Who Killed Hannibal?

The bit was in the context of a joke about climate change, with Eric Andre mocking the way that people can do harm to the environment and others without recognizing their own responsibility.

Like many bits from television shows or films, this meme took a while to become a meme. It's kind of random and highly contingent what becomes a meme and what doesn't, but this 2013 clip must have struck a nerve, because in 2016, Redditors began re-using it.

!

What Does It All Mean?

In 2013, life was truly different. Understanding people of the past, even when those people are ourselves, is always a hard task: the only way we can read the innocent days of Advice Animals is by the light of the present.

One thing we can say is that the internet of 2013 was structured in a certain way: these memes all moved through Reddit and Twitter, starting on those platforms and getting popular through them. Today, they would probably get started through TikTok. The online world has changed, and you have changed with it. But isn't it a joy to get older and wiser?