New Year, Same Memes: Why Do We Repeat Memes At This Time Of The Year?

Memes are no stranger to repeating themselves, but some themes have more mileage than others. This part of the year, in particular, always finds itself getting the same treatment. Eager to round off another tumultuous 12 months of the internet, many of the same tried-and-tested ideas come back into circulation, often with little to distinguish them from what came before. More so than any other time, the new year is internet culture’s Groundhog Day.

This repetition takes many different forms. Sometimes it’s more about the concept, with memes about dashed hopes or failed resolutions offering the predominant philosophy of a lot of content surrounding the new year. Other times it’s a straight-up copy-and-paste job, like Twitter’s crowd-pleasing snowclone If You Play This On New Year's Eve — a meme with a lifespan as long as every song lyric and movie quote out there. Meanwhile, those with a taste for irony pillage normie image macros from the early to mid-2010s, assuring us that 2013 is going to be the best year ever.

The audience for these memes shows no sign of diminishing, and they seem to be an annual tradition continued into the new decade. All celebratory dates come with their associated rituals, but the reason this one carries over to memes more than others happens is through similarities in their psychology. Memes love a cultural reset button because it reaffirms their novelty. This time of the year, of course, is a literal promise of that concept.

Intertwined with this is a shared and complex relationship to defeat. New Year’s resolutions are one of the most well-known false promises out there: around 80 percent of them are doomed to fail, and failure is an integral part of meme culture’s lifeblood. Despite their contemporary impact, many character-based memes, like the Virgin vs. Chad dynamic, and situation-based memes, such as the more mainstream "relatable" captioned images, thrive thanks to a perpetual loser attitude. While it’s easy to interpret this as negative, the fact they center the conversation around the little guy is what drives their shareability. New Year’s is another excuse to identify with this trend, and because it’s such a powerful influence, it can get away with less creativity at times.

On top of this, the success of many memes relies on parts of them being predictable, although this must be contrasted with some surprising elements. Like much of the festive period, New Year’s is a holiday that guarantees a few things — but they’re not quite as complex as the family argument over Christmas dinner. Instead, the focus of New Year’s Eve is that split moment in time, which elicits all sorts of strong emotions. Memes share that temporality, and this aids a natural relationship between the two, helping to create the level of comfort that allows formats multiple surges in popularity.

After a year so monumental, it was inevitable that this genre would get a long-awaited shakeup, and sure enough, the run-up to 2021 saw a small rise in original content. To no one’s surprise, it was dominated by relief of what has passed, apprehension for the future and worst-case preparation for 2020, "the sequel."

While circumstance has gifted us more variation in 2021, it also offers up a lot of the usual talking points on steroids. It hasn’t stopped old favorites from getting their airtime, either. If You Play This has proved that the best Twitter memes are always disaster-proof, and there are plenty of songs out there good for reassurance or vocalizing your pandemic-related pain. In contrast, every meta outdated image macro takes on an extra poignancy, as more than ever just a few years ago seems like a more innocent time.

As recent events have proved, we never quite know what we’re getting into when we ring in another year. Perhaps this is why the conversation surrounding it stays pretty much the same — we want to be consoled just as much as we want to be entertained.

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